Operation Nanny

by Paula Graves

  Katie’s peals of laughter had drawn her attention away from the distant beauty, focusing Lacey’s attention on the pink-cheeked, laughing child.

  She had no idea how much Katie understood about the loss of her parents, but Lacey was determined to make sure she always remembered them with love and peace.

  Which meant she needed to forget her last sight of her sister, a wretched glimpse of charred body parts being gathered into a zippered body bag.

  She tried to push that memory away, to let her drowsy thoughts drift back to the pristine memories of Katie and the snowman, but the dark night prevailed, an image streaked with blue and cherry lights from the vehicles of the first responders that cast the twisted metal remains of her car in stark relief.

  No one could have survived that blast, but she had held on to hope until the final, stark image of the body bags. The police had tried to turn her away, but she had been determined to be there, to find out the truth.

  The image remained so vivid in her mind it brought tears stinging to the backs of her eyes. The smell of charred flesh had lingered in her nose for days, long past the time it should have. It was a memory, not an odor. She knew that rationally, but even now, lying on her sofa, the smell memory filled her nose and invaded her lungs, making her feel as if she were suffocating.

  She was in the moment again. Standing on the damp sidewalk a few yards from the incident scene. Crime scene, she corrected mentally, although she had clung to the idea of a terrible accident long past the time it should have been clear that what had happened to Marianne and Toby had been intentional. She was still thinking accident, still hoping maybe the police were wrong, that maybe in the explosion something had happened to the license plate that had made them read the plate number wrong.

  But they hadn’t been mistaken. And the desperate hope that the explosion had been a terrible accident had lingered only as long as it took for a crime-scene investigator to find the evidence of a detonator.

  Surrounded by busy people trying to pull together the pieces of a deadly puzzle that had clearly been meant for Lacey herself, she’d felt separated from them, outside of time and space, as if she were floating somewhere near the scene like a wraith. Dead inside, yet still lingering in the world of the living.

  She found that she remembered every detail of the scene, of the night itself, of the people moving about and the vehicles driving past the scene, heads twisted toward the destruction because nobody was incurious enough to drive past without looking.

  She saw a limousine roll past, moving at a stately pace, but the black-tinted windows hid the occupants from view. Some senator, maybe. Or a high-ranking official in the Pentagon or at State. For a second, perhaps in need of a distraction, she thought about trying to read the license plate so she could later identify just which DC bigwig had slowed to get a better look at the evidence of her loss.

  But what would that accomplish? The senator hadn’t set the bomb that killed her sister. Nor had a general or a diplomat.

  The only person responsible was Lacey herself. She had been the target. She’d pissed off someone or uncovered something that had earned her a death sentence.

  A death sentence that Marianne and Toby had paid instead.

  Lacey tried to drag herself out of what she now knew was a nightmare. All she had to do was wake up.

  Just wake up.

  She felt herself coming back to reality, but just as the dark dream started to disintegrate, she saw another vehicle drive slowly past the bomb scene.

  A familiar blue pickup truck.

  Lacey sat up with a jerk, her heart racing and her head pounding.

  “Lacey?” Jim’s voice was closer than she expected. She turned her head and found him crouched next to the fireplace, lighting kindling under the logs. He put down the lighter and rose to his feet, crossing quickly to her side. “Are you okay?”

  “Just a dream,” she said hoarsely.

  “Looked like a nightmare.”

  She threaded her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. Now that the dream had receded, her heart rate was approaching normal, and the throbbing behind her eyes had eased to a mild ache. “I was dreaming about the bombing.”

  He sat on the coffee table in front of her. “That’s a nightmare, all right.”

  “I went to the scene not long after it happened. One of my reporter friends had learned from a cop that the license plate on the car was registered to me and had given me a call. Until I showed up at the scene, the police were going on the premise that I was one of the people inside the car.”

  Jim put his hand over hers, his touch gentle and undemanding. “I’m sorry. That must have been terrible for you, to see the wreckage.”

  “I saw a blue pickup truck that night,” she said bluntly.

  He leaned back slightly, dropping his hand away from hers. “You remember that?”

  “Not until the dream.”

  He frowned, and she could see the skepticism in his eyes. “I’m not sure you can rely on what comes to you in a nightmare.”

  “It was real. I saw it. That night, the pickup drove by slowly, just like all the other rubberneckers. He wanted to see what had happened.” Her voice dipped lower. “Maybe he wanted to see his handiwork.”

  “You don’t even know it’s a man,” Jim pointed out reasonably. “And there are a lot of blue pickups out there—”

  “It was the same truck. I’m sure it was. And do you know what that means?”

  He shook his head slightly, but she saw the realization dawn in his expression.

  “The police were filming the scene that night. Three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, to take in everything. I think maybe they had the thought that the bomber would want to see the fruits of his handiwork.”

  “So if the blue pickup was there...”

  “It’ll be on film,” she finished for him, pushing to her feet. She looked down at him with a grim smile. “Maybe they were able to get the license plate. And if they did, I’m going to nail that son of a bitch to the wall.”

  Chapter Eight

  It had taken Lacey most of the afternoon to get through to the detective leading the bombing task force, primarily because he and the other members of the team had been at a meeting in the White House, where the president’s chief of staff had told them the investigation was moving too slowly. This information Lacey had learned not from the police but from her colleagues in the White House press corps. By the time she finally got through to Detective Bolling, it was close to six in the evening, and he sounded frazzled and surly.

  “Do you have any idea how much footage you’re talking about?” he asked Lacey when she asked about the blue pickup. “We took note of the vehicles that passed the scene and someone on the task force is going through license plates to see if there’s anyone who matches our database of bomb makers. But that kind of thing takes a lot of time, and it’s not the priority of our investigation, as you can imagine.”

  “So let me do it,” Lacey said. “I can look at the footage and find the truck I’m talking about.”

  “If it was even there,” Bolling muttered.

  “It was there.”

  “Ms. Miles, you had a dream about the crime scene, and your mind probably conflated your more recent experiences with what you experienced that night—”

  “Even if that’s so, what would it hurt for me to look at the footage?”

  “For one thing, it’s police evidence, and we don’t normally allow the press to view our evidence.”

  “I’m not the press. I’m the victim’s sister. And I’m also apparently the real target of the bombing, even if it was my sister who was killed.” Lacey looked up from her seat on the sofa to find Jim watching her from the kitchen entryway, his gaze warm with concern. An answering warmth flooded her body, and she forc
ed herself to look away, not comfortable with how increasingly dependent on him she was becoming.

  It would be bad enough if she was just relying on him for help with Katie, but the truth was, she was starting to need him just to keep herself from burrowing away from the world and obsessing on her sister’s death.

  “Look,” Bolling said finally, his weary sigh a soft roar of wind over the phone. “This is what I can do. I’ll talk to the head of the task force. If she agrees, I’ll get someone to make me a copy of the footage, and I’ll let you take a look. But it could be a couple of days.”

  “Can you ask today? And get someone to do the dubbing overnight?” she pressed. She glanced at Jim and saw his eyebrows lift at her insistent tone.

  “That’s asking a lot.” Bolling sounded frustrated.

  “I know it is. But the sooner I take a look, the sooner we’ll know if this is a viable lead or not, right? If it is, you’ve got a new avenue of investigation. And if it isn’t, you’ve eliminated said avenue of investigation.”

  And maybe she could discount all the blue-pickup sightings as a sign of her own paranoia.

  “Fine. If Agent Montoya agrees, I can get someone on the night shift to dub the video and get you a set of DVDs.”

  “I can drive into town tomorrow to pick them up,” she offered quickly, before he changed his mind.

  When he spoke, his voice held a note of caution. “Ms. Miles, I don’t even know if I’ll get the go-ahead.”

  “Well, if you do...”

  There was a brief pause before he said, “Well, I was planning to talk to some of your sister’s neighbors tomorrow anyway. Just to rule out the possibility that she and your brother-in-law were the targets rather than you.”

  “They weren’t,” she said firmly.

  “Nevertheless, questions have to be asked. I’ll be in Cherry Grove in the morning. If I get the go-ahead, I’ll give you a call and maybe I can meet you somewhere in town to hand over the DVDs.”

  “I’ll buy you lunch for your trouble,” she suggested, feeling a little guilty for pushing the detective so ruthlessly now that she’d accomplished her goal. “There’s a good diner in town. Southern home cooking.”

  “You’re just trying to make up for being such a pain in my backside, aren’t you?” Bolling sounded amused. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you, Detective,” she said sincerely. “I know it’s asking a lot.”

  “Well, maybe it won’t hurt to have fresh, motivated eyes on the evidence.” Bolling’s tone was grudging, but she could tell he was starting to see the benefit of her suggestion.

  They said their goodbyes and she laid her phone on the side table. “If he can get the head of the task force to agree, I might get the DVDs as early as tomorrow before lunch,” she said to Jim, who was still standing in the doorway, watching her with that disconcerting gaze of his. She could almost feel it moving over her like a caress, which was a ridiculous notion, especially for someone as levelheaded as she was.

  She prided herself on her rationality. Girlish crushes, especially on someone who was her employee, were not part of her repertoire.

  “You want Katie and me to come with you?” Jim asked in a low rumble that made her shiver.

  She squared her shoulders and shook her head. “It’s just a drive into Cherry Grove. I’ll call when I get there and call when I’m leaving, Mom.”

  His lips curved in a sheepish grin. “One of the pitfalls of being a nanny. Feeling the urgent need to take care of everybody, not just your charge.”

  “Sounds like something a Marine might say,” she pointed out, allowing herself to smile.

  “That, too,” he agreed with a grin that made her insides twist with pleasure. “Katie should be up from her nap soon. I thought maybe we could do something fun for dinner. I bought some wieners and the fixings for s’mores. Hot dogs, marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers—sounds nutritious to me.”

  She supposed she should be appalled by a dinner of junk food, but the thought of hot dogs and s’mores had her mouth watering. Katie had eaten healthy food for breakfast and lunch—why not do something a little decadent for dinner?

  “Do we have any cabbage? I could make slaw so we don’t go completely veggie-free,” she suggested.

  He flashed her that dangerous grin again. “I think I can come up with what you need.” He headed into the kitchen and started gathering the makings of their dinner.

  Lacey felt a disconcerting pull toward the kitchen, as if Jim were a magnet and she were steel. She pushed against that sensation, heading down the hall to Katie’s room.

  She was awake, drowsy eyes open and following the bird mobile over her crib. Marianne had confided in Lacey that she was dreading the day Katie outgrew her crib. “It’ll be like she’s not a baby anymore, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that,” she’d told Lacey just a few days before the accident.

  Toby, on the other hand, was happy to see his baby girl grow to the next phase of her development. “I feel like the baby years are all mommy time,” he’d told Lacey with a rueful smile when Marianne was out of the room with Katie. “I’m looking forward to a little more daddy time.”

  Tears stung Lacey’s eyes as Katie’s gaze turned to meet hers and her niece’s Cupid’s-bow lips curved in a smile. She stood up in the crib and stretched her arms out. “Wacey.”

  Lacey lifted her out of the crib and hugged her tight, fighting to keep the angry tears from falling.

  Now there’d be no more mommy or daddy time for Marianne and Toby, and it just wasn’t right. Their deaths demanded justice.

  Or maybe vengeance. Lacey wasn’t sure which she wanted more.

  * * *

  DINNER HAD BEEN...STRANGE, Jim thought the next morning as he watched Lacey’s car move slowly down the driveway. Katie had loved the adventure, watching with wide eyes and open mouth as Jim cooked first the wieners, then the marshmallows, over the fire in the parlor. But while Lacey had been all smiles and laughter, Jim had sensed that the show of gaiety was just that—a show. She was hiding her real feelings behind the smiles, and he got the sense what she was really feeling was bleak anger.

  She had gotten a call from Detective Bolling shortly after breakfast. The bombing task force had called an unexpected meeting for early in the afternoon, which meant he had to be in Cherry Grove much earlier than he’d planned. Lunch wasn’t a possibility, but he could grab a coffee midmorning and pass over the DVDs of the crime-scene videos.

  It was a smaller window of time than Jim had hoped for, and it coincided with Katie’s active time, but opportunities to snoop were few and far between. He wanted to know what Lacey was hiding behind the locked door on the second floor, and this was his best chance to find out.

  He had never been one to let television be a babysitter, but at least PBS was educational, and Katie loved the morning block of programs.

  He settled her in her favorite chair, gave her a sippy cup of apple juice and headed upstairs to the locked room, lock-pick tools tucked in the pocket of his jeans.

  The doorknob lock was an easy pick, but at some point in the recent past, someone had put a dead bolt on the door, as well. Jim assumed it had been Lacey, since he doubted Toby and Marianne would have had any reason to do so.

  But even the more complex lock proved to be no obstacle, and within a few minutes he entered the mysterious room.

  There wasn’t much there, he saw in a quick sweep of the room, but what was there was...illuminating. A table, obviously acting as a desk, was occupied by Lacey’s laptop computer, with paper files stacked neatly beside it. On the wall opposite the windows, she’d hung a whiteboard now filled with her neat writing.

  This was Lacey’s situation room, he thought. But there was no task force working out of this space. Just Lacey alone.

  Pulling his phone fro
m his pocket, he crossed to the whiteboard and started taking photos. He did the same with the files on the table, though a couple attempts to guess her laptop’s password proved fruitless. He closed the laptop and looked around, feeling both queasy at his invasion of her privacy and deeply curious about what the whiteboard revealed.

  There were three columns, separated by vertically drawn lines, with titles at the top.

  Al Adar. Whittier Family. J.T. Swain.

  Jim knew all about al Adar. He’d done a tour of duty in Kaziristan at the height of their power there. They were vicious and deadly. But their power in Kaziristan had been waning for years, and he had to admit that for the past few years, since he’d left the Marine Corps, he hadn’t exactly been focusing on the life he’d left behind.

  If anything, he’d been hiding from it all.

  He couldn’t afford that anymore, he thought grimly. Not if al Adar was behind the bombing that had killed Katie’s parents. He’d call Quinn and see just what information Campbell Cove Security had on the Kaziri terrorist group.

  He’d heard of the Whittier family, as well. Everybody in America knew who Justin and Carson Whittier were. Handsome, charismatic and highly accomplished, the Whittiers were this generation’s answer to the Kennedys. Their father and uncles had been highly successful stockbrokers who’d played the market with skill and ruthlessness during the volatile dot-com bubble. The sons were equally successful investing their money, and by the time they both ran for Congress from neighboring districts in Connecticut, they were multimillionaires in their own rights.

  They were media darlings and, in the case of the unmarried younger brother, Carson, constant fodder for the tabloids. He was still in the “looking for his soul mate” phase of life, he liked to say. In the meantime, he was sampling all the fish in the sea.

  With a Marine’s inbred distrust of politicians, Jim had learned his life was far less stressful if he paid more attention to the things in his life he could control and less to the Machiavellian exploits of the political class, so he wasn’t quite sure why the Whittiers would be on Lacey’s list of suspects. There had been whispers of scandal that haunted any public figure, of course, but the Whittier brothers had managed to navigate those murky waters without getting any lasting mud on them.