Operation Nanny

by Paula Graves

  Bolling’s brow furrowed as he considered that possibility. “That’s a departure from a car bomb.”

  “Do you think the situations could be unrelated?”

  “Maybe. But it doesn’t seem likely, does it?” Bolling’s frown deepened. “What were you doing at an employment agency in Frederick, anyway?”

  “Hiring a nanny.”

  Bolling looked at Katie. “Does that mean you’re going back to work?”

  Why did everyone assume hiring a nanny equaled returning to her job at the network? What did they think—that all women just naturally knew how to care for a two-year-old when one was dropped in their laps?

  Immediately, she felt guilty for the flash of irritation. Most women probably did have at least some clue how to care for a small child. Even those who weren’t in the position financially and professionally to take a sabbatical from work.

  “No, I’m not going back to work yet. But I don’t have a lot of experience caring for a child.” She stirred her glass of ginger ale with a long red straw, not meeting Bolling’s gaze. She didn’t want to know what he thought of that admission. Pity or disapproval would be equally unwelcome.

  “Did you find a suitable candidate?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If you’d like, we could run a background check before you hire her.”

  “Not necessary,” she assured him. She was as capable as the police to run a background check on Jim Mercer. Maybe more so, since her network connections gave her access to information even the police couldn’t get their hands on. Not without a warrant, anyway. “But I’d like to stay in the loop if you hear anything from the Frederick police about my assailant. I didn’t get the feeling Detective Braun was interested in keeping me updated.”

  “I will tell you if anything important comes out of the investigation,” Bolling promised. “You sure you don’t want something to eat? My treat.”

  “No, but thanks.” What she wanted, she realized with despair, was to go to her place in Virginia Square, sleep in her own bed and wake up to find everything that had happened in the past couple of weeks was nothing but a bad dream.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. Marianne was gone. She wasn’t coming back. And Lacey couldn’t shake the feeling that there might be worse yet to come.

  “Have you given any more consideration to hiring private security?” Bolling asked.

  “I’ve considered it. But I’m trying to stay off the press’s radar, at least for now. Hiring security guards would just draw more attention to me.” She lowered her voice to a whisper after looking around to see if anyone was listening. “Especially in Cherry Grove.”

  “You’re afraid that instead of covering the story, you’ll suddenly be the story?”

  She nodded. “Katie has enough to deal with as it is. I don’t want her little face plastered all over cable news for the next few weeks.”

  “You have enough to deal with, too. I get it.” Bolling put a ten on the table between them and stood up. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  The temperature had dropped by several degrees while they were in the café, Lacey noted. The snow predicted for the end of the week might come sooner than expected. She’d have to make sure they were stocked with plenty of firewood in case the power to the farmhouse went out in the storm.

  “Is this vehicle registered in your name?” Bolling asked as he helped her settle Katie in her car seat.

  “No,” she answered. “It belonged to Toby and Marianne, so I guess it belongs to Katie and me now. I might as well use it until I can get another vehicle.”

  “Just be careful, Lacey. Okay? I know it’s possible what happened to you today was random, but...”

  But it wasn’t likely. She knew that already.

  “I’ll be in touch,” she promised.

  Meanwhile, she had some background checking to do.

  * * *

  JIM HADN’T FIGURED on hearing from Lacey Miles for a few days. He knew she’d already talked to the references he’d provided on his résumé, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have stopped there. He’d been watching her reporting for a few years now. He knew she was smart, prepared, resourceful and very, very thorough.

  So it was with some surprise that he heard her voice on the phone shortly after lunchtime the day after the interview. “Mr. Mercer? This is Lacey Miles.”

  He put down the Glock he was cleaning and sat up straighter. “Ms. Miles. How’s Katie? How are you, for that matter? Recovered from the attack?”

  She didn’t answer for a moment, as if his questions caught her off guard. “We’re fine,” she said after a couple of beats of silence. “Just fine. I’m calling about the job you interviewed for yesterday.”

  “Yes. Have you made a decision?”

  “I have,” she said, her voice a little stronger. “I’d like to hire you to care for my niece. Were you serious when you said you could go to work immediately?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Then could you be here by four this afternoon? I have somewhere I need to go this evening. Somewhere I can’t take Katie.”

  He frowned, not liking the sound of that. “You’re not going out alone, are you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Damn it. You’re a nanny, not a Marine. Remember that. She’s your boss, not someone you’re protecting. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I have no right to ask you such a question. I just—After the bombing and what happened to you yesterday...forget I asked. Yes, I can be there by dinnertime. I just need the address.”

  “Do you know how to get to Cherry Grove? East of Lovettsville, near the Potomac. There’s a big fountain in the center of town. Shaped like a cherry.” She couldn’t quite keep a hint of laughter out of her voice. “Trust me, you can’t miss it. If you’ll stop at the gas station across the street from the fountain, just ask for the old Peabody farm. They’ll tell you how to get here.”

  “Got it,” he said. “I’ll pack a bag and be there by four. Will that work?”

  “Yes. Thank you. We’ll give this a try and see how it goes.” She hung up before he could say anything else.

  He punched in a phone number and waited. He got an answer on the second ring. “It’s Mercer.”

  “Any news?”

  “Yeah. I’m headed to Cherry Grove. This evening. She’s going out and needs me to watch Katie. Says we’ll give this a try and see if it works out.”

  “It’ll work out,” the voice on the other end of the line said firmly. “You’ll make it work out.”

  “Understood.” He hung up the phone, picked up his Glock and started cleaning the weapon again.

  Chapter Three

  “What do you say, sweet pea?”

  Katie gazed back at Lacey, her gray eyes bright with curiosity, as if she was trying to make sense of the question.

  Lacey ruffled the baby’s blond curls and laughed self-consciously. “It’s okay, sweetie. If Aunt Lacey doesn’t know whether she’s done the right thing, she doesn’t expect you to know.”

  “Wacey,” Katie said solemnly.

  Lacey picked her up and gave her a hug. Apparently not in the mood for a snuggle, Katie wriggled in her grasp, and Lacey set her down on the floor again with a sigh. “You sure know how to make a girl feel better about her mothering skills, Katie.”

  Katie flashed a lopsided grin and toddled off to the window, where she’d left her favorite stuffed cat sitting on the windowsill.

  Lacey looked around the small front parlor, feeling entirely overwhelmed. When she’d decided to move herself and Katie out here to Nowheresville, Virginia, she hadn’t realized just how little of the farmhouse had been renovated. Half the sprawling old Folk Victorian house was still trapped in limbo, somewhere between demolition and reconstruction, and she had
no idea how or when she’d be able to finish the work.

  The contractor she’d hired to assess the status of the renovation had assured her that the foundation had been made sound, the roof was new and there were no safety hazards to worry about, although there had been some question about the safety of an underground tunnel the contractor had discovered in the basement, which was the only remaining part of the antebellum home that had burned to the ground a few years before the farmhouse had been built on its foundation.

  But most of the upstairs rooms had yet to be repaired and painted. There was a whole bathroom in the master suite that had been completely gutted. And the sprawling kitchen at the back of the house was only halfway finished, though most of the remaining work was cosmetic rather than functional.

  Poor Jim Mercer didn’t have any idea what kind of mess he was about to walk into.

  Her cell phone rang, a jarring note in the bucolic peace of the isolated farm. She checked the display and grimaced when she saw the name. “Hi, Royce.”

  “I heard you’re hiring a nanny.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” she asked, wondering which employee of Elite Employment Agency had let that information slip to the wrong person.

  “Oh, around. You know.”

  Maybe it had been Jim Mercer himself who’d spilled the news. Maybe he’d decided to do a little background checking on her, as well. She couldn’t really blame him if he had, she realized. He had a right to know just what sort of mess he was walking into if he took the job. “You called to find out whether or not I’m hiring a nanny?”

  “No,” Royce said in a tone of long-suffering forbearance. “I called to find out whether your decision to hire a nanny meant you were coming back to work.”

  “Not yet. You said I could take a few months. Have you changed your mind?”

  “If I said I had, would you come back to work?”

  “No,” she answered flatly. “I need this time off, Royce. If you can’t give it to me, I’ll turn in my notice. Then when I’m ready to return to work, I’ll give one of the other networks a call.”

  “No,” Royce said quickly. “I said you could have the sabbatical. I’m not going to renege.”

  “I really do appreciate your understanding.”

  “I hear the cops still don’t know who set the bomb or why. Do you think it had something to do with that piece you were doing on al Adar?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. Not long before the car bomb that had killed Marianne and Toby, Lacey had spent several months in Kaziristan, a Central Asian republic fighting for its very existence. A terrorist group known as al Adar had risen from the ashes earlier in the year, after several years of near dormancy, taking advantage of an economic downturn in the nascent democracy to stir up trouble and violence. Her exposé on the troubling rise of the terrorist group had just been nominated for a Murrow Award for investigative reporting.

  But al Adar hadn’t yet made a name for themselves outside of Kaziristan. They hadn’t really started exporting terrorism on a regular basis, despite a few aborted attempts a few years back.

  Or had they?

  “I want to hire security for you and your niece.”

  “Royce, we’ve talked about this. If I make a big deal out of what happened, the press will do the same. They’ll start publicizing where I am now, something that only a few people know about at the moment. Since I’d like to keep it that way, no—I’m not going to hire a bunch of bodyguards that’ll start tongues wagging all over the East Coast.”

  “You’re a target, Lacey.”

  “I’ve taken a sabbatical. I’m not reporting on al Adar or anyone else. Maybe that’ll be enough to appease whoever it was who came after me.” She wasn’t sure she believed it, but the last thing she wanted right now was to live under the watchful eyes of a bunch of muscle-bound security contractors who’d try to watch her every move and keep her from doing what needed to be done.

  Regardless of who had set the bomb under her car, she was the one who felt responsible for her sister’s death.

  She had to be the one who figured out who hated her enough to kill her. And stop him before he could take another shot at killing her.

  “Do you really think it’ll be enough to appease someone who wants you dead?” Royce asked.

  “I don’t know. But it’s better than living in a cage until the cops finally figure out who set the bomb.”

  Royce was silent for a long moment before he spoke in a hushed tone. “Tell me you’re not thinking about tracking down this killer yourself.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Damn it, Lacey. You’re a reporter. You’re not a cop.”

  “I tracked down the head of al Adar when the US government thought the man was dead.”

  “Different situation. You weren’t his target, for one thing.”

  There was a knock on the front door. “I have to go, Royce. I’ll call you later.”

  She hung up the phone and walked to the front door, sneaking a peek through the security lens. Jim Mercer stood on the other side of the door, dressed in a brown leather bomber jacket, his hair ruffled by the cold wind moaning in the eaves outside.

  She unlocked the door and opened it. “You’re early.”

  His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Is that a problem?”

  “No, of course not. I just mean, you’re not late.” She forced a smile, acutely aware that the past two weeks had done a number on her social skills. “Come in. I’ll show you your room and you can get settled before I have to leave.” She closed the door behind him, careful to lock the dead bolt.

  He stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked around. “This place is great. How old is it?”

  “I think it was built in the eighteen nineties. Something like that. It was updated in the sixties or seventies, I think, but Marianne and Toby were planning to renovate the place with its history in mind. You know, try to match the styles of the Folk Victorian era even while they updated the plumbing and electrical.” She led him into the large family room. “They did take down a couple of walls to make this place more open concept, but the hardwood floors are all original, and so are the window trim and the crown molding.”

  “It’s beautiful,” he said.

  Katie turned at the sound of his voice, staring at him with a look of sheer delight. “Hey!”

  Jim grinned back at her. “Hey there, Katiebug!”

  She ran toward him, her chubby legs churning, and tugged on his jeans until he put down his duffel bag and picked her up. She patted his cheeks and again said, “Hey.”

  “She’s usually so shy,” Lacey murmured, not sure her niece’s crush on her new nanny was such a good idea. What if Jim didn’t work out? What if another person disappeared from Katie’s life?

  But what could she do? She needed help with her niece, someone to take care of the little girl while she continued her investigation into her sister’s death. Better that it be someone Katie liked than someone she didn’t, right?

  Jim tucked Katie into the crook of one arm and picked up the duffel bag with the other. “Kids like me,” he said with a shrug, nodding for her to continue the tour of the house.

  She took him through the kitchen to the narrow hallway that led to the first-floor master bedroom. She had been staying there because it was close to the nursery, although for the past two weeks, Katie had been sleeping in the bed with Lacey.

  She thought it might be better for her to move to one of the other bedrooms downstairs and let Jim have the bedroom suite. Katie could move to the nursery next door, and he’d still be close enough to go to her in the night.

  “This is your room,” she told him as she opened the door and led him inside.

  He looked around the large room, his brow furrowed. “This is a nice room.”

 
“It’s technically the master suite, but it’s next door to the nursery, so...”

  He nodded, understanding. “You’ll be upstairs?”

  “No, the upstairs hasn’t really been renovated yet. There are a couple of other bedrooms on the first floor. I’ll take one of those.”

  “Of course. Whatever you want to do.” He turned to look at her. “How are you doing? After the ambush, I mean.”

  “I’m fine,” she said with a firmness she didn’t quite feel. Despite her determination to show no fear, the most recent attack had rattled her nerves almost as much as the car bombing had, despite the fact that neither she nor Katie had been hurt. Maybe because it had come out of the blue, in a place she hadn’t expected to face danger. She had almost convinced herself that the bombing had been a onetime act of violent rage. A venting of hate and anger, perhaps, emptying a twisted soul of the unspeakable darkness inside him.

  Much easier to deal with the idea of a psychotic outburst than to contemplate the idea that someone had deliberately set out to kill her in cold blood, driven not by emotion but rational if diabolical intent.

  Jim set the duffel bag on the floor by the bed, bouncing Katie lightly in the crook of his arm. “I’ll unpack after you get back home,” he said, turning to look at Lacey. “Any idea how long you’ll be out? So I know whether to start calling around to find you if you don’t show up on time.”

  She couldn’t decide if she found his words irritating or endearing. As she’d told Royce Myerson, she didn’t want a bodyguard. She didn’t want her movements tracked or to be trapped inside this farmhouse, afraid to stick her head out the door for fear of having it lopped off.

  At the same time, she couldn’t deny a sense of relief that she now had someone around who cared whether or not she came back home safely. Someone to call in the cavalry if things somehow went wrong.

  “I should be home by eleven at the latest.”

  “If Katie and I need you, we can reach you by phone?”

  “If it’s an emergency.”