Nanny Needed

by Georgina Cross

  * * *

  —

  Oh, the power of Facebook. Say what you will about social media, but the ability to connect easily through technology absolutely comes in handy, especially at times like this, when you’re looking for a former nanny who now has a very uncommon last name.

  I find her. She’s the only Anna Cewenski listed in the New York area, and just as Malcolm said, she’s recently married. Her profile page is set to public and features a ton of wedding photos: Anna and her new husband posing under trees, in front of altars, and inside gazebos.

  Malcolm is right about something else too. She’s a ringer for Collette. Thin, blond, and pretty. A twenty-something version of Mrs. Bird. I can see how people would have thought they were sisters.

  I start typing. My first message is short and brief: Hi, Anna. My name is Sarah Larsen and I’m a nanny for the Bird family. Can we meet?

  It’s pretty vague, and after sending it, I worry it might have been too vague. She won’t bother answering.

  The weekend goes by without a response.

  I open Facebook Messenger about a hundred times with no success, the days creeping by until I’m concerned she may not have Messenger at all.

  I look her up on LinkedIn. Maybe I can track her at the office instead. But no dice, and I’m back to square one: waiting on Messenger to ding.

  And then it does.

  We can’t talk comes the response.

  That’s it—nothing else.

  While she’s still logged in to Facebook, I type a new message, my thumbs flying across the screen. I don’t want to cause any problems but I’d really like to talk. You’re the only one who understands.

  I throw in: I don’t know what to do.

  It takes a long time for her to respond, and I hold my breath, my phone gripped in my hands, waiting for a new message to appear.

  What comes next is a single line.

  I can’t.

  I want to throw the phone across the room.

  I need help, I tell her. The Birds are crazy, you know that.

  She responds, I’m surprised you’re reaching out. They won’t like it. Please be careful. Don’t let them know you’ve contacted me.

  Anna, I start to write, but she’s already typing a new message.

  They were supposed to stop after me. They said I was the last nanny. I should have known.

  Another message pops up—I’ve got her hooked.

  They wanted me to move in. Kept saying I could be a big sister for Patty.

  Pauline got me out of my contract. Stephen promised they would get Collette proper help. No more pretending. No more nannies.

  I should have known they would lie.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I was in the shower and missed Jonathan’s calls—all nine of them—and now my phone is blowing up again.

  Squeezing the towel against my chest, I pick up. “Jonathan? Are you all right?”

  I hear loud breathing. “Sarah?”

  My stomach clenches at the strain in his voice. “Yes, I’m here. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know…” There’s the sound of more breathing—is he running? He utters words I can’t make out, his mouth pressed against his phone as he speaks.

  “Jonathan, what’s going on?”

  He curses something unintelligible, followed by something crashing as if he’s kicked over or thrown something.

  “Jonathan, you’re freaking me out. Where are you?”

  “I’m heading home.” My breath calms for a second.

  “How far away are you?” I stare at the door. Dropping the towel, I reach for a pair of sweats and a shirt.

  “I’m on Ninth, almost home.” He’s huffing and I can tell he’s on the move, picking up the pace and barreling down the sidewalk.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s bullshit! I lost my job at Allegro.” Allegro is the Italian wine bar his buddy hooked him up with. “They said they found stuff in my locker, but it’s not mine. I swear, Sarah, it’s not. Someone planted it. It’s a setup.”

  “Setup? What stuff? What are you talking about?”

  “Cocaine,” he says.

  There’s a roar in my ears. “Cocaine? How?”

  “Not how,” Jonathan says, “but why? It doesn’t make sense. Why would someone put that inside my locker?” Something else crashes in the background and I think he’s smashed a trash can.

  A dizziness shoots through my head. With my hand against my temple, I ask, “What makes you think someone did this on purpose?”

  “There was a guy in the restaurant earlier, a table by the window. He had all kinds of files and was meeting with someone, spreading out these drawings. Some architecture firm. It’s got to be them—”

  “It’s got to be who?”

  “The Birds!” he shouts. “Do you think they know you told me?”

  I stop in my tracks. “What did the man look like?”

  “Young. Our age.”

  Okay, so not Mr. Bird. Maybe Stephen?

  “Short. Blond curly hair.”

  Okay, not Stephen.

  “They were at the table for an hour or more. Never ate, only drank. It wasn’t my table so I didn’t talk to them, but I know the family you work for are in commercial real estate. The Bird firm—”

  “Did I tell you that? I don’t remember saying that.”

  “You didn’t have to, I looked them up. Their company owns a ton of properties around the city. It’s too much of a coincidence, Sarah. Alex screaming at you like that. Think about it. You tell me their big secret. We track down Anna. Then somehow cocaine mysteriously appears in my locker the same night someone from a property firm visits the new restaurant I’m working at? It’s them! They know.”

  Panic seizes my heart.

  “Somehow they’re on to you—on to us. They’re trying to scare us.”

  I hear a slam of the building’s main door, followed by the distinct hollow sound of footsteps beating in a stairwell.

  Jonathan’s almost to our apartment door.

  The key rattles and the door swings open. He drops his phone to his pocket and I hang up too.

  “They wouldn’t punish you, only me.”

  “I made some calls,” he admits. “After you told me what happened, I couldn’t let it slide. I knew I needed to find out more about this family.”

  My eyes bolt open. “Who did you call?”

  “People at their firm. The front desk at Bird and Associates.”

  “Why?”

  “To find out what they know about the family.”

  I want to cover my ears.

  “What did you think they would say?” I ask. “Oh yeah, sure, our boss is a nutjob? The man who pays my salary is a complete psycho? His whole family too?” I throw out my hands. “Jesus, Jonathan. There’s a gag order. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you and now you’re calling their office?”

  Jonathan lets a rush of air fall from his mouth. “I was discreet about it. Come on, Sarah, give me some credit. I posed as a reporter wanting to write about the man behind this massive firm—”

  “And you didn’t think that would get back to him? That people wouldn’t say there’s a reporter asking around for background?”

  “I was only trying to help.” He marches to the sink and fills a glass with water. He gulps the water down steadily.

  My fingers claw anxiously at my sides. Someone at the firm must have tracked his calls. They know who Jonathan is, that he is not a reporter but my fiancé, which means they know I’ve spilled. I’ve told him everything—broken my end of the contract.

  I went to work today and sat beside Collette. Played game after game of Chutes and Ladders with Patty. I thought I’d been in the clear, the police phone calls and toy st
ore complaints handled and contained, at least for now.

  But all afternoon, Alex must have been digging into Jonathan.

  Still, would he really go so far as to track him down at a restaurant and have someone slip drugs into his locker?

  And now Jonathan’s been fired. Even worse, they could arrest him.

  My heart leaps. “What about the manager? Did he say he was going to press charges?”

  “No, thank God. He took the coke and is probably using it himself, that shitbag.”

  “Jesus,” I breathe again. I can’t stop shaking.

  Is this what Mr. Bird intended? Besides getting him fired, did he also hope to send Jonathan to jail and leave me alone, even more isolated and scared?

  I’ll do everything in my power to protect my family, he’d said. He meant it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Stephen finds me the next day. He corners me near the parlor so I can’t get by.

  “This is a shit show,” he says. “We never had this many problems with the other nannies. Hell, Therese lasted fifteen years without so much as a hitch.”

  I suck in a ragged breath. I’m on two hours of sleep, the very thought of returning to the Birds this morning setting my teeth on edge. Jonathan had barely slept either.

  “That disaster with my stepmother…and now”—he gives me a hard look—“the mess you’re caught up in.” He leans in close. “I heard about your fiancé, Jonathan.”

  My eyes snap open, a bitter taste forming in my mouth.

  “I’d watch out for a guy like that.” He wags a finger. “Drugs? Not something you want to get caught up in.”

  Goosebumps flare up and down my arms.

  “He’s damn lucky they didn’t call the police and have him arrested. That much cocaine?” He whistles. “That’s a serious offense.”

  I can’t breathe. My voice comes out in a whisper, my heart beating an erratic drum. “Why would you do that?”

  Stephen holds up his hands. “Wait, now, hold on. What are you suggesting, exactly? Your fiancé is the one you should be worried about. We just heard about it,” he says. “We have eyes and ears everywhere. Someone told us. I’d be very careful what you accuse us of, if I were you.”

  He leaves me standing alone, my knees shaking.

  * * *

  —

  At home, Jonathan is sitting at the table with his laptop; an empty coffeepot on the burner, and a can of Red Bull tossed in the recycling bin.

  He’s hunched at the computer, jaw tightened, and bearing the look of someone who isn’t backing down.

  I slide my bag to the floor. His stubbornness, his drive to fix what’s wrong, his fierce need to protect us are usually among the many things I love about him.

  But I don’t know if he can fix this. I don’t think he understands how much danger we could be getting ourselves into.

  “That second nanny,” he says, quickly scrolling the mouse. “The one who lasted all those years?”

  “Yes.”

  “I found something.”

  I head directly for the fridge and find a beer. Something to calm me.

  “You said her name was Therese, right?” He squints at his laptop. “They told you she died?”

  I step closer to the table, an unsettled feeling blooming in my chest.

  “It took me a long time,” he says, “but I found it. Police blotters and city reports. A listing of car accidents from several years ago. A woman who was struck down by a cab at West End Avenue and Seventy-second.” He looks up. “That’s five or six blocks from the Bird place, right?” I nod. “She stepped out while the traffic light was still green and a cab hit her traveling more than fifty miles an hour. There were witnesses. Several people were interviewed, including two women who had been walking with her.” I feel a rise building in my stomach. “One of the women is named in the article. Collette Bird.”

  His eyes shoot up to meet mine. “She said, quote, ‘It was a horrible accident and it happened so quickly.’ Another woman, who they don’t identify except to say she is an employee of Collette Bird—” It must be Pauline. “The other woman says, ‘The cabdriver was going too fast.’ ”

  Jonathan scans a few more lines. “But another bystander told police they thought something didn’t seem right. Quote, ‘The woman was walking ahead of me, but then she fell to one side as if she’d been shoved.’ ” I swallow the beer down, hard. “This gentleman, unfortunately, isn’t identified. Other people told police they couldn’t confirm she’d been shoved since they only noticed her after the accident.”

  I take another gulp of my beer. As I sit in the chair opposite Jonathan, one phrase repeats in my head: as if she’d been shoved.

  “Police reviewed security cameras,” Jonathan continues, “but there were too many people on the street and they covered what happened.”

  Why didn’t Pauline tell me this part? When she’d told me Therese died, why didn’t she tell me she and Collette had both been walking with her when it happened? Why leave that part out?

  They were there. They saw everything.

  She lied to me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Collette is crying in the hall, a ghostly sound. It echoes off the walls and travels mournfully down the corridor. Her sobs pause before picking up again. A hollow wail. She sounds like a wounded creature.

  I poke my head out from behind the door. I’ve been in Patty’s bedroom arranging the books as Collette requested. She wants them in alphabetical order. “That way,” Collette told me, “when Patty asks for a book, I’ll know exactly where to find it.”

  Pauline and Collette had been in the living room cutting up pieces of craft paper for Patty’s birthday party. The image of Collette wielding another pair of scissors is something I could do without, and I’m glad to be in another room. But today something has gone wrong.

  Her cries send a tingle down the back of my neck.

  I step cautiously out into the hall.

  Collette is no longer in her jeans and blouse; she’s wearing a white nightgown.

  The silk material is so thin I can see her ribs sticking out, the small roundness of her breasts, and the oblong nipples pressed against the fabric. She’s barefoot, her hair swinging past her shoulders, her face bare and wiped clean since I saw her less than an hour ago. Her eyelashes, naked and blond-white, disappear against her eyelids. She’s cried the makeup straight off her face.

  The cut marks on her body are healing. Several of the longer, zigzagged slashes down her arms are turning pink. I can’t see her belly, but I’m confident there are slash marks there too.

  Someone walks up behind her, and I think at first that it’s Pauline, here to shush Collette and escort her to bed. But it’s not the housekeeper. The long, quick strides belong to a man.

  “Collette,” Mr. Bird says and he spins her around. “You must get ahold of yourself.”

  But Collette’s voice only drips with accusation. “You…” she says, pointing a manicured finger in his face. “Why won’t you spend time with Patty?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “You never play with her. You’re always working. And now look at you.” She beats her small fists against his chest as he stands still. “You’re home from work for once and you won’t even visit the playroom. She wants to show you the party decorations.” More sobs erupt. “She’s so excited, Alex.”

  He pulls away. “I have to get going.”

  “But she’s so excited,” Collette repeats, wiping her tears. “Why won’t you give her five minutes—just five minutes, that’s all. You used to give her so much time…” Her voice begins to fade. “Remember that, Alex? After she was born. Remember those days?”

  But Mr. Bird sounds weary. A tenderness takes hold in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Collette. I’ve got to go.”

  Sh
e stares at him, then laughs, heartbreak and tears mixed in with the sound. “Why bother? You’ve broken my heart, Patty’s too. She’s hiding in her playroom now, crying. See what you’ve done?”

  Mr. Bird turns his back and leaves her in the hall.

  She looks pitiful—lost and alone in this massive apartment. My heart tugs and I step out from behind the door.

  She turns to me, tears falling down her cheeks and running to her neck, a drop seeping against her gown and spreading a quarter-size stain above her breast, a wet mark against the white. She reaches her arms for me.

  “Oh, Sarah,” she says. “Thank goodness you’re here.”

  * * *

  —

  “Do you think someone pushed Therese?”

  My eyes whip around to Jonathan. He’s tossing his keys on the side table, the door closing behind him.

  “I can’t stop thinking about it,” he insists. “Something’s not adding up right.”

  I can’t stop wondering about it too, but I’m thinking we should just drop it. I don’t have that much longer with this job and we should get through it the easiest way possible, instead of digging into the past. We’ve already had enough problems with the Birds.

  “We don’t know if that’s what happened.”

  “What? Just like we don’t think they put coke in my locker?”

  My face startles.

  “And something else that bugs me, the way their daughter died.”

  “It was a tragedy, Jonathan. Nothing more.”

  “I’ve talked to a few of their neighbors,” he says.

  My heart freezes.

  “You went to their apartment?”

  “I wanted to find someone who knew Patty when she was alive.”