“Oh, that?” he said, downplaying it. “I read something about hackers figuring out those codes. FaceID is really the most secure, and since I use mobile banking, figured better safe than sorry.”
He didn’t stick around for more questions, she remembered that clearly. Instead, he offered a weak smile before slipping off into another room of the house, his phone naturally clutched in his hand.
Bastard.
Signs.
Natalie was on the lookout for them when she entered her home. She was pleased to see everything was as it should be, which was to be expected given the skill of her nanny. The kids had been fed. The dinner cleanup was done. The dishes had been washed and put away, counters wiped down. The children were in their bedrooms for reading time, a weeknight ritual that usually required an equal number of minutes reading as were spent cajoling them into the activity.
Of course it was Natalie who had found and hired the nanny, did the background checks and such. Michael didn’t even offer to help with the search, and his only comment after meeting her (and this “her” happened to be a lithe, quite attractive twenty-four-year-old woman of Swedish and Scottish descent) was to say she was the embodiment of every sexy nanny cliché. He’d made that remark years before he’d given Natalie so many reasons not to trust him, and now she found herself eyeing her hire with a hint of suspicion.
Her name was Scarlett, which was just as bad as the name Audrey in Natalie’s book—assuming “bad” meant provocative. Scarlett seemed to take note of Natalie’s lingering stare that evening, a look she clearly found unnerving.
“Is everything all right?” Scarlett asked. Her voice had a smoky, sultry appeal—an alluring resonance that Natalie hadn’t noticed before. Suddenly, as if her own mind were attacking her, Natalie conjured a mental image of Scarlett on the floor of the living room where they both now stood, with Michael on top of her, panting and thrusting. A queasy feeling came over her, but she pushed the image away and composed herself.
“Yes, everything is fine,” said Natalie, opening her pocketbook. Normally there’d be a friendly debrief after a long day, and she’d give Scarlett a chance to recap the events, but Natalie wasn’t going to offer her that opportunity—not today. She had the cash already presorted in the billfold of her wallet, so it was a quick exchange, which judging by the look in Scarlett’s eyes might have felt a little rude. Natalie didn’t care. She couldn’t shake the vision of Michael grunting on top of her nanny, and she needed the woman out of her house stat. Even if there were no truth behind the fantasy, any attractive female now felt like a threat.
“Are you sure everything is all right?” Scarlett asked tentatively as she took the money without counting it. She stuffed the bills into the front pocket of her jeans—tight-fitting dark jeans that showed off her curves, Natalie keenly observed.
“It’s fine. I’m just tired, that’s all.” Michael isn’t the only one around here adept at lying. “Thank you, Scarlett.”
“Will you need me extra hours this week?”
Natalie finally caught herself. Scarlett had always been tried and true, helping her for years, and Natalie had no reason to be suspicious of her. It was Michael who should be on guard, not poor Scarlett.
“I’ll let you know,” Natalie said. She gave Scarlett’s arm a gentle squeeze as if to say all was right between them. In her grip she felt the nanny’s well-defined tricep muscle, and remembered that she, like Michael, was big into the gym. Suddenly, Natalie found her graciousness taking a minor detour. “I’ll go up and check on the children. You can see yourself out,” she said.
Upstairs, after saying a quick hello to Addie, Natalie entered Bryce’s bedroom. Lying on his bed, she rubbed her son’s back while she finished reading him the story he’d started on his own. She tried not to think of Michael driving away from that McDonald’s, following Audrey’s car out of the parking lot, but twice she lost her place in a kid’s book.
When Bryce was sleepy enough to drift off, she headed back into Addie’s room, which had recently been decorated with LED lights. The room glowed purple as if it were a Euro nightclub. Worried the mood lighting would strain her daughter’s eyes, Natalie turned on a bedside lamp without first asking permission. She didn’t look about as she might have done normally, didn’t check out the magnetic board Michael had hung on the wall, which Addie often adorned with handwritten notes, musings that offered insight into her world, her way of thinking.
Instead, Natalie got right down to business with a slew of questions: “Is your homework done? Did you have enough to eat? What’s on your agenda for tomorrow? Did you need my help studying for that spelling test? What about the belt to your dance costume, did you find it? I’m not buying another one, just so you know.”
Addie adopted a defensive posture in response to the onslaught, arms folded across her chest, eye contact broken, and it took a moment for Natalie to realize she was doing to her daughter what she’d done to poor Scarlett. Fighting off a sting of regret, Natalie kissed Addie on the top of her head, inhaling her fragrant scent, and told her to turn off the light when she was done reading. She was in the middle of I Am Malala, a selection Natalie had bragged about to Tina.
“I didn’t suggest it. Addie picked it out all on her own.”
Tina, who’d had her children earlier in life, wasn’t overly impressed. She been through the “Everything they do is a miracle phase” and was entering the “I don’t think I love my husband anymore” time of her life. Natalie had always assumed she’d avoid Tina’s marital travails because she and Michael were excellent communicators and great friends, too. Now she wondered if she’d been wearing blinders for the entirety of their marriage.
Addie said, “I got in trouble today at school because I didn’t have my field trip form. Now I’m not sure I can go.”
Natalie knew all about the scheduled trip to a mill-turned-museum because she’d signed that form along with a check for the required ten-dollar fee. Students were to learn about factory life during the industrial revolution, and Addie was looking forward to the experience in part because one of her American Girl dolls was from that era.
“What are you talking about?” Natalie said, adopting the same folded arm posture her daughter had moments ago. “I put the form and check in your backpack. I told you all that this morning.”
“It wasn’t there when I went to get it,” Addie said, tears coming to her eyes, poor thing.