Chapter Ten
Ten
The alarm had progressed to its most demanding tone before it made its way past the dull thudding in Baxter’s head. He reached for it, fumbling for the button that would turn off the incessant beeping.
The whiskey had been a mistake.
Baxter was too old for late-night drinking, especially on an empty stomach.
In common with most domestic staff, Baxter ate his main (and often only) meal at around five p.m., when the guests were dressing for dinner.
He would occasionally make himself a snack once the cheese course was out, but last night, he had not had time for so much as a cracker.
He swung his legs out of bed far more enthusiastically than he was feeling, and washed down two painkillers with a large glass of water. There would be several other sore heads at Villa Sérénité this morning; Baxter didn’t have the luxury of indulging his own.
Just as Baxter enjoyed putting to bed a beautiful home, so he enjoyed waking it up each morning.
Every house was different, and clients’ wishes were varied (and occasionally challenging), but whether Baxter was lighting fires in a Swiss chalet or rolling up fresh towels on a Monaco yacht, the principle was the same: a warm, welcoming space, where everything the guest might need was at their fingertips.
At Villa Sérénité, Baxter pulled back the drapes, opened the shutters, and let the sunlight stream in.
He put on a fresh pot of coffee, then fetched the newspapers from the mat by the front door and put them in the drawing room on the walnut console table behind the sectional.
As he came back down the stairs, he heard a door opening and then closing, followed by the pad of bare feet on marble.
He glanced down the corridor leading to the bedrooms and saw Damian open his bedroom door and slip inside.
Interesting. Either the first door Baxter had heard had been Damian’s own—Damian having stepped into the corridor then turned back—or he’d come out of someone else’s room.
Baxter’s temples pounded. He hadn’t had a hangover this bad in a long time.
His eyes felt gritty, his head sluggish from poor sleep.
He dimly recalled waking up in the night, but the memory was wrapped up in a dream in which he’d been running around a market, trying to find fresh asparagus in November.
Baxter’s dreams invariably featured obscure ingredients or laundry stains.
“I think I am dying,” Miriam declared dramatically when she emerged in the kitchen half an hour after she was due to start work. “My head, it is going like this: boom, boom, boom!” She clamped both hands to her forehead. “I will never drink again.”
“How much did you have?” Baxter was loading a tray with silverware, salt and pepper pots, napkins, and breakfast plates.
“Three glasses. Maybe four. I think maybe the wine was bad.”
“I see.” Baxter suppressed a smile. And maybe the whiskey he’d drunk had gone off too, and it was nothing to do with the overly generous measures he had seen fit to pour himself.
“Will Thierry be gracing us with his presence?” If the chef didn’t show soon, Baxter would need to put some bacon on in case any of Alec Prescott’s guests decided to rise early.
“He is in the bathroom. His head is also making …” Miriam repeated her explosions.
Baxter felt uneasy. Betting and alcohol were a dangerous mix.
If Thierry got drunk last night, he could well have gambled more than he could afford.
Baxter looked at his watch, then went to set up the pool.
The guests were unlikely to swim until later, but should they take their breakfast on the upper terrace, they would expect to see tightly rolled towels on the loungers below, and the pool cleared of the jewel-colored petals that blew in from the bougainvillea surrounding the villa.
The key to the doors leading from the drawing room onto the terrace was stashed behind a large stone urn containing tall dried grasses. Baxter retrieved it, but as he approached the glass doors, he stopped short.
Something was wrong.
The door was somehow … not straight. Baxter blinked—perhaps his headache was clouding his vision—but no: He wasn’t mistaken. The door was on a slant.
Had it been like that yesterday?
Surely he would have noticed when he locked up?
Baxter took a step forward, and as he looked closer, a knot formed in his chest. The key would open five locks simultaneously—a Fort Knox of toughened glass and coated steel—but there was a thin sliver of daylight between the bottom half of the sliding door and the frame into which it should be securely fastened.
The jolt of realization was sudden and sharp.
Villa Sérénité had been burgled.