by Paula Graves
“I understand.” She took the card. “I know there’s not much to go on.”
“You might want to call a friend to drive back to Virginia with you,” he suggested. “So you’re not out there alone.”
She nodded even though she knew there was nobody she could call. Her work had been the center of her life for the past ten years, to the point that it consumed her life almost entirely. The low pay and bad hours paying her dues on the local level, then the big move to the occasional national gig and, finally, a regular investigative slot on a national network—all those steps up the career ladder had taken a big toll on the rest of her life.
She’d always thought there would be time later, time to rebuild friendships and family ties that had suffered during her upward climb.
Now Katie was all she had left, and she had absolutely no idea how to be a mother to her sister’s child.
“Do you think it could be connected to the bombing?” she asked Braun as he started toward the conference-room door.
He stopped and looked at her. “It’s possible. But this attack seems pretty random.”
“Someone set a bomb in my car. My sister and her husband were killed because they borrowed it. Maybe you remember that bombing—Marianne and Toby Harper? Ring any bells? And now, two weeks later, I’m accosted at gunpoint. I’m not sure I’d call that random.”
Braun looked both sympathetic and frustrated. “I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. You may be right. It may be connected. I plan to make a call to the DC police and compare notes with the lead detective in the bombing case. Maybe we can come up with a more solid connection.”
As he left the room, Lacey tucked Katie closer, breathing in the warm scent of powder and baby shampoo. Meanwhile, she thought, Katie and I are sitting ducks.
* * *
“AND YOU’RE SURE you didn’t make out anything about the license plates?” Detective Marty Ridge stifled a yawn.
“No,” Jim answered, trying not to let his impatience show. If he’d seen a license plate, he’d have described it in detail. But the plate on the green Chevy van had been obscured with mud. Probably on purpose. He couldn’t even be sure whether they were Maryland or Virginia plates.
“Well, we’ll have to hope the weapon gives us something to go on,” Ridge said in a tone that suggested Jim’s testimony was going to be no help at all.
Jim stifled a grimace of annoyance and glanced down the table at Lacey Miles and her niece. The little girl was fussing despite her aunt’s attempt to soothe her. From the expression on Lacey’s face, she didn’t know how to comfort the child, which made him wonder just how much she knew about taking care of a baby.
“Call if you think of anything else.” Rising, Ridge handed Jim his card, but from the look on his face, it was something he did out of habit rather than any real hope that Jim could add anything to the investigation.
After Ridge left, Jim walked to where Lacey sat. Katie looked up at him and her pout turned into a smile. Something inside him melted as the little girl held out her arms to him.
“No, Katie. Mr. Mercer has to go now.” The smile Lacey flashed in his direction was halfhearted at best.
“Actually, I have an appointment here. A job interview.”
“Oh.” Lacey’s sandy brows lifted slightly as she looked him up and down. He quelled the urge to squirm a little at her scrutiny, even though her gaze seemed as sharp as that of any drill sergeant he’d ever faced during an inspection. “Well, good luck.”
“Thanks.” He left the room, his steps faltering briefly when Katie began to cry. As he closed the door behind him, he heard Lacey’s soft murmurs of comfort, and he wondered if the little girl would be appeased.
At the front office, he gave his name to the receptionist, apologizing for being late and explaining the situation.
“You’re lucky,” the woman said with a friendly smile. “Your appointment is late, too.”
He glanced back toward the conference room, where he’d left Lacey Miles and her little niece. “I know.”
* * *
THE EMPLOYMENT OFFICE MANAGER was a tall, sharp-eyed brunette with the bone structure of a model named Ellen Taylor. She wore a sleek blue suit that fit her angular body to perfection, and her voice was inflectionless and polished. “I’m so sorry for your ordeal, Ms. Miles.” She spared a brief smile for Katie, but she was clearly not someone who had much experience with small children.
Join the club, Lacey thought. “I hate that I’ve kept the prospective nanny waiting.”
“It’s not a problem,” Ellen assured her. “Are you ready?”
Lacey glanced at her own rumpled suit and Katie’s tear-streaked face. She sighed. So much for a good first impression. “Sure.”
“Good. Before we start, how do you want to handle this? Do you want me to sit in or do you want to handle the interview yourself?”
If she thought Ellen Taylor knew anything about babies or nannies, she might have asked her to stay. But she might as well go into this interview the way she’d continue after she hired someone—clueless and needy.
Besides, she was a professional reporter. She’d interviewed presidents, prime ministers and kings, as well as rebels and terrorists. If she couldn’t handle asking a prospective nanny a few pointed questions, what kind of reporter was she?
“Very well. I’ll let you handle it, and then when you’re done, you can tell me whether you want to interview any other prospects.” Ellen left the room in a faint cloud of Chanel No. 5.
“Oh, wait—” Lacey began, but the door had already clicked shut behind the woman. “Damn it.”
She’d forgotten to ask for a résumé beforehand. She’d planned her early arrival so she could do a quick read through the potential nanny’s employment history so she could ask intelligent questions. No reporter liked to go into an interview blind.
“Oh well,” she murmured against Katie’s cheek. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough if we’ve found our own Mary Poppins.”
There was a quiet knock on the conference-room door.
“Come in,” Lacey said, taking a deep breath to calm her sudden rattle of nerves and pasting a smile on her face.
The door opened and Jim Mercer entered, a faint smile on his face. “Hello, again.”
“Oh. It’s you.” Her smile faded. “Did you forget something?”
“Actually, no.” He smiled at Katie, who reached out for him again. “Hey there, sweetie.”
Lacey tugged her niece closer. “I hate to seem rude, considering how you came to our rescue, but I don’t really have time to talk. I’m about to conduct a job interview.”
Jim pulled out the chair across from her and sat. “I know. I’m the one you’re interviewing.”
Chapter Two
Lacey Miles stared at Jim a moment, her only reaction a slight narrowing of her eyes. Otherwise, she maintained a pretty impressive poker face. “I see.”
When she said nothing more, he asked, “Is that a problem? Ms. Taylor said you had specified that you had no issues with hiring a male caretaker.”
“I don’t,” she said bluntly in a tone that suggested just the opposite.
“You seem as if you’ve been blindsided.”
Her lips curved in a faint, perfunctory smile. “I guess I have been, in a way. I didn’t have a chance to look over your credentials or even get your name. I just wasn’t expecting a man.”
“Oh.”
“I’m in a hurry to make a hire, you see,” she added quickly, as if she realized what she’d just admitted made her sound ill prepared. “I haven’t had much luck since I sent my request to Ellen. In fact, you’re the first person who’s even applied for the job.”
He was pretty sure he knew why. The story about the car bomb that had been meant for her—the one tha
t had killed her sister and brother-in-law instead—had made the national news. There weren’t a lot of wannabe nannies willing to walk into a situation like that.
“Anyway, best-laid plans and all that.” Lacey breathed a soft sigh. “So tell me about yourself.”
“I’m thirty-four years old. I spent a decade in the Marine Corps, and then over the next four years, I went to college and earned a degree in early-childhood education.”
“Really? First a Marine, now a nanny?” That piece of information seemed to pique her interest.
“I’d eventually like to run my own day-care center,” he said, wondering if she’d believe it.
“What sort of experience with child care do you have?”
“I raised my younger siblings from the age of fifteen. My father was a police officer who died in the line of duty, and my mother had to go back to work. I had three younger siblings, ages two through eleven. I was their full-time caregiver until my mother remarried shortly after I turned eighteen. At that time, I joined the Marine Corps.”
“That’s your most recent child-care experience?”
“After college, I worked a couple of years as a nanny for a family in Kentucky.” He slid his résumé across the table to her. “Their contact information is on my résumé.”
She set Katie on the floor and picked up the paper. After a few minutes silently reading what was written there, she put the paper down and looked up at him, her gray eyes narrowed. “Assuming your references check out, how quickly can you start work?”
“As soon as you hire me.”
“What about the family you were working for? You don’t need to give them any notice?”
“No. Mrs. Beckett decided she was missing too much of her children’s lives by working in an office, so she took a job that enables her to work from home. So I’m back in the job market.”
“I see.”
She fell silent again, her gaze wandering back to the résumé, as if she might find something new written in the words on the page. What was she looking for? Jim wondered. A reason to hire him?
Or a reason not to?
A tug on his pants leg drew his attention. Katie stood at his knee, her gray eyes gazing up at him with curiosity. When she saw him looking, her little face spread into a big grin.
“Hey there, Katiebug.”
At the sound of his voice, she lifted her arms.
“May I?” He looked at Lacey for permission to pick up the child.
“Sure.”
He picked up Katie and set her on his knee. She grew instantly intrigued by his blue-striped tie, her fingers playing with the fabric. He couldn’t hold back a smile, which she returned with a giggle.
She was at a very cute age, just a shade past two. Pretty steady on her feet, starting to build her vocabulary, curious about everything that crossed her path—she had probably already started becoming a handful before her parents suddenly and tragically disappeared from her life, leaving her in the care of her aunt.
Her aunt, who was a single woman with a high-powered, very public career. Earlier, he’d wondered just how much Lacey Miles knew about taking care of a small child. He was becoming more and more certain she was clueless. No wonder she was desperate to hire a nanny.
“Katie likes you,” she said. “A point in your favor.”
“Ms. Taylor said you needed a live-in nanny. Does that mean you’ll be going back to work soon?”
Lacey’s sandy brow notched upward. “What makes you think I haven’t been working?”
“I haven’t seen you on air. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you weren’t working behind the scenes.” It wouldn’t do for her to realize just how much he already knew about her. She was already on edge as it was, and the attack this afternoon had only made things worse for her.
It had been a brazen attack, during daylight and out in the open. Although, if he hadn’t happened to be walking down that alley when he had, it might have been very easy for her attacker to kill her outright or carry her and the child away in the van that had been waiting for him.
The big question was why. Why had someone gone after her today? Why had someone set a bomb under her car a couple of weeks ago?
Just how much danger were she and her niece really in?
“I guess you know why I have custody of my niece now. I’m all she has. Both sets of grandparents are dead, and Toby didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
He nodded. “I’m very sorry about your sister and your brother-in-law.”
“They were killed in my car.” She spoke as if she had to force the words from her lips. She was clearly dealing with some pretty hefty guilt about her sister’s death. And he gave her points for being honest about the threat hanging over her head, too, even though it might be enough to scare a prospective nanny away in a heartbeat.
“If you’re trying to tell me there might be a little danger involved in this job, I’d already gathered that much before I ever agreed to apply for the job.”
Her sharp gaze met his. “And yet, here you are. Even after you had to chase away another attack on us just today.”
“I did mention I was a Marine, didn’t I?”
For the first time since they’d met, a genuine smile touched the edges of Lacey’s lips. “You did.”
“Danger doesn’t impress me the way it might someone else.”
“I’m not asking you to be a bodyguard,” she said sharply. “I don’t need a security detail. I think that would probably make things worse, not better.”
He wasn’t sure why she felt that way, but he didn’t want to start asking questions that would make her even more reluctant to hire him. “I’m just saying, I’m not afraid to work for you. If you think I’ll suit your needs.”
She gave him another long, sharp-eyed look. “You’d have to live with Katie and me at my late sister’s farmhouse in Cherry Grove, Virginia. It’s a small town about a forty-minute drive from here in Frederick. The house isn’t completely renovated, but enough has been done for it to be a comfortable place to live.” Her voice faded for a moment, and what was left of her faint smile disappeared completely, swallowed by a look of hard grief. “Marianne and Toby were hoping to have it finished by this summer, but they ran out of time.”
Jim felt a dart of sympathy. “Were they living there when they died?”
Lacey shook her head. “No. Why?”
“I was just wondering why you choose to live there instead of in DC. I thought maybe it was to make things easier for Katie. Not wanting to take her away from the home she knows—”
“No, that’s not it. Just the opposite, actually. See, I was keeping Katie at my apartment when... That night. Marianne and Toby were celebrating their wedding anniversary. New Year’s Eve.” Lacey’s lip trembled briefly before she brought her emotions under control. “I don’t want her watching my front door, waiting for them to come back and get her.”
He looked over at Katie, who’d slid off his lap and wandered over to play with a stuffed cat hanging by a red ribbon from the push bar of her stroller. He felt a rush of sadness for the child, and also for her tough but grieving aunt. Neither of them had expected to be where they were, the only family either of them had left.
Both of them in danger they couldn’t predict or easily prevent.
“I want the job if you want to hire me,” he said flatly, meeting Lacey’s gaze. “I think I can help you. And I need the work.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and he began to worry that she was going to turn him down. It wouldn’t be a complete disaster if she did so, he knew. There were other ways to accomplish what he wanted to do.
But it would be so much easier if she’d just give him the nanny job.
She rose slowly, still looking at him through cautious gray eyes. “I’ll call
your references today and see what they say. I’ll be in touch, one way or the other. May I contact you directly?”
He rose, too. “My number is on the résumé.”
She continued to look at him for a long, silent moment, as if trying to assess his character in that lengthy gaze. Finally, she extended her hand. “It was good to meet you, Mr. Mercer.”
“Jim,” he reminded her, taking her hand firmly in his.
She withdrew her hand. “Thank you again for your help this afternoon.”
“I’m glad I was there. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to catch the guy before he got away.”
“Two against one isn’t good odds. Even for a Marine.”
He waited for her to gather up Katie and settle her in the stroller, noting the way her hands shook slightly when Katie started to whine at being confined again.
She needed his help. A lot. And not just with Katie.
He was counting on that fact.
* * *
IN NO BIG hurry to return to the isolation of the Cherry Grove farmhouse, Lacey detoured southeast to Arlington, calling Detective Bolling with the Arlington County Police Department Homicide/Robbery Unit. As lead investigator into the car bomb that had killed Marianne and Toby, he was certain to be interested in what had happened to her in Frederick earlier that day.
He met her in a small café a few blocks from her apartment, smiling at Katie as they sat. “How’s she doing?”
Lacey shrugged. “Hard to know. She’s not a big talker yet.”
Bolling gave her a look of sympathy before he went into business mode. He listened intently as she told him about the ambush in Frederick, copying the name of the Frederick detective who’d given her his card. “I’ll give him a call. You sure you and the little one are okay?”
“Someone came to our rescue. Chased the guy away. There were two of them, did I mention that? The one who pulled the gun on me got into a van waiting for him down the alley from the employment agency.”
Bolling frowned at that. “Sounds premeditated. Having a getaway vehicle in place.”
“That’s what I thought, too. I think they wanted to abduct me, Detective Bolling. Otherwise, why didn’t he just shoot me right there?”
