Minders Read Free Page A

“Sounds menacing. Fortunately, that’s not something we’ll have to worry about. My girl likes nothing more than following rules.”
    Sadie felt a tightness between her shoulder blades and, glancing down at her speedometer, saw that she was five miles an hour over the posted speed limit. She tapped the brake and made herself take a deep breath.
    The road, smooth and wide now, looped between swaths of rolling green grass, past another guardhouse, and climbed to the top of a small hill. Below it, settled between the hill and the lake, was an old-fashioned-looking cottage. It was half-timbered, with gabled windows, and surrounded by elaborate gardens. Compared with the modern glass-and-steel house Sadie had grown up in, it looked surreal and impractical, somewhere Pinocchio or Snow White would feel at home, not the kind of place that would foster cutting-edge science.
    The clock on her dashboard read 9:56 when she pulled up in front of the building. It seemed substantially bigger up close, about the size of a small hotel. Another guard stopped her car in the pebbled drive. He took her keys and gave her a plastic security badge with the photo of her squinting on it. She bent to reach for her overnight bag, but he stopped her. “There are no personal items allowed inside the Manor.”
    “Not even a toothbrush?” she asked, immediately feeling foolish.
    “Everything you need will be provided.” He gave her an encouraging smile, but his eyes were cold and appraising, and Sadie felt a slight chill inch up her spine. “Please go straight in to the main reception room, Miss Ames. The others are waiting for you there.”
    • • •
    The others , Sadie repeated as she walked down a dimly lit, green-carpeted hallway that smelled of wood polish and fresh-cut flowers, toward the sound of voices. One of her deepest secrets was that rooms full of strangers made her panic. All those eyes looking at her. It was idiotic, she knew, a sign of weakness she hated. The only person she’d ever admitted it to was her best friend, Decca, who loved attention and whose first reaction had been to laugh.
    “You’re pretty, impeccably groomed, and, thanks to me, well dressed. If I wasn’t so self-centered, I’d totally hate you. What are you afraid of people seeing?”
    “I don’t know. My mind freezes up, and I can’t think of anything to say.”
    “Pretend you’re at a debate tournament,” Decca suggested. “You always have plenty to say there.”
    Sadie had shaken her head. “That’s different. We prepare for that. I know exactly what’s going on, what I’m being judged on. What the rules are.”
    Decca shrugged one shoulder. “So make up your own rules.”
    Sadie remembered feeling shocked. “You can’t just make rules up.”
    “Rule one,” Decca said, holding up a finger, “breathe. Rule two, pause in the doorway and survey the scene and tell yourself you’re going to have a good time. Rule three—”
    “You want me to stop in the doorway so people can stare at me longer ?” Sadie asked incredulously.
    “It will make you appear quietly confident,” Decca assured her. “Nothing diffuses hostility like quiet confidence.”
    “You should be secretary of state,” Sadie said.
    “Rule three,” Decca went on, ignoring her, “get a beverage. And rule four, talk to the cutest guy in the room.”
    “I think I liked the hanging-around-in-the-door part better. You know there’s no way I’m going to seek out the cutest guy in the room and start chatting with him.”
    Decca looked at her pityingly. “Of course not. You won’t have to go looking for him; he’ll already be standing next to you.”
    Sadie had laughed and said, “I think you’re talking about yourself.” Which was true. But the memory of the conversation made her feel a little better as she turned a corner and found herself on the threshold of a room filled with people.
    It was large and square, the wood-paneled walls hung with portraits of