Unspoken by Dee Henderson Page A

help her pack the coins.
    “Anybody home?”
    “Back here, John.”
    The head of security for Graham Enterprises walked through the door of the library with Charlotte’s two dogs trailing behind him.
    “That the chair she was climbing on?” Bryce asked, nodding toward a dining room chair that was out of place in the room. Footprints with crushed white gravel road dust were still obvious on the chair seat.
    “Yes. The safe in this room is built into the wall above the top shelf of the bookcase. She’s too short to be trying to clean it out. Should have been smart enough not to try.”
    “There were some very nice coins in that safe.”
    “I thought so too.” John picked up another roll of tape andtaped together a box. He started boxing more of the books. “Know anyone who could figure out the value of old watches?”
    “I can ask around.”
    “Shoebox over on the desk is the collection she’s found so far.”
    Bryce wondered if that really was the topic on John’s mind tonight. “I’m buying the coins in vault five.”
    John nodded. “Did the background check on you, concluded you were the right guy to handle them for her. You’ll make some money on them. She’ll be relieved to have them gone.”
    “A phone call would have been an easier introduction.”
    John grinned. “Now where would the fun for her be in that? She’s got her reasons for the store.”
    “I gather she’s getting tired of selling stuff.”
    “We both are. Found five hundred tennis rackets this afternoon where there should have been crates of paving tiles. There’s not a tennis court on this property—not that I’ve found yet anyway. I think some in the family had a bit of dementia in their later years. Fred was a sharp enough man at ninety-two that he wasn’t the one. But he probably knew and decided to leave it to Charlotte to sort out all the oddities after he was gone. Not sure I wouldn’t have pushed back a bit harder if I knew what he was leaving her to do.”
    “She could hire someone to handle this for her.”
    “Not her style.” John taped the box of books closed, wrote on the end what was inside, and picked up another box.
    “What kind of trouble did she have when she was twenty?”
    John shot him a look.
    “Paul Falcon told me you were her bodyguard for a couple years.”
    “Her business to tell, not mine.”
    “It’s over?”
    “Cops killed them before I got hired for the job. Best I could do was punch a few reporters who invaded her privacy.”
    Bryce smiled at the way John said it. “Okay.” Bryce tookanother look at the man Charlotte trusted. “Between the time being her bodyguard and taking over security for Graham Enterprises, what did you do?”
    “Worked for the musician Brandon Yates for a few years. The singer Evelyn Hayes.”
    “That’s where I’ve seen you before. The guy who tackled the guy—”
    John smiled. “Got more famous than Charlotte for a few days. I can understand better why she dislikes the press as she does.” He finished packing the books and hauled the boxes out of the room. He came back and sorted around the packing materials until he found a plastic sack. “Thought I would finish chasing down the golf balls tonight. Found some in the garage, the mud room, kitchen drawers. Since I haven’t found any golf clubs, I think someone liked to sit on that back patio and throw them into the lake. You golf?”
    “No.”
    “I’ll find someone who does. One thing Charlotte is determined not to do is to throw anything away.”
    John left the room and the dogs got up to follow him out.
    Bryce picked up the shoebox of old watches on the desk. Most were simply old, but two were gold, and one was diamond-rimmed. Fred Graham was the kind of guy he wished he had met at least once, so he could square what he was seeing now with the man he had been in life.

    Bryce pointed to the fish in the sampler platter Charlotte had brought for him. “This is good.” He reached for a napkin. They