Strict Confidence

by Skye Warren

  She gives me a wan smile that’s supposed to be reassuring. “This was easier.” Then she turns to Paige. “Hey, sweetheart. How are you?”

  Paige gives a diffident shrug. Gone is the girl who grinned at Jane, who challenged her, who painted every rock and tree and surface in sight. Now there’s only a shadow.

  There’s a flash of hurt across Jane’s face. Then she covers it up. She’s exactly the nanny Paige needs. The care she deserves. How could I have risked that by sleeping with Jane? How can I keep Jane in Maine, knowing I’ve put her in danger? She could have died. The best thing would be for me to send her back to Houston.

  You’d never see her again. The thought whispers through my head, the faint scent of salt on an ocean breeze. It’s selfishness that keeps her here. My selfishness.

  She’s so strong. It breaks my heart that I need her to be strong. Part of me wants to sweep her away to some island paradise, far away from the cold, drizzly cliffs. Far away from the fire. Paige needs me. I made a promise to her when her parents died.

  And there’s an ongoing investigation into the fire.

  Instead of sweeping her away to an island paradise, I help her stand.

  She trembles slightly in my grasp before shooing me away. “I’m fine,” she says with only a fraction of her normal voice. It’s shaken her, that fire.

  It’s shaken both her body and her spirit.

  Her dark lashes lower. She sways gently. It’s Mateo who’s there to catch her, to escort her to the passenger seat. “Hey, now. Careful. Don’t worry. I’m not a superhero, but I play one on TV.”

  “I thought you’re in movies,” Jane says, her voice faint with thread of humor.

  He acts offended. “You thought? You thought? Does that mean you haven’t seen my movies?” He continues teasing her as he helps her into the SUV.

  I have to bite back the urge to warn him away. Don’t touch her. She’s mine. There’s no room for caveman antics, not when I have responsibilities.

  “Come on,” I say, leading Paige to the other side. “Hop in.”

  She frowns, clearly thinking about stalling. Then she hesitantly lifts her hands. She’s been in a mood since the fire. I can’t exactly blame her. I settle her into a bucket seat and lock the seat belt into place. Then I climb into the backseat beside her, holding back my wince as my leg protests. It’s stiff and throbbing. The crutches I got after the fall, the cane I sometimes used—all of them were consumed by the fire. Which is just fine with me. I could have gotten new ones, but I don’t want them. I don’t need them. I was caught unaware once. It won’t happen again.

  Mateo guides the Escalade out of the hospital parking lot and onto the road.

  “I’m hungry,” Paige says when we reach the highway.

  “We’ll have dinner soon,” I say, even though it’s only three p.m.

  “I’m hungry now.”

  I glance at her. She isn’t usually this demanding. And I happen to know she ate the entire burger we got from the cafeteria for lunch. I don’t think she’s hungry, but she needs… something. Reassurance maybe, though I don’t know how to provide that.

  “Mac and cheese,” she adds in an imperious tone.

  I hesitate. It’s been hard enough figuring out a place to stay, somewhere safe and secure, dealing with the officials. Hard enough without also making sure the kitchen would have her particular essentials. “Maybe they can make mac and cheese. We’ll ask.”

  Feather-light blonde eyebrows rise. “We’ll ask who?”

  “The innkeeper.”

  “I thought we were going home.”

  “No,” I say gently. “Remember we talked about this? Home is going to need work. Construction work. It will take a long time. In the meantime, we’re going to stay at the inn.”

  Her face turns red. I’ve seen this color before. Exactly one time before.

  We were at the wake for her parents. She had made it through the funeral with grave obedience. Stand here. Walk there. Say goodbye. All the times when I would have expected her to rage, she held her composure. It was only at the end, when families gathered at the Coach House, when they offered empty words of consolation and casseroles, that she lost it.

  “Get out,” she had screamed, her face red and splotchy, tears leaking down her cheeks. No one could console her. No one could reprimand her. In the end they left, one by one, darting glances of worry between me and her. In the hollow house, once everyone had gone, she beat her fists against me and sobbed into my chest for hours. Until she fell asleep in my arms.

  She looks the same way now. Mutinous. Angry.

  Consumed by grief.

  “I want Kitten.”

  “She’s at the vet, remember? We’ll pick her up soon.”

  “I want mac and cheese. And I want to go home.”

  Despite my general ineptitude as a guardian, I’ve tried. I’ve read books and listened to podcasts. Don’t raise your voice, they say. Lower your voice, and the child will mimic you. “We can’t go home,” I say, my words quiet. “There’s yellow tape everywhere. It’s a crime scene.”

  This, despite the books and the podcasts, is the wrong thing to say. I know it when her eyes turn wide. I see the whites around her blue pupils. Her little nostrils flare. “No,” she says. “No. No. I’m not going anywhere else. I’m going home.”

  We’re seconds away from the edge. I can see the waterfall—the long drop and the sharp rocks at the bottom, but I don’t have a fucking paddle.

  Jane turns back in her seat, her dark hair falling like silk over her shoulder. “Paige,” she says. That’s all. Paige. There’s a wealth of emotion in that one word. Sorrow and sympathy.

  Paige’s lower lip trembles. “I hate this.”

  “Yes,” Jane says.

  “I don’t want to stay at a hotel. I want to go home.”

  “You want to go home,” Jane says. “Where it’s safe. Because you’re afraid.”

  “You don’t understand,” Paige says, her voice wavering.

  “Then tell me,” Jane says, coaxing. “Why do you want to go home?”

  “If I’m not there, my mommy won’t know where to find me.”

  The whispered words make my throat tighten. Christ. As if the child didn’t have enough to worry about with a goddamn fire destroying her home and belongings. She also thinks her mother’s coming back? I’d fight a goddamn army for her. I’d dive under an eighteen-wheeler if it would keep her safe, but I can’t protect her from false hope.

  “Your mother always knows where you are,” Jane says, reaching back. After a short pause, Paige holds her hand. They stay like that, linked. “She loves you, wherever she is. Wherever you are. Nothing can stop that. Not a fire, not the ocean, nothing.”

  A sniffle. A sob. And then Paige does break.

  She doesn’t scream at everyone to leave her house. Instead she cries quiet tears, her small hand clenched around Jane’s so hard her knuckles turn white, as if Jane is the only steady thing in a stormy sea. It’s an awkward position, Jane turned around in the passenger seat, but she doesn’t try to right herself. Instead she rests her forehead against the leather seat, a tear sliding down her cheek. This is a bond they share, both of them orphaned. It doesn’t matter that I love Paige like my own daughter. Or that I’ve fallen for Jane. This is something outside my experience. They’re both grieving right now. Both finding hope in that tether.

  They stay that way the entire ride to the inn, Paige quietly drowning, Jane keeping her afloat. I can only watch from the outside, useless, unable to protect either one of them. I wasn’t lying when I told Jane it wasn’t her. It’s me. My love is dangerous. It’s dangerous to Jane. It’s dangerous to Paige. I should keep my distance from Paige for her own sake.

  This feels like more than a moment. It feels like a portend.

  Like the fire was only the beginning.

  Someone may have set the fire in that house. The fire chief suspects as much. I have no idea who lit a match, but I know one thing: There were no
bodies found in the charred remains.

  Whoever set the fire is still out there.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jane Mendoza

  From the outside, the Lighthouse Inn looks like a large cottage. White columns hold up a wraparound balcony. Thick ivy with purple flowers climbs up the side. A picket fence guards the grassy path down to the beach. Once you get up close, once you get inside, it feels less like a cottage. There are no embroidered pillows or roughened wood surfaces. Dark wood planks on the floor gleam. Waterford crystal glasses sit beside a pitcher of cucumber water. The owner, a slender woman named Marjorie, checks us in personally. She comes around the marble countertop to shake Beau’s hand.

  She drops to a knee in front of Paige. “Hi, sweetheart. Would you like anything? Perhaps some hot chocolate? Or some fresh sugar cookies?”

  Paige turns her face into my stomach, hiding. It’s to her credit that Marjorie doesn’t look angry at the rebuff. But she does give me a curious glance. And then one at Beau. There’s a knot in my throat. Is she speculating that something’s happening between us? It feels like there’s a scarlet letter A on my clothes, especially after the detective made his accusations.

  Meanwhile Beau looks impervious. The limp is barely noticeable. He glances around the lobby with a remote expression. “The security team finished working?”

  A series of expressions flit across Marjorie’s delicate features: worry, tension, shame. “They installed a whole system. Have this place locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”

  My heart thuds a warning. A security system? I turn to face Beau. My voice sounds strange to my own ears. “Why would we need a security system?”

  “It’s always good to be safe,” he says, his tone nonchalant.

  Before I can question him further, Mateo comes in from the outside with a gust of cold air. “I’m heading to the mall after this to restock your wardrobes, so let me know if you have any special requests.”

  “No,” I say, whirling.

  Everyone stops and faces me. The large space becomes quiet. There’s a tick tick tick from an ornate grandfather clock. It feels like this is spinning out of control.

  “You can’t buy me new clothes,” I say, fighting to sound calm over the beating of blood in my ears. I felt calm enough when we were leaving the hospital, but I didn’t understand.

  I couldn’t understand how much everything would change until I was standing here, about to sleep in a room I’ve never seen, about to wear clothes that aren’t mine. About to become a different person.

  It’s like I really died in that fire. Someone else stands here now.

  Not Jane Mendoza. A stranger.

  Concern darkens Mateo’s eyes, but he doesn’t respond. Marjorie looks away as if she’s embarrassed for me. Beau wears that same impassive expression I’m coming to hate. It made sense when I was new to Maine. He didn’t know me then. Now he’s held me close, trying to shield my body with his own. He told me loved me, but he stands there as aloof as… an employer. That’s what he is to me. My boss.

  There’s a tug on my hand. I look down. Paige wears a solemn expression. “They burned in the fire. Your old clothes. Uncle Beau explained it to me. They’re gone.”

  Maybe I look ridiculous for making a stand over clothes. They’re just things, right? It’s just that they’re my only possessions in the entire world. My only heritage. Our lives are the most important thing. We made it out, safe and sound.

  Reassurance comes from Paige’s eyes, blue as the sky.

  “You’re right,” I manage to say. “Of course you’re right. Thank you, Mateo, for getting me clothes. And for getting us rooms here. I’ll pay you back.”

  Mateo shakes his head. “It will go on a Rochester credit card. Black, of course.”

  Beau won’t look at me. It’s not my imagination. Part of me wondered if he’d been avoiding my gaze, but now I’m sure of it. He stares at the wall, as if the hunter green lace wallpaper pattern holds the secrets of the universe.

  “Then I’ll pay you back,” I say, willing him to look at me.

  Then he does, his dark gaze so full of torment that my breath catches. It’s not that he doesn’t care. It’s that he’s overfull with it, brimming with worry and anguish and fear. It simmers at the heart of him, as hot as the fire we barely escaped, smoke filling my lungs.

  He doesn’t say no. He doesn’t have to. It’s there in the room, his refusal. His challenge. Don’t even try to pay me back. I won’t let you. He doesn’t know how badly I need to stand on equal footing with him, how much I need to not owe him. Clothes aren’t part of the compensation package. If I let him buy me clothes, then I let myself become a whore.

  “Well,” says Marjorie, still with that embarrassed half smile, not quite meeting my eyes. I’m the crazy one in her eyes. She’s not even wrong. “I’m sure Beau Rochester can afford a few pairs of jeans. I read the article about him in Forbes. Can you believe it? A fisherman’s son.”

  “The room keys,” he says, his voice soft, almost menacing. He doesn’t acknowledge her gushing. Does it make him uncomfortable? It feels like something deeper is going on.

  Pink floods Marjorie’s cheeks. “Of course. I have them right here. All of you are on the second floor to give you privacy. Mateo’s already set up in one of the rooms on the right. Beachfront rooms, of course. All of them. Breakfast is at eight a.m.… well, usually it is. Normally we’re rather strict about it, but I suppose now that you’ve rented out the entire inn, we can do it whenever works best for you.”

  He rented the entire inn? There must be twenty guest rooms here. I looked it up when the dinner party happened. One room is expensive. I can’t imagine how much the entire place costs. And the fire only happened three days ago. It’s beautiful by the beach. Prime tourist season. Only now the empty parking lot registers. “Didn’t you have reservations?”

  She waves a hand. “We moved them to the Black Point Resort down the coast. A beautiful place, of course. Not quite as nice as mine, but they will be well taken care of—especially with the resort credit Beau gave them. The spa is extremely nice.”

  It’s still hard to wrap my head around this amount of money. I knew he was wealthy, of course. I knew he was successful, but it’s another level to see it in action. To see him change around the plans of other couples, other families, simply because he’s… rich.

  Another tug on my hand. Paige looks worried now. “This is okay, isn’t it?”

  Concern shines in her blue eyes. It’s almost like she thinks I might leave. That if I don’t like the arrangements, I’d leave. And wouldn’t I? I’m not bound to this family by anything more than an employment contract. It works both ways. He can fire me tomorrow, but I can just as easily quit. I drop to one knee so that I’m actually lower than her, looking up into her sweet face. There’s not even a single scratch from the fire. Beau got her out quickly enough. “I’m not going anywhere,” I promise her. “We’re going to be very comfortable here. And very safe.”

  Over her shoulder I meet Beau’s dark eyes. There’s a flicker before he turns away. As if he doesn’t think it’s a promise I can keep. My heart thuds against my ribs.

  What danger are we in?

  The peace doesn’t last long.

  Paige tolerates the large bed with its chenille bedspread and creaky antique chairs.

  She becomes ominously silent when she sees the tray of food that’s been sent up with sandwiches with cucumber, cream cheese, and dill. There’s also strawberry and basil scones. And a creamy mushroom soup.

  She refuses to try it. Any of it. I’m coaxing her to take a bite of the scone when there’s a knock at the door. Mateo stands there, his arms loaded with large white shopping bags with the Nordstrom logo. “Personal delivery,” he says with that billion-dollar grin.

  My eyes widen. I’ve never seen so many purchases in one single haul. I don’t really have a history with shopping bags. I’ve usually worn hand-me-downs or state-issued clothes. “All this?” I ask, my voice f
aint. “Is some of it for Beau?”

  “Nah, I’ll bring his up in a second.” He lifts one muscular shoulder. “Sorry if I picked the wrong stuff. I grabbed everything that seemed like it would fit. We’ll have to go back when it gets cold, but this should do you through the summer.”

  He leaves in a whirlwind of masculine energy, leaving us alone with the bags.

  Paige and I exchange a look fraught with concern.

  I put on a fake, cheerful smile and open the first one. There’s a selection of short-sleeve shirts in a rainbow of colors—heather gray and navy blue and pale blush. They’re only T-shirts. I’ve worn a thousand of them before, but they were never like this. Velvety soft. Somehow thicker and more substantial than anything I’ve had before. Still light as a feather. The price tag makes my heart skip a beat. He paid this… per shirt.

  He has to return them. There’s no way I could ever pay Beau back for these. I rub the lush fabric between my thumb and forefinger. For a moment I pull it against my chest, imagining wearing it, imagining being the kind of woman who belongs here.

  The fantasy shatters when Paige opens a different bag.

  She pulls out a pile of dresses that look like they’d fit her perfectly. They’re the right size… but wrong in every other way. These are girlish and playful with winking unicorn emojis and hot pink ruffles. “These aren’t my clothes,” she says, her voice shaky like she’s about to cry.

  “I thought you knew,” I say softly. “I thought Uncle Beau explained.”

  “He said my clothes were gone. The one with the grape jelly stain and the jeans with a hole that I cut myself. He said I’d get new clothes. I thought they’d be like the old ones.” There’s grief in her voice. Those Monopoly T-shirts she loved. The black tulle skirt.

  She loved her clothes, and they’re gone. They’re gone.

  My clothes weren’t nearly so cool. I picked them up at Goodwill and Walmart, but they were mine. The only shelter that came with me from foster home to my own apartment to Maine.

  Clothes are more than objects. They were part of me. An extension of my body. Part of my identity in a world that so often forgets that I exist. Paige understands, because she’s like me. We have this in common. We’re transients in this world, without a place of our own.