by Liz Ireland
“Wait.” Ms. Kingston held out a hand. “Spare me the angst. I think I actually have something here that might just be your dream job.”
Jayde couldn’t believe her luck. “Would it happen to be at an art museum? Because that would be a dream come true. Did I ever tell you that I paint?”
Ms. Kingston raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “You…paint? As in houses?”
Jayde frowned. “No. Fountains. Anybody can paint a house—oh, wait. You think I mean paint like in paint houses, a house painter. No. I mean fountains, as in, I’m an artist. A painter. You know…oils, acrylics? Things that hang in galleries and museums?”
“Oh. Of course.” Ms. Kingston’s smile was condescending, causing Jayde to wonder where a letter opener was when she really needed one. “How nice for you. And no, this opening isn’t with an art museum or a gallery. But still, I think you’re perfectly suited for it. It’s even with one of our best clients.”
Jayde sat back warily. “One of your best clients? Then, why are you offering it to me?” No one had to tell Jayde that the woman didn’t like her.
Ms. Kingston slowly ducked her chin as her eyes narrowed. She looked like a Siamese cat plotting some unsuspecting mouse’s death. “Because for one thing, you don’t have a job. And this client needs someone right away.” Then an angry glint darkened Ms. Kingston’s eyes. “He always does. The man just thinks he can snap his fingers and—” Ms. Kingston caught herself. “More to the point, I have no qualms about recommending you. You’ve been through our background search, been fingerprinted, bonded. And I feel you’re just what he deserves in a woman—I mean, in an employee.” Ms. Kingston inhaled and exhaled sharply. “I mean, you’re squeaky clean.”
Squeaky clean? Jayde decided that was probably the nicest thing Ms. Kingston had ever said to her. “Thanks.”
Ms. Kingston smiled that thin smile of hers and began moving things around on her desk until she came up with what she was obviously looking for, a big index card. “Here it is.” Leaning forward, her elbow planted atop her desk, she dangled the card, balancing it as if it were a cigarette between her fingers.
But to Jayde, it was the Golden Fleece, the answer to all her problems. All that, and she had no idea what type of job it was. Nor did she care. She needed a job now. “I’ll take it.”
Ms. Kingston made a sound that could have been a chuckle, but Jayde doubted it. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“I don’t care what it is.”
“You’d have to move.”
Jayde frowned. “Move? You mean like across town or to the suburbs?”
“No. I mean like across country. This job’s in Florida.”
“Flor—?” Jayde could only stare at the woman. She thought of her precious fountains here, just waiting for her to paint them. They depended on her, these fountains. And she needed them. They were her passion, her ticket to success, and she wouldn’t leave them. She shook her head. “I’m not moving to Florida. Look through your cards, please, and see what they might have for me here in Kansas City.”
Ms. Kingston pursed her lips. “You don’t seem to understand, Miss Greene. I don’t have anything else for you. Except this job in Florida. Why can’t you move?”
My fountains. I can’t leave because of my fountains. Jayde stared at her unwitting tormentor. Her heart was breaking at the mere thought of abandoning her dream. But Jayde knew someone as practical and efficient as Ms. Kingston wouldn’t understand. In fact, she’d think Jayde was nuts. And right now, Jayde had to admit, maybe she was. “So, what’s so special about this Florida job?”
Looking suddenly very pleased, Ms. Kingston said, “So you’ll consider leaving? Moving far away from me—I mean, from here?”
Just as she’d suspected. It was Jayde’s turn to incorporate a thin smile. “Sure. If it’s the right job…as you seem to think it is.”
“Oh, it is. The client pays a very competitive salary, provides health care and will even pay my agency’s fee. He’ll also prepay your moving expenses and provide you with an airline ticket—first class, I might add. And if you accept this job, Miss Greene, I’ll even waive what might be left of your outstanding fee on the Homestead job, once your last paycheck is sent to me.”
“Wow,” Jayde said…somewhat flatly. It did sound perfect, darn it. “What about the lease on my apartment? I just signed a new one two weeks ago.”
Ms. Kingston shrugged. “Not a problem. My client will buy it out.” Then she sat forward, ready, apparently, to brush away any and all of Jayde’s obstacles. “Anything else that could keep you from leaving tomorrow?”
Jayde’s jaw dropped. She gripped her chair’s arms. “Tomorrow? Did you say tomorrow? Are you serious? There’s a snowstorm out there. I’d have to pack. I’d have to—”
Ms. Kingston leaned forward, staring Jayde in the eye. “You’d have to do what—move to Florida, all expenses paid, to live in the lap of luxury, make top dollar, and have most of your time to yourself? Oh, what an awful thing I’m asking you to do, Miss Greene.”
Jayde narrowed her eyes. “Oh, yeah? Then why don’t you take it?”
“Because it’s not me Brad wants—” Ms. Kingston turned red…carmine red, Jayde’s artistic eye decided. And the woman looked angry…and insulted. “I’m not the one looking for a job, Miss Greene. I own this agency. And besides, I want nothing further to do with Brad—” She again caught herself. “It’s none of your business.”
“I didn’t ask,” Jayde said slowly, eyeing the woman across the desk from her. “But I am now. Who’s Brad?”
Ms. Kingston folded her hands together atop her desk, going right back to her purring cat demeanor. “You’ll find out soon enough…if you take the job.”
“I might. Just tell me what the catch is.”
Ms. Kingston pulled back, offended. “I don’t know what you mean. There is no ‘catch.”’
Cold and tired, Jayde quit playing the game and spoke her mind. “Sure there is. There always has been. Now that I think about it, you’ve sent me to a job that the FBI was already surveilling. And when that went south, you sent me to a job where the boss can’t keep his lecherous hands off his female employees. Now you’ve got the perfect job for me—halfway across the country! In a blizzard. See? A catch. I mean, what does this man do? Is he a drug lord? The Mafia? What?”
Ms. Kingston chuckled. “Hardly. I would never have been involved with anyone who—” She cut herself off and gave Jayde a cold stare.
Sighing, Jayde realized she didn’t have much choice. “So…what’s this job? What would I be doing?”
Ms. Kingston smelled victory, that much was clear. She placed the index card on her desk and smirked. “You’d be a house sitter.”
Jayde did a double take. “A what?”
“A house sitter. For one of the richest men in the country, Ms. Greene.”
That Brad guy, no doubt. Still, to Jayde, this whole thing sounded pretty Gothic-romance-novel to her. “A house sitter, and he’s really rich. Then why does he need you? Wouldn’t he have, well, people to do that?”
Ms. Kingston looked down her slender nose at Jayde. “We—my agency—are ‘his people’ for such matters, Miss Greene. I’ve placed sitters for him in his homes in Rome and Paris. But my client’s family home is here. That’s why he used me—um, uses my agency.”
Jayde sat forward, ignoring all the personal slipups. So what if Ms. Kingston and this rich Brad guy had a history. Jayde had just heard three things more relevant to her. Rome. Paris. Kansas City. Meccas for fountains and the artists who wanted to paint them. “You’re not serious? He has homes in Rome and Paris? And Florida? And right here in Kansas City? Are you sure this Brad guy doesn’t need a sitter for his house here?”
“No. An old family retainer resides in his home here. What my client needs is someone in Florida. Tomorrow. And if I were you, I wouldn’t call him Brad.”
Jayde shook her head. “Of course not. But, wow, it’s that ‘tomorrow’ part that
’s hard to accept. I mean, the packing, alone. And just trying to find a moving company in a snowstorm. I wouldn’t even—”
“No problem. I’m authorized to take care of all those details for you. All you have to do is pack the clothes you want to take and get on an airplane. Everything else can be put in storage. What do you say?” Ms. Kingston checked her diamond-studded watch, as if the offer expired in a matter of seconds. She again focused on Jayde…and waited.
The woman’s cavalier attitude really angered Jayde. She ought to just take herself and her pride and get right up and walk out the door—if she wanted to be homeless and renege on her debts. Jayde forced herself to calm down and to think. Leaving Kansas City wasn’t the end of her life or even her artist’s dream. Because a true artist could paint anywhere. Anywhere. And she was a true artist.
Silently asking for courage to embark on this new plan, Jayde said, “So, Ms. Kingston, that fabled Fountain of Youth…wasn’t it in Florida?”
2
NOT BAD. Not bad at all. Bathed by warm Sarasota, Florida sunshine, Jayde stood in a huge fenced-in terra-cotta-flagstone-paved courtyard. Surrounding her was tropical greenery she couldn’t even begin to name. To her left was a kidney-shaped pool. And right in the middle of the courtyard was a magnificent three-tiered Italianate fountain. She couldn’t believe this. It was like a sign, one that said Welcome Home, Jayde.
Slowly now, she turned round and round, admiring the compound of her new employer, Mr. Bradford Hale. One of the richest men in the country, Ms. Kingston had said. He was no one Jayde had ever heard of. But that didn’t really surprise her, considering she was just a blue-collar worker’s daughter from Kentucky. Maybe Mr. Hale was a quiet, secure rich man, one who saw no need to broadcast his wealth and power. Someone of humility and values. Someone, despite Ms. Kingston’s relationship with the man, whom Jayde could respect. She certainly hoped so, at any rate.
“Wow,” she said aloud to the muscled hunk of a chauffeur who’d met her at the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport. “Are you sure this is the right place? I thought houses like this existed only in movies. Or maybe magazines.”
“Yes, ma’am, Jayde. This is the right place.”
“Boy, I’ll say. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen this style of house before. What’s it called?”
“Northern Italian. Some call it Mediterranean.”
“Northern Italian. Mediterranean,” Jayde repeated with due reverence as she faced the tile-roofed, two-story structure finished in a warm sunset-colored stucco. She believed the house—mansion, really—with its arched entry and windowed balconies, was bigger than a horse barn. Finally, Jayde eyed the chauffeur and quipped, “I don’t think I’m in Kansas City anymore, Toto.”
The man chuckled. Tall, dark and handsome in a no-nonsense sort of way, and dressed in an honest-to-God chauffeur’s black uniform, he had been standing in the terminal, holding up a hand-lettered sign with her name on it. He’d introduced himself as Lyle and had proven to be kind and solicitous of her every need. They’d traveled to the house in a black stretch limousine. Jayde thought she was dreaming.
But now that Jayde was standing here, she was suddenly overcome. So she blurted out the first relevant thing she could think of. “So, where is he? My boss, I mean. Will I meet him anytime soon?” Selfconsciously, she pulled at her very inadequate wool skirt and knit sweater, trying as much to straighten them as she was to tug them away from her itchy skin. It must be eighty degrees here. She’d already shed as many layers of clothes as modesty would allow since stepping out of the airport terminal.
Lyle set down her bags and her artist’s easel, and then searched through his pockets, presumably for a key to the house. “You’ll meet him today, as it turns out. Mr. Hale will be arriving from Rome in a few hours. I’m to set you up here, show you the way things work and then go back and get him. He’ll be staying here tonight and part of tomorrow. Then he leaves for England.”
Jayde was duly impressed. “That’s some life he’s got there.”
Lyle grinned as he finally fished a key out. “It keeps him busy. And pays for all this.” He inserted the key into the lock, turned it and opened the door. “Come on in. Welcome home.” He stood aside for Jayde to enter. She heard a high-pitched whine, like an alarm, and sent Lyle an alarmed look. “Go ahead,” he urged. “Look around. I’ll carry your stuff in and deal with the security system. I’ve got thirty seconds to punch in the code, or the alarm sounds and JOCK calls the police.”
“Well, that’s good of him…I guess.” Whoever Jock was. Jayde stepped out of Lyle’s way…and found herself in a world she’d never have believed. A feast for the senses. Across the way, ceiling-to-floor windows looked out onto a beautiful expanse of blue water. Inside, mauves and tans and greens and touches of blue greeted her. It was formal yet inviting. Exciting yet restful. Framed artwork that appeared to her to be the real thing hung on the walls. Big, bold furniture, richly upholstered accented each room. Awestruck, she wandered around the house. Not one tiny detail had gone lacking, not from the sunken wet bar to the marine fish tank that backed it. Jayde could hardly breathe. In fact, she feared she was going to cry. Being here was like winning the lottery. Things like this just didn’t happen to her.
Then Lyle reminded her of his existence. “Come on. I’ll show you to your room.”
Jayde obediently followed him. Through a formal dining room, past a kitchen a professional chef would be proud of, down a hall…and into a bedroom that dazzled her. A veritable dream come true itself, complete with a queen-size bed, complete with a down comforter and a walk-in closet bigger than her entire studio apartment in Kansas City had been. Through an open doorway on the other side of the room she could see a bathroom…with a marbled countertop. She turned to Lyle. “You’re pulling my leg, right? This isn’t my room. This is Mr. Hale’s, isn’t it?”
Lyle just grinned. “No. Mr. Hale has the upstairs.”
Jayde eyed him. “The upstairs? As in ‘all of it,’ the whole thing?”
“Yes. Besides his bedroom suite, there’s a workout room, office, study, wet bar, home theater, things like that.” Lyle counted them off on his fingers.
“Wow. The rich really are different.” Full of wonder, she again swept her room with a glance and then pivoted to face Lyle. He was still in the doorway, watching her in a speculative sort of way, a shoulder propped against the doorjamb. Jayde felt her face coloring. “I don’t believe any of this. Pinch me.”
Chuckling, Lyle pushed away from the door and held his hands out defensively in front of him. “Not on your life. Now, if you don’t mind, before you settle yourself in, I’d like to take a few minutes to familiarize you with the alarm system and the electronic butler.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in. “Electronic butler? Like a robot?”
“No. Like a computer. He runs the whole house. He was the one I was talking to and telling to turn on the lights, things like that, just now.”
“Oh.” Earlier, she’d been too fascinated with her surroundings to pay much attention to whom Lyle might have been speaking. She’d just figured it was some discreet servant. But now that she was more focused…this electronic butler thing didn’t bode well. She could barely operate an electric can opener. Still, she followed Lyle back into the kitchen. “So, it’s a he?” she asked. Lyle glanced questioningly over a shoulder at her. Jayde repeated, “The computer. You called it a he. I was just wondering how…I mean, I know how you can tell if a puppy’s male or female. I was just trying to figure out how you’d know on a machine….”
Lyle chuckled. “I get your drift. ‘He’ has a male voice. And his name is JOCK. J-O-C-K. All capitals. And don’t let him fool you—he’s the most advanced thing in artificial intelligence there is. Has his own obnoxious personality, too.”
With that, Lyle stopped in front of a narrow white wood door set in the wall in the gleaming kitchen and opened it. Jayde thought it must be a pantry. But it was nothing that simple. Instead,
mounted on a black panel inside, were enough gadgets and buttons and bells and levers to warm a rocket scientist’s heart. Some of them glowed steadily, some of them weren’t lit at all and still others were blinking. To Jayde, they all looked ominous.
Her heart thumped fearfully. Surely she wouldn’t be expected to know how to operate all this stuff. As Lyle began confidently pushing buttons all over the panel—Jayde was waiting for a missile silo to appear right in the living room—she asked the only intelligent question she could think of. “So, Lyle, what does JOCK stand for?”
Not looking her way, he shrugged his broad shoulders. “I forget. It’s computereze for something or other. Okay, here we go.” Now he looked at her. “Everything in the house is voice-activated. Once I introduce you to JOCK, he’ll obey your every command.”
“Really? Will he clean the bathrooms if I tell him to?”
“No. But he’ll tell Helga to do it.”
“Who’s Helga? Another robot?”
“No. The maid. She comes in once a week. You don’t have to do any heavy cleaning. Just pick up after yourself, do your own laundry, and keep the kitchen clean.”
She nodded and then eyed the control panel, irrationally lowering her voice to a whisper as she leaned toward Lyle. “This JOCK thing won’t be, well, watching me all the time, will he?”
Lyle leaned over to her, also whispering. “Yeah, he will. So don’t try to steal the silver.” Her eyes widened. Lyle chuckled. “I’m just kidding you. But, yeah, there are cameras throughout the house, and JOCK can see you wherever you go. And he hears you through the house-wide intercom system. But it’s for your protection more than anything else. You’ll get used to it.”
Jayde wasn’t so sure. But before she could say so, Lyle faced the panel and “spoke” to JOCK, telling it—him—who Jayde was. JOCK welcomed her. “Hiya, toots. What’s a cute doll like you doing hanging out with a zero like Lyle? Why don’t you step in here with me and I’ll show you what a real man is like.”
