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“So, four bedrooms made up, Tuesday until Monday morning?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Seven nights at four hundred a night. That is—” He pauses, and I do the math in my head faster than he does.
“Twenty-eight hundred dollars. And tax?” I ask.
“Total with taxes is $3136.”
“E-transfer OK?”
“Perfect.”
He gives me the payment details and tells me the new key code to open the front door. Now to find one of the kitchen staff who’s willing to work from Lily Valley for a few days. Security is easy—the company that manages the team will assign someone since Horse only travels with one man. I request a guy who’s able to hike a few miles a day with me and who doesn’t know Mr. Colt. The last thing I need is to be worrying about things I should know about the guy. And the first thing I’ll do is take off this damn beard.
The drive to Lily Valley, without the hassle of an accident on the highway, is shockingly quick and easy. High-rise door to small-town door in forty-seven minutes. I understand the allure of this village as a bedroom community for city workers.
The winding road is fun to navigate in my high-performance car—at least when the traffic is low. I could see myself doing this commute, maybe not every day, but a couple of times a week.
My security detail, James, is in his own company car, and Derek, the chef, will arrive on his own in time to prep dinner for us. I have a few hours of work to do but want to get a hike in before dark. And since there’s no reason for me to stick to office hours, I let James know we’ll be hitting the trail thirty minutes after we arrive. He’s keen, having heard about this place from some of the guys who were here a month ago.
I carry my duffle bag to the master bedroom, but as soon as I open the door, I feel Virginia’s presence and step backwards away from the room.
“James,” I call.
“Sir,” he appears from the bedroom he’s chosen.
“I assume you took the nicest of the remaining rooms.”
He nods.
“Swap with me. Take the master.”
He nods again, turns back to the bedroom, grabs his bag and pushes past me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Meet you at the front door in thirty.”
Unlike the casual forest walk with Virginia, I turn this hike into a cardio workout and challenge James, a former soldier who appears to be ten years younger than me, to keep up. He holds his own, and even though I know he could’ve beaten me to the summit, he stays a few steps behind, as any well-trained security officer would in this environment, protecting my back and watching for what’s coming.
“What do you think?” I ask when we reach the flat outcrop that Virginia and I consecrated. Despite being out of breath from the final fifty-yard sprint, the memory of the last time I stood on this spot relaxes my mind.
“Nice view,” James says.
We look over the tops of evergreen trees to the ocean. Some of the village houses are visible from this vantage point, including the one I’ve rented. Virginia had pointed it out.
“James, can you see the flat black roof at the end of the cul-de-sac over there?” I point right.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you believe that where we’re standing is a security risk or a security benefit for residents of that house?”
James walks to the edge of the ten-by-ten surface, looks over the cliff, up at the trees adjacent to us, and down to the village.
“Depends what your concern is. A camera could be placed in one of these trees”—he points above our heads—“to record movement at the end of the street near the house. Anyone who broke in would be seen. On the other hand, it’s a nice place for a sniper to get a clean shot, though with only one trail out of the forest, and just one road in and out of the village, a virtually impossible place to retreat from without being caught. Unless you had a helicopter.”
