The Heiress and Her Bodyguard novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Whose House

Britta fires Jonas and Leif calls for a doctor to judge Linnea. She rehires him at the breakfast table.

I did not sleep.

At seven in the morning I sat at the breakfast table in my father's kitchen with the brass key inside my left sock.

Dorrit put a cup of coffee in front of me and set my fingers around the handle.

Her hand was shaking.

"The police said it was a burglar," she said quietly.

"The police said a man came in through the garden room, and my father surprised him."

"Yes."

"Then why did he say Jonas?"

Dorrit did not answer.

She hummed instead, three flat notes, and went to the stove.

Heels clicked in the doorway, quick and neat.

Lavender reached me a second before the voice did.

"Linnea, sweetheart, you should have stayed in bed."

Britta put a hand on my shoulder, and I did not lean into it.

"I've asked Mr. Tallgren to pack his things," she said.

"He's still under questioning, and I won't have a man who fired a gun in this house sleeping over my garage."

"He fired at the burglar."

"So he says."

Another chair scraped.

Leif sat down heavily on my other side.

I heard his cough, the ring on his finger tapping the table twice, and the creak of the chair under his weight.

"Britta's right, Lin," he said, in the warm voice he uses at funerals and board meetings.

"You've had a horrible shock."

"I've arranged for a doctor to come Monday and sit with you for a few days."

"A doctor for what?"

"Just to see how you're coping."

"With everything."

"With the company, and your father's shares."

I put down my cup very carefully.

"My father's shares."

"Nobody's taking anything from you," Leif said.

"We just want to be sure you aren't overwhelmed."

The doorbell rang before I could answer.

A lawyer had come at eight o'clock, early, because my father had left instructions that his will be read within a day of his death.

I had never heard of that instruction.

We went into the dining room and I took my father's chair at the head of the table, because Britta had started toward it and I had heard her stop when I sat.

The lawyer read quickly, in a dry voice.

The house was mine.

Sixty percent of the voting shares in Haugland Grain & Rail were mine.

Leif got fifteen, Britta got ten, and the rest went to a trust.

Nobody spoke for a while.

Then Leif laughed once, a short sound, and said, "Well."

"Anders always did think he knew best."

"This is a mistake," Britta said.

Her voice had gone thin and bright.

"Linnea can't possibly manage a company."

"She can't even read the contracts."

"I can read them," I said.

"I read Braille."

"I can also hire people to read for me."

"Dorrit, would you find Mr. Tallgren?"

The room went still.

"Linnea," Britta said.

"Sweetheart."

"He's a suspect."

"He is a man my father hired."

"Dorrit."

I heard her leave.

I turned my face toward where Britta's voice had come from.

"This is my father's house," I said.

"You are welcome in it."

"Mr. Tallgren is my employee, and I decide who walks me to my car."

Footsteps came up the hall, steady, not hurried.

Jonas stopped inside the door.

I knew where he stood from the way the room changed around him.

"Ms. Haugland."

"You're fired," Britta said.

"He's rehired," I said.

I stood up and held out my hand toward his voice.

"Mr. Tallgren."

"Three hundred a day more than what my father paid you, and you answer to me alone."

"My father's last word was your name."

"I want that word where I can hear it."

Nobody breathed.

Then his hand took mine, warm and dry, with a hard ridge across the palm.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

Leif cleared his throat.

"Lin, think this through."

"I have."

The car was parked at the curb.

Jonas opened the back door.

I took his wrist for balance as I stepped in, the way I did with anyone I walked with, and kept it a moment longer than I needed to.

His pulse was slow and even, a heavy beat under my thumb.

He shut the door and got behind the wheel.

I leaned forward until my arm lay across the front seat between us.

"My father pushed a key into my hand," I said.

"You saw it last night."

"You told me to hide it."

"What does it open?"

"I don't know."

His wrist was on the gearshift, an inch from my fingers.

I laid my fingertips on it.

The slow beat under them jumped.

Once, hard.

"Try again," I said.

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