CHAPTER 3

HE ALWAYS WATCHED ONE OF THE LOCAL STATIONS IN THE mornings, while he drank his hot tea and read the financial section of the Birmingham News. He liked to keep abreast of community happenings and politics so he could discuss them with his associates. He was actually very interested in what happened in and around Birmingham. This was his home; he had a vested interest in how the area fared.

Mountain Brook was faring very well, indeed. He took immense pride in the fact that the small town just south of Birmingham had one of the highest per capita income levels in the nation. Part of the reason for that was all the doctors who lived there and practiced in and around Birmingham, which had morphed from a steel city into an important medical center, with a disproportionate number of hospitals for its population. People came from all over the country, indeed, from all over the world, to be treated in Birmingham hospitals.

But it wasn't just doctors who lived in Mountain Brook. Professional people of all trades made their homes here. There was old money and there was new money. There were small starter houses, for young couples who wanted to live in Mountain Brook for the prestige and also for the school system for their children. There were mansions, and there were massive estates that made visitors gawk as they drove past.

His own home was his pride and joy, a three-story beauty fashioned of gray stone, lovingly furnished and maintained. It was eighteen thousand square feet, with six bedrooms and eight and a half baths. The four fireplaces were real, the marble was Italian, the two-inch-thick Berber carpeting the best money could buy. The pool was landscaped so it resembled a lovely grotto, with subtle underwater lighting and silver water trickling over stones before gently falling into the pool.

Five acres of land surrounded his home; five acres was a lot in Mountain Brook, with its astronomical land values. His property was completely walled in by a ten-foot gray stone wall. Huge wrought-iron gates guarded the entrance to his domain, and he was protected by the best security system available: motion sensors, cameras, and heat detectors, as well as the standard contact and breaking-glass alarms.

If he wanted to greet the world, he went to it; the world was not allowed to come to him.

A lawn service tended the grounds, and a pool service kept the pool sparkling. He employed a cook who came in at three P.M. and prepared dinner for him, then promptly left. He preferred to be alone in the mornings, with his tea and newspaper, and an English muffin. Muffins were civilized food, unlike the messy bacon, eggs, and biscuits so many people here seemed to prefer. Pop a muffin into the toaster and there was no mess afterward to be cleaned up, nor anyone required to prepare it for him.

All in all, he was very pleased with his world. He always got an extra measure of satisfaction from the secret knowledge of how he had acquired all this. If he had simply let things run their course, none of this would belong to him; but he had been insightful enough to realize that, left unchecked, his father would have made bad decision after bad decision until nothing of the business was left. He had had no choice but to intervene. His mother had grieved at first, but ultimately she had been better off; she had lived in cushioned comfort until heart disease ended her life seven years later.

It was extremely comforting to know that one could do what one must. The only limits he recognized were those he imposed on himself.

The television was background noise while he perused the newspaper. He had the ability to concentrate on several things at once; if anything interesting was reported, he would notice. Every morning the station did a fluff piece, which he usually ignored, but occasionally there was something marginally original on, so he was always aware of what was being said.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a butler?” droned the morning anchor's smooth voice. “You don't have to be royalty. In fact, there's a butler employed at a home in Mountain Brook, and the butler is . . . a woman. Meet Super Butler, coming up next, after these messages.”

His attention caught, he looked up. A butler? Well, that was . . . interesting. He had never considered live-in staff because such intrusions into his privacy were intolerable, but the idea of a female butler was intriguing. People would be certain to be talking about this, so he needed to watch the segment.

The commercials over, the anchor began the lead-in, and the screen changed to a shot of a large, Tudor-style home with lush grounds and an elaborate flower garden. The next shot was of a dark-haired young woman, trim in black trousers, white shirt, and a close-fitting black vest, ironing a . . . newspaper? “Her name is Sarah Stevens,” said the reporter, “and her day is not your average workday.”

“The heat sets the ink, so it doesn't smudge your fingers or dirty your clothes,” she explained in a brisk, low-pitched voice as she smoothed the iron over the paper, sparing a brief glance for the reporter.

He straightened as if stung, his gaze unblinking as he stared at the screen. Sarah. Her name was Sarah. It was as perfect as she was, classic instead of flashy or trendy.

Her eyes were very dark, her skin pale and smooth. Her sleek dark hair was pulled back from her face and secured in a neat roll at the back of her neck. Electrified, he couldn't take his eyes from the televised image. She was . . . perfect. He had seldom seen such perfection in his life, and when he did, he made it a point to acquire it. For all the darkness of her hair and eyes, she wasn't Hispanic or any other ethnic group he could recognize. She was simply a little exotic; not flashy, not voluptuous, just . . . perfect.

His heart was beating fast, and he had to swallow the saliva that pooled in his mouth. She was so neat and trim, her movements brisk and economical. He doubted anything as inane as a giggle had ever passed her lips.

The next shot was of her employer, a tall, thin, elderly man with white hair, glasses, and a narrow, lively face dominated by a large hooked nose. “I couldn't function without her,” he said cheerfully. “Sarah handles all the household details. No matter what happens, she has it under control.”

“She certainly had things under control earlier this week when there was a break-in here at the home,” the reporter continued. “By herself, Sarah thwarted the robbery by tripping one of the thieves as they carried out a big-screen television.”

The shot returned to her. “The television was very heavy, and they were off-balance,” she said with simple modesty.

Chills of excitement ran down his back as he watched and listened, waiting for her to speak again. He wanted to hear more of her voice. The next shot was of her opening the back door of an S-Class Mercedes for her elderly employer, then going around to slide under the steering wheel.

“She is also a trained driver,” the reporter intoned, “and has taken several defensive-driving courses.”

“She takes care of me,” said the old man, smiling from ear to ear. “She even cooks occasionally.”

Back to her. “My job is to make my employer's life as comfortable as possible,” she explained. “If he wants his newspaper at a certain time, then I'll have it there for him even if I have to get up at three A.M. and drive somewhere to collect it.”

He had never envied anyone before in his life, but he envied that old man. Why should he have someone like her looking after him? He would be better off with a live-in nurse named Bruce, or Helga. How could he possibly appreciate the treasure of her, the sheer perfection?

Back to the reporter. “Being a butler is a highly specialized vocation, and there are very few women who enter the field. Topflight butlers train at a school in England, and they don't come cheap. To Judge Lowell Roberts in Mountain Brook, though, price doesn't matter.”

“She's a member of the family,” said the old man, and the final shot was of Sarah setting down a silver tray loaded with a coffee service.

She should be here, he thought violently. She should be serving him.

He remembered the old man's name: Lowell Roberts. So price didn't matter? Well. They would see. He would have her, one way or another.

Judge Roberts slapped his knees with satisfaction. “That was a good piece, don't you think?”

“It was less painful that I feared,” Sarah said dryly as she cleared away his breakfast things. “They certainly took a long time to film about sixty seconds worth of story.”

“Oh, you know how television is: they shoot miles of film, then edit most of it. At least they didn't get any details wrong. When I was on the bench, whenever I gave a statement or an interview, there was always at least one detail that was reported wrong.”

“Will this give you bragging rights at your poker game?”

He looked a little embarrassed, but gleeful all the same. “For at least a couple of weeks,” he confessed.

She had to smile. “Then it was worth it.”

He turned off the VCR, because of course he had taped the segment. “I'll get copies of this made for the kids,” he said.

Sarah glanced up. “I can make copies, if you'd like. My VCR is a twin-head.”

“Don't start speaking technical jargon to me,” he warned, waving a hand as he ejected the cassette. “Twin-head sounds like something teams of surgeons would have to correct, and one head would die in the attempt. I think I have a blank in the library—”

“I have plenty of blanks.” She always kept a supply, just in case he needed one.

He slipped the cassette into the cardboard jacket and carefully wrote, “Sarah's television interview,” on the adhesive strip before handing the tape to her.

“I'll get them in the mail today. And don't forget your doctor's appointment at two this afternoon.”

He briefly looked mutinous. “I don't see why I need a blood test again. I've been eating better, and my cholesterol should be down.”

He had been eating better than he knew; when making his French toast, Sarah substituted Egg-beaters for the eggs in the egg-and-milk mixture, spiced up a little with vanilla flavoring, and she used low-fat, high-fiber bread. She also bought two types of syrup—one was regular, the other fat-free—and mixed just enough of the regular syrup with the fat-free that the taste of the blend didn't make him suspicious. He had agreed to eat a bacon substitute if he could just have his French toast, and she also served him fresh fruit every morning. In collaboration with the cook, she had managed to drastically reduce the amount of fat in his meals without his suspecting a thing.

Of course, he would credit any drop in his cholesterol level to eating the bacon substitute instead of real bacon, and resist any other changes if he knew about them. Outsmarting him was a constant, ongoing struggle.

“Two o'clock,” she said again. “And if you cancel the appointment, I'll tell Barbara.”

He put his hands on his hips. “Do your parents know what a bully they raised?”

“Of course,” she said smugly. “My dad gave me lessons in bullying. I rated expert.”

“I knew I shouldn't have hired you,” he muttered as he retreated to the safety of his library. “As soon as I saw on your application that you're from a military family, I knew you'd be trouble.”

Actually, it was her military family that had tipped his decision in her favor. The Judge was a former Marine; he had fought in the Pacific during World War II. The fact that her father was a retired Marine colonel, forced to leave the service because a car accident had severely damaged his right hip and leg, had weighed heavily with him.

She sighed. While she was making copies of the tape, she would have to make one for her parents, too. They were living in a posh retirement village in Florida, and they would love being able to show this to all their friends. She had no doubt her sister and two brothers would receive copies from their mother; then she would get a phone call from at least one brother, probably both, telling her about this buddy who wanted to go out with her.

The good part of that was that she was in Alabama, while one brother was currently in California and the other was TDY—temporary duty—in Texas. Dating anyone they knew was geographically impossible. But she was thirty years old, and they were all beginning to visibly worry because she hadn't yet shown any inclination to get married and help produce the next generation. Sarah shook her head, smiling to herself. She hoped she would get married, someday, but for now she was working on her Plan.

A butler was well paid; a good butler was very well paid. A butler-bodyguard earned well over a hundred thousand a year. Her own salary was pushing a hundred and thirty thousand. Her living expenses were negligible; she bought her SUV and her clothes, but that was it. Every year she salted away the vast majority of her salary in stocks and bonds, and though the stock market was down right now, she sat tight on her investments. By the time she was ready to put her Plan into effect, the market would be back up.

She would never leave the Judge, but, realistically, she knew he would live only a few more years. All the signs were there: she could get his cholesterol level down, but he had already had one severe heart attack, and his cardiologist, an old friend, was concerned. He was more visibly frail than he had been even six months ago. Though his mind remained sharp, this winter had seen one illness after another, each one taking a toll on his body. He would have maybe two more good years, she thought as tears stung her eyes, unless he had another heart attack.

But after the Judge was gone, Sarah wanted to take a year and travel the world. As a military brat, moving every two years or so, she had developed a real yen to see everything that was out there. Not being a masochist, she wanted to do it in comfort. She wanted to fly first class and stay in good hotels. With a healthy bank account and her investments as a cushion, she could go where she wanted whenever the mood took her. If she wanted to spend a month in Tahiti, she could.

It was a simple ambition, a yearlong treat in the middle of a lifetime of work. She liked her career, she wanted to get married someday and have one child, maybe two, but first she wanted that year just for herself. Since college she had resisted forming any romantic relationships of any depth, because in the back of her mind she was always aware that no man would like his girlfriend, fiancée, or wife heading off to wander the earth for a year—without him.

Her father didn't understand it. Her brothers certainly didn't understand it, because they were constantly being posted TDY all over the world. Her sister thought she was crazy for not getting married while she was still young and had her looks. Only her mother, she thought, understood her youngest child's wanderlust.

But the timing of her Plan depended on Judge Roberts, because for as long as he was alive, she intended to take care of him.