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.