assignment.
* * * * *
When she got to work the
following day, however, Brenda wasn’t in yet. Colleen tried to delay as long as
she could, but after an hour, she couldn’t stall any longer. All the other
maids had already left, and Caroline, the woman at the dispatch desk kept looking
at her oddly. Even if Brenda came in now, there was no one left to send to Hughes’
place anyway. She either had to go clean his house, or quit.
Crap .
Grabbing the keys to the
minivan off the hook, she told Caroline she was leaving and headed over to
Hughes’ place.
Once in his driveway, she
didn’t get out of the minivan right away, but sat there staring at the house.
There were two ways she could approach this. She could either act as if nothing
had happened, or she could confront Hughes about the spanking. While having it
out with the jerk would definitely be more gratifying, pretending the spanking
hadn’t happened at all was probably the smarter choice. Especially since she
intended to talk to Brenda about changing assignments anyway. Of course, if
Hughes brought it up, then all bets were off.
More confident now that she
had a plan, Colleen marched up the front steps and rang the doorbell. When he
didn’t answer, she rang again, more impatiently this time. Still
no answer. Guess he wasn’t home. She almost laughed in relief. She’d
spent half the morning worrying about seeing him, and he wasn’t even there.
Telling herself to be
grateful for small favors, Colleen let herself in, then walked over to the
alarm on the wall and entered the security code. She’d never used a security
system before, so she was a little worried she’d do something wrong and the
cops would come bursting thought the door at any moment. Since they didn’t, she
must have done it right.
Eager to be done and out of
there before Hughes came home, Colleen got right to work. She vacuumed the area
rug in the living room, then quickly dusted the
television and other electronic equipment before going upstairs to clean the
master bedroom.
It was just impressive as the
rest of the house, and bigger than any Colleen had ever seen. She couldn’t help
but be a little envious as she took in the huge king-sized bed and vaulted
ceiling. The adjoining bathroom was just as lavish. God, she’d love to have
that spa tub and walk-in shower in her apartment. Then again, the shower was
bigger than her whole bathroom, so neither would probably fit.
Though the master suite was
beautiful, it lacked the same personal touches as the rest of the rooms in the
house. There were no photos of family or friends. No mementos from his past
lying around. That was weird. Maybe Lauren was right and Hughes was a secret
agent. It was far-fetched, but it would certainly explain why he didn’t have
any of the usual mementos.
Colleen almost laughed at how
ridiculous that sounded. The real reason was probably much more boring. Maybe Hughes
didn’t like clutter. Or maybe he didn’t have a lot of happy memories he wanted
to display. Maybe he had a lot of things he’d rather forget. That was too bad.
It almost made her feel sorry for him.
She had every intention of
cleaning the kitchen next, but when she went back downstairs, she found herself
drawn to the living room and the door to the inner sanctum. Since Hughes was
out, it would be the perfect opportunity to sneak a quick peak inside. Providing he didn’t keep it locked.
Knowing she shouldn’t, but
unable to help herself, Colleen grasped the knob and slowly turned it. Heart
pounding, she cautiously pushed open the door.
Colleen didn’t know what
she’d expected to find, but it wasn’t a home office. Then again, maybe computer
room would be more appropriate. After all, most people didn’t have half a dozen
computers in their home office, especially ones with huge flat-screen monitors.
Even more strange, every computer was turned on and running at the same time,
some kind of code scrolling across the screen. Huh.