Page 11 of The Bombshell and the Bodyguard
“Yes ma’am. Sleep well.”
A deafening wail woke me from a dream where I was swimming in my ocean-facing pool—with Wilder Lowe of all people.
Sitting straight up in bed, I blinked a few times and looked around the dark room, wondering what the sound was,whereI was, and whether I might still be dreaming.
My body clock still out of whack from travel, I’d taken a melatonin tablet before bed. It had worked a littletoowell—my head felt swimmy and slow.
It cleared abruptly when the sound finally registered. It was an alarm. A security alarm.
My heart left its usual position and slammed up into my throat.
I was home in Eastport Bay, and the piercing noise was signaling a breach of one of the doors or windows.
Or a gust of wind. That was all it had been last night. But still, I was taking no chances. I reached for my phone to dial 9-1-1.
The alarm stopped.
The silence in its wake was almost surreal. I set the phone back down. It must have been another false alarm and my security guards had turned it off.
Still, I wasn’t likely to go right back to sleep after that. My heart was still pounding, and my hands were trembling to the point the phone rattled as I set it back on my nightstand.
Leaving my room, I padded down the wood-floored hallway on bare feet, intending to locate one of the guards and make sure everything was okay.
There was no sound from downstairs, no conversation or sound of shoes on marble.
When I reached the top of the staircase, I realized I was naked—I usually slept that way. Probably not the best look for a chat with my security personnel.
Instead of going down, I peered over the balcony railing to the first floor, intending to call out to Hugh and verbally confirm that things were okay.
The words froze in my throat as I spotted a shadow moving below.
Squinting into the darkness, I tried to make it out. It looked like someone was moving silently through the foyer, heading for the base of the staircase.
Could it be Hugh? It was definitely a man, but I couldn’t see his face.
Either he had black hair, or wore a dark knit cap. And I was pretty sure he wasn’t wearing a security staff uniform.
Clad all in black, he was dressed more like… a burglar.
For a half-second, I was frozen in terror. Then my heart started beating again—well in excess of its normal pace.
The sound of it roared in my ears, preventing me from hearing anything else—footsteps on the staircase, for instance.
I wasn’t going to stick around for visual confirmation that an intruder was in my house and coming for me. I turned and ran back to my room, shutting the door behind me—quietly I hoped—and locked it.
Grabbing my phone from the nightstand first, I ran into the attached bathroom.
After locking the bathroom door, I flipped off the light switch and headed for the large walk-in closet, closing myself inside.
That’s where I finally stopped and sank to the carpeted floor, crouching behind the large square shape of the shoe tower that centered the closet.
It took me four tries to successfully dial 9-1-1. My hands were shaking so hard I kept hitting the wrong keys.
“Nine-one-one what’s your emergency?”
“I think there’s been a break-in at my house,” I answered in a strangled whisper, reluctant to speak too loudly in case the intruder was now upstairs and searching for me.
Maybe hewasn’tlooking for me. Maybe all he wanted was valuables. He could have them, as long as he left me alone.
