Chapter 17 #2
I swallowed the shriek in my throat and zipped both bags shut.
“Lauren, are you out here?”
My heart nearly rocketed through my chest, but it calmed a few beats when I recognized the voice as Kaden’s and not his mother’s.
“Yeah! I’m right here,” I said and swung the SUV’s hatch shut.
His little footsteps sounded on the paved floor. “What are you doing?”
“Just looking for something for your mom, bud.” I ruffled his hair with a friendly smile.
He looked up at me like he wasn’t quite sure I was telling the truth. “Someone is at the door,” he said, and caught me totally off guard.
“What?”
“The door. Someone rang the doorbell.”
I stared back, waiting for instruction and suddenly on edge. I reminded myself the patrol car was still parked outside. And besides, the Browning house was a fortress. They probably had an armed guard hiding in the hedges.
“Should I get it?” I asked his expectant stare.
Kaden shrugged. “Mom’s busy, and we’re not allowed to answer the door.”
Not allowed to answer the door felt like a significant statement. Sure, they were small children, but perhaps their mother didn’t want them answering the door for … other reasons?
“Why not?” I innocently asked.
Kaden shrugged his slight shoulders again. “Mom says so.”
I logged the information and headed for the garage door. “Well, we better do what Mom says, then. Come on.”
When we made it back inside, Karli had emerged from the bathroom and was wiping her wet hands on her pants. “All done!” she announced.
“Good for you!” I sang, thankful she’d managed on her own because I had zero idea how to help in any bathroom situation.
I wound my way back to the foyer and looked through the paned glass on either side of the front door as I approached. All I saw was slices of emerald lawn and rose border. I took a breath and told myself to relax, reasoning it was probably one of the other moms dropping by to chat.
“Stay here,” I told the kids and left them at the back of the foyer.
I made it to the front door and turned the knob. It opened to a shocking surprise.
“Brittany!” I blurted.
The young woman from the bookstore and the last person to hold my job stood on the porch with a stack of gifts in her hands. She quickly looked over her shoulder and adjusted her purse’s strap.
“Hi. I know I shouldn’t be here, but I know Melanie is on her bike for the next hour, so I thought now would be safe.” She glanced over her shoulder again.
I noted the patrol SUV had inched forward enough for me to see the nose of it. I had to assume the agent inside had full view of the Brownings’ and my front doors now. I also noted Brittany appeared to have memorized Melanie’s schedule.
Brittany extended the gifts, and I recognized them as the books I had purchased the day before. “I just wanted to drop these off and check you were okay. You dropped them yesterday when that man …” She trailed off and her eyes moved over my shoulder.
“Brittany!” the kids called in unison.
I turned to see the two of them galloping across the foyer with huge smiles on their faces, clearly not having listened to me.
“Hi, you guys!” Brittany sang and crouched with her arms out.
Karli blew straight past me and launched herself at her old nanny. Brittany wrapped her in a hug. “Oh, I miss you already!”
I knew in that moment, which I really had known all along but had never seen it on full display, there were people on the earth who were meant to work with children, and I was not one of them.
Kaden danced around them in a circle, bouncing on his toes like he was waiting his turn for a hug too. Brittany beamed at them both and squeezed them tight. The sight actually made me smile.
My smile snapped out like a light when I heard a voice behind me.
“What’s going on?” Melanie asked.
“Mom! Brittany came back!” Kaden shouted.
Melanie approached with a towel hung around her neck. A light sheen of sweat glistened her brow. She dabbed at it as a tight smile stretched her lips.
“I see that, sweetie, and what a … surprise!” Her laugh was a few degrees above frigid.
I stepped back on reflex.
Brittany set Karli on the ground and smoothed her shirt. “Hi, Melanie. I’m not staying. I just came by to drop something off.” She extended the books. We had crossed into very hot water very quickly.
Any explanation would circle back to a lie I had told to one or the other of them. Plus, I didn’t want to get into the details of why I’d fled the bookstore and left the books behind.
“Oh?” Melanie said with a tilt of her head like she couldn’t wait for the explanation I was rapidly forming in my head.
For a moment, I considered if feigning ignorance was a viable option. Perhaps I could claim I had no idea who Brittany was, and it was all a mistake.
I decided a version of the truth was the safest route.
“Yes,” I said. “I got a gift for the kids yesterday, and I met Brittany. We got to talking and found out we have a lot in common.” I chose my words carefully so as not to call their mother out for firing their nanny in front of her kids. Although, perhaps they already knew.
Melanie eyed the wrapped books, clearly distilling there was more to the story. “And Brittany is … delivering them for you?”
I was skating on a frozen lake, which could crack at any second. I would plunge into the icy black water and drown. I was usually so quick on my feet; lies were second nature. But something about Melanie had me scrambling for the correct thing to say.
Or maybe it wasn’t completely Melanie. Maybe it was because the truth about the day before and the books I had left behind was still too terrifying to fully think about.
“I am,” Brittany chimed in. “We were out of wrapping paper at the store, so I told her I’d bring them over this morning once we got more and I had the chance to wrap them.”
I threw her the sincerest look of gratitude to ever fill my face.
I couldn’t say why she’d covered for me, but I took the pass, and assumed Brittany knew how to behave around Melanie better than I did.
The lie had to be better than explaining I had abandoned the books when I’d been chased out the door.
Melanie’s face held a forced grin as her eyes narrowed. “That’s right, you work at Sweet Briar now, don’t you?” The words because I fired you somehow managed to be silent and deafening at the same time.
“I do,” Brittany said with a tight smile. “Well, I need to get going. It was great to see you guys!” She ruffled Karli’s and Kaden’s hair with each of her hands and turned off the porch.
Luckily, I had the distraction of the gifts to give the kids to avoid the pending awkward confrontation with their mother. I squatted down in front of them and tucked the books behind my back. “Guess what? I got you guys something.”
They both bounced up and down in excitement.
I whipped them out and saw Brittany, bless her, had put a sticker with the right name on the right book. I handed them over to delighted squeals.
“Kids, why don’t you go open your gifts in the playroom,” Melanie said. “Mommy needs to talk to Lauren for a minute.” The tone of her voice sent a chill up my spine. I almost opted to throw myself in the children’s way to stop them from leaving me alone with their mother.
They ran off with their shiny packages like little traitors.
Melanie turned her smile on me. “Can I see you in the kitchen, please?”
I dutifully nodded and followed. The temperature in the granite room seemed to drop when Melanie rounded the massive island to face me.
I stood on the other side, marking the distance to the back doors and wondering how well I could scale a fence with my sore ankle if I needed to make a quick escape.
My mind always prepared for the worst because most of the time, the worst was what I ended up facing. I reminded myself Melanie didn’t know who I was or anything about the man in the bookstore. She probably only wanted to tell me not to talk to Brittany anymore.
“Are you a danger to my family?” she said and caught me completely off guard. She was in her right to question if I was qualified for childcare, but the way she’d said it, the threat in her question, told me she was asking about something else.
“Excuse me?”
Melanie leveled a steady gaze at me and had a look in her eyes I had not seen before.
“Listen. I know you aren’t who you say you are.
I knew you were a plant before I hired you.
I need a new nanny, and a perfect one just drops into my lap at the same time a secret agent starts sniffing around?
I know you are working with him. This welcome wagon bit has only served to reel you in.
Keep your enemies closer, right? I also know you don’t have enough to arrest me, or you would have done it by now.
If I thought you or that agent was a real threat, I wouldn’t have let you in my house. ”
I fought to keep my mouth from falling open and barely succeeded. “Um, I don’t know what you’re—”
Melanie’s lips thinned into a flat line. “I’m not a fool, Lauren. And I know that’s not your name, but I haven’t been able to find your real one. Whatever you’ve got going on, that part is tight.”
I felt as if I’d been punched. I gripped the island so I didn’t fall over and took a step back to steady myself.
“What I don’t know,” Melanie went on, “is if there’s more going on than you trying to infiltrate my life. You’re here for two days and your uncle suddenly dies, you’ve got some kind of secret relationship with my old nanny, you obviously have no experience with children—”
“Hey—” I began to protest, thinking I’d been doing a decent job.
She held up a hand. “I wasn’t finished. There’s also an unmarked car surveilling our street, and you show up to work limping today. It all makes me wonder just what side of the law you are on. Are they forcing you to do this?”