Unfortunately, Baker’s not lettingmeoff the hook, either. She advances, holding her little spiral notebook out in front of her like a Taser. I take a tentative step in retreat. The air has chilled a few degrees. David advances, falling into step behind the detective.
“She’s just the nanny. She doesn’t know anything,” he says. “Fiona was drunk and being ridiculous. It was nothing serious.”
Baker gives David a sidelong glance. She’s not buying it, and now I’m all revved up.Just the nanny, my ass!Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about disclosing last night’s tumult. I may not be experienced at my job or entirely truthful about it, but I am working hard to care for this man’s children. You’d think he’d show some respect.
“We all had some drinks,” he adds. “But whatever Fiona and I were arguing about, it wasn’t important enough for me to even remember.”
“But it was loud enough for others to overhear it,” Baker counters. “So, Just the Nanny,” she continues, “I assume you go by another name.”
Her smile is meant to be disarming, but I remain on edge. I tell her my full name, Isabelle Rebecca Greene, and that I’m called Izzyfor short, without mentioning the Frizzy Izzy nickname that’s followed me since middle school. Then I wait for the worst, consumed by an irrational fear that Baker is going to call my mother, who will demand I come home.
She asks for my ID, but that’s up in my room and Baker would rather keep talking.
“What do you think happened to Fiona?” she inquires.
I sense no prejudgment in her question. She’s inviting me to be open, but David’s cold stare could turn me to stone. I might as well have “She knows more than she’s telling” emblazoned across my forehead.
“Well, Fiona did drink a lot last night,” I croak. My knees feel weak. My legs are as sturdy as pipe cleaners.
“That much I gather,” says Baker. “And you heard a fight but didn’t hear what it was about?”
I nod, though not emphatically.
“Anything else?” Baker sounds hopeful. “Did you see anything unusual? Something to explain where Fiona might have gone or what could have happened to her?”
In typical Izzy fashion, without thinking, I vomit out the unvarnished truth: “She was pretty wild, kind of out of control. She came on to Lucas.”
“Who is Lucas?” Baker asks.
“Lucas?” shouts David in disbelief. “Like, the kid next door, that Lucas?” He appears dumbfounded.
A shiver of fear slips down my spine. I should have kept my mouth shut. I don’t know where I got the knee-jerk reaction gene, but it keeps getting in my way.
Baker interrogates me with her eyes. “And what exactly happened between Fiona and this boy next door—Lucas?” she asks.
I don’t want to be involved in this, but I lie only when absolutely necessary. “I was up on the deck last night after I put the kids to bed, and I saw Fiona and Lucas kissing on his patio,” I confess.
“What do you mean, you saw Lucas and Fiona kissing?”
The new voice draws my attention to the front door. It’s Taylor.My breath catches in my throat when I see that Julia and Lucas’s mother, Erika, have also entered the house at the perfect time to hear my story.
Taylor goes pale, covering her mouth with her hand. Julia stands in stunned silence. But if looks could kill, Erika’s would be inflicting bloody carnage.
Chapter 15
Julia
Julia spun on her heels, but wasn’t quick enough to stop Taylor, who fled out the door. In a flash, her daughter was gone.
At least David’s massive windows were useful for something. She could watch her daughter’s rapid retreat back to the house.
Everyone was understandably surprised about the Lucas and Fiona bombshell, but why would Taylor care who Lucas was kissing? If anyone should be in a tizzy, it would be Erika, who just found out her child (still technically a teenager) was locking lips with a much older woman. And who knows what else they did?
Julia knew of no romantic history between Taylor and Lucas. So why was her daughter acting like a jilted lover? When the answer finally came to Julia, it was so obvious that she felt foolish and, even worse, like a bad mother. She had it all wrong from the start. Taylor didn’t reject Lucas—it must have been the other way around.
She’d been so self-absorbed, the endless heap of financial worries piling up like snow in a blizzard, that she’d overlooked what would have been apparent to anybody with a drip of common sense. Taylor and Lucas had a secret romance, and her daughter got burned. That had to be it.
Did this romance blossom on the college tour? Was there a big fight? Something else?
