Secret Assignment Read Online Free PDF Page B

certain.”
    “What am I really doing here, Jesse?”
    “Exactly the job I gave you,” he said sternly. “You help Mrs. Ross with the papers and her husband’s collections. You keep your nose to the grindstone and stay out of trouble.”
    “That’s it? You really think that’s going to appease me?”
    “Call me if anything else happens out of the ordinary. And get some sleep. You’ve had a long day.” Jesse hung up before she could protest his paternal condescension.
    She growled as she hung up the phone. Jesse wasn’t the only one of her brothers and sisters who treated her as if she were still a child, but he was definitely the worst.
    It wasn’t her fault she was born last of the six. It wasn’t her fault their mother had decided her career had to come before motherhood or marriage. She hadn’t asked her siblings to make her their pampered, protected little pet.
    She pushed herself off the bed and crossed to the window. It had rained a little during dinner, enough that the window sparkled with tiny diamonds of raindrops clinging to the glass. Moonlight peeked from behind thinning clouds, casting a cool blue glow across the night scene.
    Through the blur of water, the thick stands of trees east of the house looked like a dark watercolor painting, all soft edges and mysterious shadows, punctuated here and there by the glow of lightning bugs flitting between the trees. It took a few seconds to realize that the light came not from flying bugs but from someone moving through the trees about two hundred yards away from the house.
    Curious, she went out onto the balcony for a closer look. It was definitely a light, moving slowly through the trees. Was it Gideon doing another tour of the island for the night?
    One way to find out, she thought, heading for the stairs.
    When she reached the main floor, it was dark. Gideon was no longer inside Stafford House, so the light in the woods must have been him.
    She started to turn back toward the stairs when a niggling sensation at the back of her neck made her reverse course. She went instead to the side veranda that looked out across the trees to the east, hoping for a better view of the light she’d seen from her bedroom window. She had to unlock the dead bolt to step out onto the veranda. The door creaked as she opened it, the loud sound setting her nerves on edge.
    Wincing, she eased out onto the wooden porch, wondering if the sounds she was making were loud enough to wake Lydia in her upstairs suite. She stepped gingerly toward the railing, trying to make as little noise as possible from here on.
    A damp breeze blew in from the Gulf of Mexico, lifting her hair away from her face. Wishing she’d put her hair in a ponytail before she came downstairs, she finger-combed her hair out of her eyes to keep the swirling strands from blocking her view of the trees.
    She stared for a long time, straining for any sign of the lights she’d seen earlier, but the woods were dark and quiet. She released a soft breath and started to turn back to the house when she spotted it.
    A light, swinging back and forth with a rocking rhythm, as if held by someone moving slowly, steadily through the woods.
    Was it Gideon?
    She wasn’t so sure anymore.
    She moved around the veranda slowly until she was facing the back garden, where just beyond, a single-story house on stilts rose over the garden, perched on the highest point of land on the island. Like the Rosses’ house, Gideon’s residence also had a widow’s walk around the top gable, though when Shannon had first spotted the house earlier during Lydia’s guided tour of the house and gardens, she’d noticed the widow’s walk on the caretaker’s house looked new, as if it were a recent addition.
    There were no lights on in the caretaker’s house. No sign of movement inside. Maybe her first guess had been right. Maybe Gideon was taking a quick tour around the island to make sure everything was safe and secure for the night.
    She