. . perhaps the guesthouse? Her inner alarm system told her there was something to watch out for in this man, and she always listened to that system with great attention.
This must be Lewis Goldthorpe; he looked enough like his sister to make her guess almost a certainty, even if the first words out of his mouth hadn’t been, “I’m Lewis Goldthorpe. This is my house. What are you doing here?”
Her hands clenched. It was almost impossible to resist the urge to kill him. She could do it so quickly, so cleanly, he wouldn’t even know what had hit him. And that would be a better end than an asshole like this deserved, Olivia thought. Just a hard thrust of her fingers to his throat would silence him and bring him down, and then a quick twist and it would all be over. Manfred’s problems, and hence the Rev’s problem, would vanish. With no one to bring charges against him, Olivia was sure the missing jewelry would be found and all would be well for Manfred . . . if only this man were dead. It was a happy daydream. But there was the young gardener, who was staring for all he was worth. And then Annelle Kling was standing in the open door.
“Lewis!” Annelle called sharply. “Come here.” She appeared to be biting back a long litany of things she wanted to say to her brother, and none of them were friendly.
“What’s this woman doing here?” Lewis demanded. “I want to know!” He was about five foot eight, bespectacled like his sister, and blessed with a thick head of blond hair. From its careful styling, Olivia could tell it was his crowning glory. He also wore a long-sleeved dress shirt and bow tie. Olivia could see a white T-shirt underneath, through the little gaps between buttons. He was a plump man. How did he bear the layers in this heat?
“She’s from a home health care agency,” Annelle said, enunciating every word with care. “Evidently Mother had called them while she was ill.”
“Preposterous. She would have told me. I took care of her.” He turned his challenging glare to Olivia, trying and failing to look her directly in the eyes. He turned on his sister. “Have you gotten Mother’s suite cleaned out yet?”
“You’re not moving into the house,” Annelle said, exasperation in every word. “We’ve gone over this and over this. We’re going to sell it. God knows, Rosie and I don’t want to live in it, and you can’t afford to buy us out. You can stay in the pool house until we sell this place.”
The gardener was as rapt as though he were watching his favorite reality show.
“You may go,” Lewis told Olivia, in a patronizing way. “None of this is your concern.”
The gardener was shaking his head silently, trying not to laugh.
It wasn’t Olivia’s concern, true, but it was interesting. Olivia smiled, making sure she looked completely benevolent. “Yes, I have to get to my next appointment.” She glanced at her wrist to check the time. “I’ll be late if I don’t get moving.” She maintained the smile as she got into the car and buckled up, relieved to feel the blast of the air-conditioning after she turned on the ignition. She managed a cheerful little finger wave at the three people staring after her as she circled the round rosebed and left the property.
When she’d reached a more mundane street, she drove through a Wendy’s to get some iced tea with lemon. It tasted absolutely wonderful. She sipped it on her way to her motel, which was a far cry from Vespers. She parked around the corner from the stairs to her room and looked the lot over carefully before going to the second floor. No one had been in her room; the maid had come before she’d left that morning.
Olivia was used to being disguised, but it was a special relief to pull off the wig that had turned her into Rebecca Mansfield. She washed her face in the sink, scrubbing it with the skimpy washcloth. Divesting herself of Rebecca’s clothes, she threw herself on the bed to think. Instead of plotting her next move, she thought of the almost hysterical hostility Lewis Goldthorpe had thrown at her, though he hadn’t known who she was or why she was at the house. Olivia grimaced, imagining living with someone that angry and unrealistic, day after day, especially if you were elderly and sick and worried. It