Safe by His Side. Linda Conrad

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СКАЧАТЬ grandson, Josh. Two more kind and selfless acts from Brody Ryan, and Lupe’s mother had promised to reverse the curse on the entire Ryan family.

      As Lupe wound her way home at the edge of her maternal family’s lake, she swore to keep a careful watch over all the Ryan family. She wished that she could force something good to happen. But when it came to Brody Ryan’s good or bad deeds, he held all the power.

      Chapter 1

      The evening sky over Beverly Hills grew ever more dull and gray as sea fog rolled across the 101. Soupy haze lent a chilly cast to what had been a warm spring day.

      As the old song said, maybe “it never rained in Southern California.” But Blythe Cooper would have much preferred a good thunder boomer to this creepy, opaque veil that uniformly covered palm trees, green grass and brilliant sunsets with its dark and somber mists.

      Glancing at her winking computer screen, she tried to ignore the goose bumps running along her arms. She picked up the nearest file folder in preparation to continue her work. But her mind swung back to the murky shadows outside. She missed the old-fashioned, late spring thunder and lightning storms of her South Carolina childhood home. A good storm was exhilarating. It could take your breath away with its power and majesty.

      Sighing deeply, she shrugged a shoulder and flipped open her folder. Blythe had long ago decided she couldn’t be happier to have taken this job as tutor-turned-guardian for child star Ashley Nicole Davis—even with the difference in weather. It was the job at which everyday, average Blythe Cooper had potential to be great. A job where her practical intelligence and her dogged eye for details meant she stood out and even excelled in the midst of all the fantasy, beauty and fanfare of the entertainment industry.

      Here, she was needed and would be Ashley’s rock in the storm. A solid presence was exactly what Blythe had been born to be, despite her rocky past.

      A chilly air draft curled around her ankles and brought Blythe’s head up from the stacks of travel plans and touring accommodations. Was there an open window somewhere? Both Ashley and the housekeeper knew better than to leave a window or a door ajar in inclement weather.

      The house had felt especially gloomy ever since forty-year-old Melissa Davis, Ashley’s mother, had been moved. Along with her twenty-four-hour nurses, Melissa now resided in the guesthouse on the other side of the pool, where she no doubt was sleeping off another round of chemotherapy treatments. Melissa would continue living out there for the remaining months—or weeks—of her life.

      At some point after her mother passed away, little Ashley would be free to open windows and invite friends over and be as loud as she wanted to be in her own house again. Blythe wished for Ashley’s sake that a miracle would happen and her mother could be cured. However, the most renowned physicians in the country had said there wasn’t any possibility of Melissa surviving her illness.

      Life did continue in this house, regardless of the impending death of its owner. Melissa had seen to that. The three other females still living in the house continued to work every day and dreamed of their futures, while Melissa continued to organize everyone and everything to her exacting standards from her deathbed.

      According to her mother’s wishes, Ashley would finish two more days of filming on the current season of her television show and then she would leave on the promotional tour for her summer movie. Mrs. Jenson, their housekeeper, would continue cleaning and cooking and taking care of the place as she had since the days of Ashley’s first TV appearance. And Blythe herself would begin taking full responsibility for Ashley’s personal well-being. Melissa wanted things to be that way.

      Blythe had agreed to remain as Ashley’s guardian after Melissa was gone. It was a long-term commitment, she knew, but Blythe had been both ready and happy to sign up. She’d grown to love Ashley over the last two years, and she would stand beside her in grief as she stood beside her in all of life.

      Tired of the omnipresent depression that seemed to hang over the house, Blythe got up from her desk and went to search for the origin of the draft. She couldn’t imagine where it might be coming from, but she supposed that seven-year-old Ashley’s room might be a good place to check. She started down the long hall.

      The house felt too quiet.

      By this time of day, the housekeeper usually could be heard downstairs either making dinner or ordering out. As Ashley played in her room, her muffled giggles would dance gaily down the halls. And oftentimes the sounds Ash made as she memorized her lines along with the taped version the director sent over would provide a low-key and happy buzz to the atmosphere.

      Not this particular late afternoon. This afternoon, you could almost hear the foggy mists creeping in through unseen cracks. As Blythe reached Ashley’s half-open door, chills were already riding down the back of her neck. She eased through the doorway, half expecting to see her little star catnapping on the bed, though Ashley hadn’t been interested in taking naps since before she’d turned five.

      “Ash?” Nothing. The bed was littered with coloring books and stuffed toys, but no sign of a droopy seven-year-old fast asleep on top of the covers. And the French doors to Ashley’s private balcony appeared to be closed up tight, too. So where was the draft coming from? And more important, where was Ashley?

      Blythe stepped farther into the room for a closer inspection of the bathroom and the balcony. She needed to keep a closer eye on the little girl now that her mother had become incapable of most personal supervision. Especially now that the child star had begun receiving a few very odd pieces of fan mail.

      Didn’t it always work that way? Just when things looked darkest, something came along that had the potential for making it all so much worse. Ashley already had been dealing with her mother’s illness and the somber reality of it when her guardians had been forced to cut off her Internet and free access to her fan mail because of a series of nasty e-mails and vague threats. Good thing Ashley was one tough kid.

      As Blythe walked toward the bathroom, her attention was caught by a flashing dot at the top of Ashley’s computer screen. When they’d cut off Ash’s Internet, the technicians had set up an intrahouse circuit so that all the computers in the mansion could instant-message one another. But only one computer in the whole place—Blythe’s—could still receive and send via the Internet.

      To Blythe’s surprise Ashley hadn’t really minded the change. She’d learned to like having her own personal message system direct to the housekeeper and to her mother. And what made her the happiest was that she still had the ability to play all her video games.

      So who was trying to reach Ashley via internal IM now? Was it the housekeeper, wanting Ashley to come down to dinner? Or could it be the girl’s mother? And if so, was it something that Melissa Davis would need attending to right away?

      Curious, Blythe sidestepped the bed and pressed the Enter button to read the message. There, against a cobalt-blue screen, came a six-line message in bold bloodred.

      Twinkle twinkle little star

      I don’t need to wonder where you are

      Come down to me from up on high

      I promise you the world and sky

      Don’t fret, little girl, we’ll be together soon

      Come to me, Ashley, and I’ll give you the moon

      Blythe’s stomach turned over and her palms grew clammy. This was СКАЧАТЬ