“What did she say to that?”
“That she wasn’t going. He’d locked her in the den with him. We were worried, but he promised he just wanted to talk to her. Then we heard him snap the belt.” She closed her eyes and shivered, oblivious to the pained look of the man near her, who was eaten up with guilt for frightening her with his own belt early in their acquaintance.
“Our bodyguards heard her scream and broke into the office. Sari’s arm was bleeding where he hit her with the belt. Daddy was sitting in a chair where he fell, stone dead.”
“Good grief!”
She stuck her hands in the pockets of her robe. “Sari said she’d killed him. Paul assured her that she hadn’t. The autopsy found evidence of heavy drug use and a lesion in his brain. The combination produced a heart attack. But we had to watch Sari for a couple of days. She locked herself in her room. Paul had to fly back from Brooklyn, because he was the only person she’d listen to.” She smiled. “She’d loved him for years and years. He went away suddenly. He’d given Daddy a ridiculous reason for leaving, you see. He said that he was married—actually he was a widower—and that Sari had flirted with him, like young girls do. Daddy accepted his resignation, and gave him severance pay. Then after he was gone, Daddy called Sari into his office...”
Ren leaned forward. What he was learning about his houseguest made him furious on her behalf. He was sorry her father was dead, because he’d have liked to have a physical discussion with him about using a belt on a woman.
“What did he do?” he asked quietly.
“He almost beat her to death,” Merrie said unsteadily. “I heard her screaming. Mandy had been sent off on a long shopping holiday by Daddy, so she wouldn’t know what he did to us. I ran into the office and tried to stop him, but he turned on me.” She closed her eyes against the painful memory. “He had a doctor on his payroll, one who’d lost his medical license. He stitched the wounds and gave us antibiotics to take and took care of us while we healed. When Mandy came back, we didn’t dare tell her. Daddy said he’d killed people and got away with it, and how would we feel if something happened to Mandy? So we pretended that it never happened.”
Ren sat back in the chair with his legs crossed. He couldn’t believe a man could be that cruel to his children. And the dead woman’s son must have hated Grayling with a passion to hire hit men to go after his daughters.
“Didn’t the man who hired the killers know that Grayling was dead?”
“He found it out after he hired the man to kill me. Great timing, wasn’t it? They said he collapsed and started crying. He’s done everything he could to help them catch the guy. He’s in jail, waiting for trial. Even the cooperation won’t keep him from serving time.”
“And it shouldn’t,” Ren said coldly. “What a damned cowardly thing to do.”
“Daddy killed his mother,” she said simply. “He got drunk and hired people to get even with him.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it’s happening. It’s like watching an old movie about gangsters on television.”
“It must seem that way to you.” He got up from the chair and stood in front of her. “I promise, you’ll be safe here.”
She looked up into his black eyes and felt her stomach drop to the floor. He was so handsome. She thought she’d never tire of looking at him.
“Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire of watching you,” she said absently as she looked at him. She flushed from chin to forehead when that slipped out.
CHAPTER FIVE
REN ACTUALLY LOOKED AMUSED. “Are you quoting Rupert Brooke? He died in 1915, so the poem was published after he died in World War I.”
She smiled shyly. “It’s a beautiful poem. I didn’t mean to blurt it out...”
He moved a step closer and touched her long, soft blond hair. “Do you remember the last line of that poem?”
“Yes. I didn’t mean...”
“And turn, and toss your brown, delightful head amusedly, among the ancient Dead,” he quoted.
“Well, if I didn’t watch people, I couldn’t paint them,” she said, flustered.
His eyes slid sideways, to the painting turned to the wall. “Come on, coward. Show it to me,” he teased.
She ground her teeth together. He made her nervous. She was unsure of herself and he was...he was flirting with her. Wasn’t that flirting? She’d had only Randall do that with her. No, that cowboy of Ren’s, what was his name? Tubbs. Yes, Tubbs had flirted with her. She didn’t know how to handle it.
Reluctantly she picked up the canvas, turned it around and placed it on the second easel in the room. She stepped back and let him look at the portrait.