Twenty-eight Years Earlier
“Did you see that?” Jessica, aka “the New Maid,” nudged Lena, the cook, who was the closest thing she had to a friend in the Tiesman household, and pointed into the dining room, where the family was getting up from dinner.
“What?” Lena was distracted, trying to clean the plates, but the baby’s wailing turned her attention to the dining room. “What happened?”
“That little shit just pinched her.”
“What, the baby?”
Jessica was instantly incensed. “Yes, that’s why she’s crying. He thought no one was looking, and I watched him do it! Jesus, she’s not having food allergies or any other reaction. She’s being abused by that kid!” She shook her head and tried to resist the urge to go in and beat the crap out of him in front of his parents. “Son of a bitch.”
“She’s not a bitch, she’s lovely.”
As if on cue, Ingrid Tiesman went to little Prinny and swooped her into her arms. The child settled quickly, but Jessica could see the angry red spot as if it were throbbing.
Then, almost worse, she saw the little smile on Leif’s face.
It was disgusting.
“Aren’t you supposed to be clearing the dishes?” Lena asked. “And not gawking and judging?”
“I don’t wanna go anywhere near the kid.”
“It’s your job. And I can’t finish my job until you bring them in. So get on it.”
“In a minute.” She watched the scene before her.
Ingrid took Prinny toward the stairs, stopping, for a moment, to let her husband give the baby a kiss. She had quieted by then; the pleasant little thing was even smiling, despite the fact that tears still rested on her cheeks. She always rallied, that one. Such a good, easy baby. Such a contrast to her brother.
“Do you want me to take her up to bed?” the boy asked, approaching his stepmother and sister. Jessica couldn’t tell if the gleam she saw in his eyes was real or just something she imagined because she expected it.
And the poor baby reached for him! Actually reached for him! Her tormentor, yet her little eyes lit up when she saw him, like he was a movie star or something. It was horrible.
“I’ve got to stop this.” Jessica started for the dining room, but Lena stopped her.
“That is not your job.”
“Fuck my job.” Jessica bustled into the room. “Leif, did you drop something?”
“No.” He was reaching for Prinny, but it didn’t look like Ingrid was going to give her up. Thank goodness. Ingrid was no dink; she knew her stepson was a monster. No one could miss it, for Pete’s sake! He was mean as a snake, through and through.
“I thought I saw something glinting under your seat,” Jessica went on, searching frantically for anything that might explain it. There was nothing, but at least she’d interrupted whatever his intentions were toward his poor little sister.
It wasn’t only what he’d just done; that was icing on the proverbial cake. A cake he would happily have put snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails—along with a good measure of snot—into. In fact, he had put toothpaste in the middle of select Oreos in a package; that had been a delightful discovery. And the time he’d stolen the neighbor’s cat and kept it in a plastic grocery bag for two days before being discovered? Even though that could have ended much worse, Jessica was pretty sure the cat left with a haunted look it hadn’t had before.
She’d heard tell of other things he did in the neighborhood—cruelty to small animals, mostly—though she’d never been able to catch him. She believed the stories of other children, but it wasn’t enough to convince the parents to get him to a psychiatrist.
People saw what they wanted to see, but even more than that, people managed to not see what they really didn’t want to see. And while it seemed like Mrs. Tiesman might have some awareness that things weren’t right with the kid, she was very kind and supported her husband in his determined efforts to make this family strong and happy.
Jessica was one hundred percent sure that was never going to happen.
“So I thought you might have dropped something you needed,” Jessica went on, finishing lamely.
He turned and glared at her. “I’m going to put my sister to bed.” He looked back at the baby. “Come on, Prinny Princess,” he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm.
Jessica looked at Mrs. Tiesman with a tight smile.
Ingrid Tiesman seemed to get it. “It’s all right, Leif. I need to change her anyway. You know how you feel about that.”
Everyone who had seen—and especially those who’d had to clean—the soiled diapers he’d taken out of the Diaper Genie and smashed to the wall when they first brought Prinny home knew how he felt about that.
Ingrid ruffled his hair and swept out of the room, Prinny safely in her arms.
She didn’t see—as Jessica had—the look of sheer, unadulterated hatred he had shot at them as they left.
“Listen to me,” Jessica hissed in his ear. “I saw what you did, you little shit. You pinched Prinny and made her cry. You’ve been doing that all along, all over her body, making your poor parents mad with worry over what is wrong with her.”
“They’re not my parents.” He gave her a cold look, then opened his mouth and began to wail a fake cry, but she instinctively slapped her hand over his mouth.
“Do it and you will be sorry.” Her anger was such that it took him aback. She could see the fear flicker momentarily through his eyes. “I swear it.” She took her hand off his mouth slowly, ready to clap it back if he made one peep.
A moment passed in which he leveled that flinty gaze on her.
A gaze, she knew, that would probably someday make doomed girls swoon. Doomed girls loved assholes, and this kid was going to be the king of them.
“You bitch,” he said, then literally spat in her face.
She slapped him, hard, a reflex she couldn’t stop.
And with that one move, she knew her job was over. He was sure to tell, and even if he didn’t, she’d have to because she was not going to keep secrets in conjunction with this little heathen. There was just no way.
So she went up to her room to pack her things. He was probably reporting on her right now, showing his red skin and crying his icy blue eyes out. She was going to be kicked out quickly and soundly.
But she wanted to warn Ingrid Tiesman what she was dealing with. She wanted to tell her about Leif pinching Prinny, and hurting animals, and even the part about messing with the food. She assumed it was only toothpaste in the Oreos, but it wasn’t like she’d eaten a bunch to be sure. That could have masked any number of other things, and there was not one thing she’d put past Leif Tiesman.
Eleven years old and she wouldn’t put it past him to actually try to kill someone.
But what authority did she have to say anything? She was a maid. Not a childcare expert, not the nanny; she wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with the children at all. She was just the busybody who had something to say about something that was none of her business.
Honestly, now that Jessica was thinking about this, even if she wasn’t fired, she’d be afraid to stay in the house one more night. She’d unleashed something in the boy, and he knew that she knew it was out there. She wasn’t safe anywhere near him.
She took out the spiral notebook she used as a diary and began to write her letter of resignation.