Chapter 4
It was not Wallace on the other side of the door, but a different familiar face, and it was only familiar because I had been looking at a photo of it moments before.
“Hey, neighbor!” Jana Russo greeted with a megawatt smile from behind a three-wheeled stroller she rolled back and forth like she was revving up to shove in the door.
The front tire looked fit for off-roading.
“I’m Jana. We’ve been watching to see when you would show up, and you’re finally here!
” She sang the final word like it had multiple syllables and tilted her body back and forth in rhythm to her song.
Her dark hair lay in a heavy braid over her shoulder left bare by a drooping tunic top.
A hot-pink flash of spandex painted her bronzed skin where her sports bra held up her chest swollen with motherhood.
She expectantly smiled, as if waiting for me to ask her inside.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Bray take a step closer.
Even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, I couldn’t very well invite Jana Russo in to meet the agent laying a trap for her as we spoke.
And my brief interaction with him was enough to ensure me Bray couldn’t convincingly pull off pretending to be a real estate agent for more than a few seconds. He would blow both of our covers.
I angled the door to shield my arm and discreetly waved him deeper into the kitchen and out of sight.
He shook his head in refusal.
Jana was still beaming, rolling her stroller. I managed to hold my own smile while clenching my jaw. Behind the open door, I pointed a stern finger at Bray, telling him to back up.
I heard him quietly huff before he sealed himself to the fridge, still in earshot and only inches out of sight.
“Hi there,” I greeted. “I’m Lauren.”
The name already fit like a well-worn glove.
“Lauren,” Jana said as if she were rolling the word around her mouth, testing it out.
She managed to keep smiling while she did it.
A disarming energy pulsed off her, one perhaps planted in my mind thanks to the records tucked in Bray’s file and everything he’d accused her of, but perhaps it was more than that.
Perhaps it had to do with the way she said we’ve been watching. Also, they’d been waiting for me?
I scanned the street as if it might reveal which house Jana hailed from: the Tudor with paned windows and rose border, the Colonial with manicured hedges, the Craftsman with a porch swing and pull-through driveway.
She had to have been watching from one of them if she managed to ring the doorbell so soon after my arrival.
I eyed the stroller and reconsidered. Perhaps she had been passing by on a walk and saw activity at the door.
But still. We’ve been watching was an odd thing to say.
“That’s me,” I said. “I’ve only just arrived. I’d invite you in, but the place is a mess.” I stepped forward and pulled the door further closed, shielding any view of my neatly kempt new home and the lie I’d just told.
Jana’s smile drooped for the slightest second as if disappointed she wouldn’t get to scope out her new neighbor’s place.
“Oh, that’s completely fine,” she recovered.
“I was just dropping by to say hi and invite you to movie night tonight. I know Melanie and the kids can’t wait to meet you in person!
They are so desperate for help. She’d be here saying hi too, but she’s tied up right now.
” Her expectant smile returned as my brain spun and tried to keep up.
Usually, my assignments took weeks of careful infiltration. I would circle a target until I got close enough, until stepping inside came naturally. I was used to a considerable amount of patience and perseverance, and it appeared I’d already been shoved headfirst into this world.
I was too shocked to say anything.
“Nanny,” Bray quietly coughed from around the corner, but not quietly enough.
Jana leaned to peek, and I mirrored her movement to block her view. “Is someone else here?” she asked, a smile returning to her face as if she were ready to make another acquaintance.
“No.” I nervously laughed. “It’s only me!”
“Huh. I thought I saw you walk in with a man. I assumed it was your husband.”
I heard Bray shuffle. I waved my hand behind the door again, urging him to hold still. “Oh! No, that was my real estate agent stopping by, but he left.”
Jana studied me with skepticism written all over her face. Thick tension hung between us, and I hoped Bray wasn’t going to cough some other cryptic message and ruin it all. I was an excellent liar, but someone actively sabotaging me made for a different story.
Another smile crept over Jana’s face, and, in the same way I knew my neighbor Alisha’s was sincere, I could tell this one wasn’t.
“Well, I hope you can join us tonight!” she sang, back on point.
“It would be a great way to meet everyone before you start your new position with the Brownings.” She pointed over her shoulder at the Tudor on the corner, and I found it fitting the severely angled house, which looked like it would cut me if I touched it, belonged to the woman who had fired four nannies.
The last thing I wanted to do was socialize after my impromptu cross-country trip and identity change. I needed a moment to adjust.
“Oh, that’s nice of you, but I can’t—”
Bray loudly cleared his throat.
I decided to put an end to the standoff before he unintentionally did it for me.
“You know what? I’ll think about it.” I smiled at Jana. “I have to go right now.” I shut the door and pivoted to glare at Bray. I held a finger to my mouth to silence him as I crossed toward the window to watch which way Jana went.
Jana waited on the doorstep for a moment, looking baffled for having had a door slammed in her face, before she did a three-point turn to move her stroller. She cast a curious look over her shoulder before turning left at the end of the walkway.
Satisfied to be rid of her, I turned around to deal with the agent in my kitchen and found myself face-first into his chest.
“Jesus. Do you have to stand so close?” I bounced backward, and his fresh smell tempered with the slightest bite of nervous perspiration lingered in my nose.
“Sorry,” he muttered and released the two slats he had pinched open to see out the window. His arm remained hovering over my shoulder.
I looked up at him, and a charge passed between us. Something unnamed I felt crackling all the way to my fingertips.
I quickly sidestepped and moved away from the window. “So, I get that you’re invested, but that’s not how this is going to work, okay? I don’t need you trying to intervene and screwing things up.”
A look of surprise crossed Bray’s face, as if he may have expected me to say something else. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I just know you haven’t been fully briefed yet, and she showed up out of nowhere. I didn’t want you caught off guard.”
I rounded the table and snatched another apple slice. His apology seemed sincere. “Well, then why don’t you finish briefing me, Agent Bray.”
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He pulled a binder from his bag. “Everything you need to know is in here, but basically, you’re lined up to start as Melanie Browning’s new nanny ASAP.
You’ve got an airtight background and references, come highly recommended, and aced your online interview. All that’s left is a trial run.”
I took the binder and skeptically frowned at him. “I aced my interview? I’ve never met this woman in my life, let alone interviewed with her. What are you talking about?”
He whipped out his phone and tapped at the screen before flipping it around to show me. “We generated your image and voice with AI from digital records we have at the DSA. Pretty cool, right?”
I gaped at the sight of myself on the screen. The fake was alarmingly convincing, right down to my mannerisms. I was not the least bit surprised the DSA had resources for such forgery. “Uh, cool is one word for it, I guess,” I muttered.
“I think it’s cool,” he said and shoved his phone back in his pocket. “But the point is, you’ve already wowed them, so all that’s left is to do it in person. You’re set up to start working with them this week.”
The sense I was being dragged by a moving train had me off-balance again. I set the file back on the table and held up my hands. “Wait. Let’s just take a step back here. You still haven’t told me where Agent Wallace is. Why isn’t he here?” The answer to that question still had my nerves jumping.
Bray took a breath like he had to stop himself from barreling on with my brief. His face flattened. “I can’t share that information.”
I frowned at the non-answer. “Can’t or won’t?”
He stroked his hand over his jaw, and a wave of frustration pulsed off him.
“Can’t because I don’t have it. Some of my clearance has been revoked due to a recent …
incident, and the higher-ups don’t feel I need to know that detail.
All I know is you’ve been transferred to me, and I was supposed to meet you here. ”
The sense of being dragged by a train suddenly morphed into a stomach-dropping free fall. I struggled to process everything he’d said. Not only was he a rookie, but something had recently gone wrong enough to revoke his security clearance, and I was supposed to trust him?
“No,” I said flatly.
He cocked a brow at me. “No, what?”
My heart had kicked up a gear. The implications of this new setup were too many to articulate, especially to someone as junior as him. “No, I’m not doing this. Not without talking to Agent Wallace.”
He stubbornly stared back at me. “Like I said, I can’t help you with that.”
“Then find me someone who can.”
He huffed an annoyed breath and put a hand on his hip. “What’s the big deal? I always heard that guy was kind of an asshole. I thought you’d be happy to be free of him.”
Again, another statement too loaded to unpack. “Asshole, yes, but my relationship with Wallace is … important.”