LITMIR.BIZ

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      “In a way of speaking.” Major Clovis reached around Cinda to shake out the folds she’d just shaken in. “It’s when everyone falls out under orders to clean an entire installation from top to bottom.”

      “I see.” Cinda flitted to an end table and ran her fingers over a lampshade. She checked it for dust. There wasn’t any. “Sounds like a worthwhile thing.”

      “It’s meant as a punishment, ma’am.”

      Cinda faced her adjutant, who stood at ease with her hands behind her back. “Well, that’s not what we’re doing here, Major Clovis. Certainly no one is being punished.”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      As much put out with herself for caring so much how everything looked as she was with Major Clovis’s hovering, Cinda clung stubbornly to her defensive mood. She stood back from the gilt-framed beveled-glass mirror that hung over the fireplace and gave it the once-over. “Will you look at that? Why haven’t I ever noticed before that it’s hanging crookedly?”

      Mindful of her daughter on her hip, she reached up on tiptoes to straighten the mirror’s edge.

      “Here. Allow me, ma’am.” Major Clovis leaped to help, essentially swinging the mirror’s position back to where it had been a moment ago. She then stood back with Cinda to inspect their counterproductive handiwork. “There. Good as new.”

      Assessing the frame, tilting her head this way and that, Cinda frowned, “I suppose.” She then focused on Major Clovis. “Mr. Cooper will be staying for lunch. Has Marta prepared the menu I requested?”

      Major Clovis executed a sharp nod of military precision. “Yes, ma’am. I told her she’d be court-martialed if she failed to please.”

      Already hating herself for asking, Cinda eyed her aide. “How exactly did you say that to her since you don’t speak Spanish?”

      The beginnings of a smug little grin became a self-satisfied pursing of the major’s lips. “I know a few words, ma’am. But I believe my exact word this time was muerte.”

      Cinda could only stare without blinking. “Dead? You told her she’d be killed, didn’t you?”

      “At sunrise.” The major’s light gray eyes swam with feigned innocence. “Was that too much, ma’am?”

      “If it explains the shrieking commotion I heard last night, yes it was.”

      “I wasn’t aware of any such—”

      The front doorbell rang, playing a melodious tune. A least, it was supposed to play a melodious tune. Cinda directed an exasperated how-could-you look the major’s way. Obviously the woman had reprogrammed the door chimes. To wit, a very patriotic and rousing rendition of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” rang out through the house.

      Over the booming tune, which had baby Chelsi blinking rapidly and screwing up her face as if she weren’t sure if she was supposed to cry, Major Clovis said, “If you’ll excuse me, ma’am. Your guest appears to have arrived.”

      My guest. The full implication of those words ran through Cinda, weakening her knees. Forgetting all else, she shot a hand out to stop her assistant from leaving. “Wait. Bring him to me in the family room. And not in chains or with his head on a platter, do you understand?”

      “Whatever you say, ma’am.” The wiry woman, dressed in olive-drab belted slacks, a light green button-down blouse and sensible shoes, then performed a sharp about-face and, marching in time to the music, headed for the front door.

      In a complete fluster, Cinda walked rapidly toward the back of the house to the family room. She pinched her cheeks to bring more color to them and smoothed a hand through her hair. She pulled a thick lock of it into her view, studied it, and wanted to groan. Just as she’d feared. It looked dull, like dirty dishwater. What had happened to the blondeness? To the highlights? She hated her hair. It just hung there straight. It had no body. Could it be more stringy and lifeless?

      Great. Well, if she couldn’t be gorgeous, she could at least be gracious.

      Once in the family room, Cinda sat on the sofa and perched her daughter next to her so she could give her a final going-over. Chelsi’s dark-blond hair stood up at right angles from her head. The child looked like a little blue-eyed baby monkey. When had that happened? Horrified, Cinda quickly moistened her fingers by dabbing them against her tongue. Then, utilizing a time-honored mothering technique, she applied her wet fingertips to Chelsi’s hair and tried to fashion attractive feather-soft curls out of the dandelion fluff that was the baby’s hair.

      Cinda just wanted the darling little dumpling to shine. Was that so awful? It was to Chelsi, who had not been consulted. This latest act of her mother’s was apparently the last straw for the little girl. As if totally over it with the demands of feminine vanity, she stiffened and began screaming her protest.

      ALL TREY HAD DONE was push the doorbell. But now, standing outside the impressive and intimidating red-brick Southern Colonial mansion that reposed in a neighborhood of such magnificence that Cinda’s house actually seemed small by comparison, he stood stiffly at attention. Four years of military training were hard to overcome. So was the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

      But if Trey thought that tune had given him a terrifying flashback of boot camp proportions, it was nothing compared to the woman who opened the door. Tall, slender, with short hair the color of steel, and dressed in an approximation of an army uniform, she eyed him like the lowly enlisted man he’d been. “Yes?”

      Trey told himself that this feeling that he’d strayed onto top-secret, off-limits property was ridiculous. He forced a smile and put his best mannerly foot forward. “Hi. I’m Trey Cooper. Mrs. Cavanaugh is expecting me…ma’am.”

      With the doorbell music dying out, the only sound Trey heard now was a baby crying in the background. It didn’t faze the middle-aged woman standing in front of him, though. She slowly roved her gaze up and down him. No doubt about it—this was an inspection. Trey thought of his khaki slacks and light blue knit golf shirt, neatly tucked in and belted…thank God. As he’d had a haircut only this morning, it should pass muster. When the silent woman’s gaze lowered to his feet, Trey fought a nearly overwhelming urge to look down to see if his loafers had the appropriate shine.

      The woman’s gaze flicked back to his face. Trey met her eyes. She never smiled. “You’ll do. Come in.”

      Exhaling as if his life had just been spared, Trey stepped over the threshold and inside the home’s grand and tiled foyer. He heard the door—one of a set made of highly polished wood—close behind him. But he forgot the intimidating woman and the crying baby as he looked around, barely biting back a low whistle of appreciation for the grandeur of Cinda’s home. He had one conclusion only. He was in over his head here.

      The only house he’d ever seen that he could compare this one to was Jude Barrett’s own. Other than his boss’s place, Trey had never seen anything like this. His parents’ home, where his mother still lived, was a five-room, white wood square of a house with a screened-in front porch, big trees outside and a neglected flower bed. And his apartment here in Atlanta was a nondescript, one-bedroom, furnished box in a complex of over one hundred units skirted by concrete and parking spaces.

      Trey tried to picture himself coming home here, closing a door behind him, and calling out, “Hi, honey, I’m home.” And then Cinda, smiling, would come greet him—

      Someone touched his elbow. Trey jumped and whipped around. His escort was there, right at his back. But she was smiling—about like he expected a praying mantis would before it devoured its prey. The woman leaned in toward him and looked him right in the eye as she whispered, “If you hurt her, I’ll hunt you down and rip your beating heart right out of your chest, do you hear me?”

      The skin on the back of Trey’s neck crawled. He swallowed. “Yes, ma’am. Loud and clear.”

      She stepped back. “Good. Then we understand each other.”

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