Special Agent Nanny

by Linda O. Johnston

  Jenny nodded, but she did not look convinced.

  “Remember the nice counselor we’ve gone to see? She said it’s a good idea to talk about things that scare us. Do you want to talk about the fire now? Or anything you saw the night the fire started?”

  “No, Mommy.” Jenny hesitated. And then she ate another French fry.

  Kelley wouldn’t push her now. But she’d think of a way to bring it up again later. For Kelley knew something had made her daughter draw flames that day.

  Somehow, she had to learn what it was.

  Chapter Nine

  Okay, Shawn told himself as he watched the second hand on the KidClub wall clock meander in its eternal circle. It hadn’t slowed. Clocks didn’t do that. But he had a job to do. A different job. And until—

  “Watch me, Shawn,” shouted Jenny. Kelley had brought her back from lunch a while ago. The kid had been a pistol all afternoon, alternating between stubborn refusal to heed directions and stony silence when he tried to start a conversation with her—one intended to lead to an explanation of her disquieting defacing of his artwork. Most particularly, what Jenny had seen that night.

  Like her mother playing with matches?

  No, someone else. Shawn wanted it to be someone else.

  To his dismay, as soon as he looked over at Jenny, she started doing somersaults in the play area, right where a couple of other girls were having a pretend tea party. “Jenny, no!” He unwound his long legs from beneath one of the kiddie tables where he’d been giving a drawing lesson, but not fast enough. Of course Jenny’s feet smashed loudly into the plastic cups and saucers.

  And of course both girls began to cry.

  Marge Ralston hurried in from the next room as Shawn swallowed his dismay while trying his damnedest to comfort the shrieking kids and keep Jenny from doing another somersault out of spite. “What’s going on here?” Marge glared as if he’d been the one to cause the chaos.

  “Glad you’re here. I need a potty break.” Without looking back, he strode from KidClub.

  And stopped outside the door, guilt sticking a poker up his back. This was part of his job.

  Besides, he had to be here when Claire’s mother returned.

  With a deep sigh, he walked back inside. “Sorry,” he said to Marge as meekly as he could muster. He helped her right the upended tea party. And he was the one to give Jenny her third time out of the day.

  Damn, but it felt like hell to do that, to watch the cute kid sit defiantly in a corner. She was hurting. He knew it. But he couldn’t get her to talk about it.

  Maybe Kelley would get something out of her later. But Kelley wasn’t here right now.

  And the kid was her mother’s daughter—pretty and appealing and cagey. Even at age three, she kept secrets of her own.

  When Jenny looked over her shoulder at him and a tear rolled down her cheek, he nearly lost it. He clamped his hands into fists so tight they hurt, to prevent himself from dashing over to give her a great big hug.

  As if he really knew about child psychology. But he’d been instructed that kids who misbehaved had to endure the results of their actions.

  “You’ve something on your mind today, don’t you, Shawn?” Marge joined him at the doorway where he stood with arms folded. The childcare coordinator spoke in a soothing voice, and when he looked down she regarded him with a sympathetic smile that hinted of flirtation. “You’re usually so good with the kids.”

  Implying that, today, he was the pits. Which was the truth.

  And he had no intention of flirting back with Marge, no matter how nice she was.

  He knew the drill about no conflicts of interest, and nevertheless was already being taught the hard way of the folly of caring about someone on an assignment.

  His primary suspect.

  “Yeah, I’ve something on my mind,” he said.

  Like, I have more work to do, I’m in a hurry, and today, when I have some real questions to ask, I have to wait.

  Then, realizing how whiny and immature his thoughts were, he grinned ruefully at the curly-haired brunette. “The kids are teaching me as much as I’m teaching them.” Without giving her more opportunity to comment, he motioned to a couple of boys, and they all joined the girls at their pretend tea party—after Shawn promised to read them an adventure story when they were done.

  And when he did, he made certain enough time had passed that Jenny could join them.

  He remained in KidClub’s main room, keeping an eye on the door. When Janice Fritz, Claire’s mother, appeared, he excused himself from the squawking kids and joined her at the entry. “Can I talk to you?” he asked. “It’s important.”

  “Sure.” She looked nonplussed as Shawn ushered her into the hallway.

  Janice, who wore her dark hair in a ponytail, looked barely out of her teens and wore no wedding ring. All Shawn knew about her was that she worked in the hospital pharmacy and that she had a well-behaved daughter who liked to draw skunks. She wore a white smock over white slacks.

  “Is something wrong with Claire?” she asked immediately. Her eyes were large and pale in color, and she wore no makeup except for bright lipstick.

  “No, she’s fine. But Jenny Stanton has been acting up today.” He did not intend to mention the lines she’d drawn depicting fire. The fewer people who knew about it, the better—especially if Jenny had seen the arsonist. No way would he endanger the child.

  “Jenny? Poor thing, she’s been through a lot, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Shawn agreed, leaning a shoulder against the wall as if he were relaxed. Despite the number of people walking down the hall, he stayed focused on Janice. “Today she’s seemed more upset than any day since I’ve been here. Did she say anything to you this morning that might explain why?”

  Janice’s ponytail swayed as she shook her head. “Not at all.”

  “Did you see anyone or anything this morning when you brought her in that might have upset her?”

  Her narrow forehead puckered as she mulled over the question. “I got a call at home last night that I needed to be here earlier than usual this morning.” She shook her head more vehemently this time, and the edges of her ponytail grazed her smooth, rosy cheek. “I wish I’d known before, or I’d have had Jenny sleep over a different night. As it is, I had to get the girls up early. And when we got here—” Her eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. “We did see her dad and Cheryl Marten, the cardiac nurse who’s his assistant. They didn’t see us at first. They were right outside the parking garage involved in a…discussion with Dr. Madelyne Younger.”

  Shawn didn’t let his excitement show. “A discussion? Did you hear what they were ‘discussing’?” Her hesitation suggested she’d softened her initial characterization—argument.

  Again she shook her head. She obviously used her ponytail to punctuate her thoughts, and it was beginning to annoy Shawn.

  “No,” she replied. “But why do you need—?”

  “Did you know I’m majoring in child psychology?” The lie now tripped easily from Shawn’s lips. “It’s why I’ve got an internship at KidClub, and I want to understand Jenny’s behavior, see if I can help her.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know that. Anyhow, no, I didn’t hear what they were talking about. Jenny’s dad spotted us and came over, and that was that. Except…”

  “Except?” Shawn prompted.

  “Well, Cheryl and Dr. Younger came over to say hi, too. The two of them seemed…well, as if they wanted to avoid being near each other. Cheryl fussed over the girls, but Jenny hid behind me until Dr. Stanton—Randall—pulled her out.” She looked up at Shawn. “Do you think that made Jenny upset enough to act up today?”

  “Could be,” Shawn said. He hid his disappointment. Nothing she’d said gave him any indication as to what might have made Jenny think of the fire.

  Except that Kelley had said that Cheryl had signed Jenny out of KidClub that night, then left Jenny there and blamed it on Kelley.

  Cheryl, of course
, had told him just the opposite.

  He wanted to believe Kelley. But he needed to learn the truth.

  “And there was nothing else you saw or heard when you brought the girls in?”

  “No, though Jenny did say something about being there too early. I figured she was unhappy because she was awakened too soon.” She looked up at Shawn hopefully. “Do you think maybe she was just tired? That sometimes makes Claire act grumpy.”

  “Could be,” Shawn agreed. But it still wouldn’t have explained her drawing the fire.

  He thanked Janice and followed her back into KidClub, where she signed Claire out.

  He now had a couple of leads to follow up.

  Merely seeing Cheryl probably hadn’t caused Jenny to draw fire, even if she blamed her father’s “friend” for leaving her at the childcare center that night. She’d seen Cheryl many times since then, and she had never before sketched flames.

  But she’d seen her father, too. Was it their location that had troubled her? Their argument with Madelyne Younger? Had she seen Madelyne since the fire? Probably. But the doctor hadn’t been around KidClub while Shawn was working there.

  All of a sudden, Shawn decided he wasn’t feeling well.

  “SO, WHAT SEEMS to be the problem, kiddo?” asked Dr. Madelyne Younger. She leered at him, eyeing him up and down suggestively. “You look in tip-top shape to me.”

  Shawn laughed. “Looks can be deceiving.”

  He’d had the internist paged a short while before. Thankfully, she’d still been around. She’d agreed to see him in her office.

  The oak desk in the compact and austerely furnished room was immaculate. Nothing was out of place anywhere else, either.

  Funny. He’d imagined the colorful and outspoken doctor would choose colorful and outspoken surroundings, too.

  They sat on stiff wooden chairs around a glass-topped coffee table, empty except for two teacups—real and fragile this time.

  Shawn didn’t think much of herbal tea, but the stuff Madelyne had offered actually had some taste—sharp lemon and tangy melon, an odd but flavorful combination. The citrus-and-sweet aroma filled the small room.

  “Actually, though,” he told the doctor, whose short, platinum hair suggested she was older than middle-aged, “you’re right. My health isn’t the reason I needed to talk to you.”

  “Whose, then?”

  “Little Jenny Stanton’s.”

  Her eyes widened so much that the wrinkles at their corners all but disappeared. “What’s wrong with her?” She scowled and drove her fists hard into the pockets of the purple lab jacket that she hadn’t removed, despite being off duty. “That vulture of a nurse who’s got her talons in Jenny’s dad isn’t getting to her, is she?”

  “Cheryl Marten?”

  “None other.” She spat out the words as if her tea had suddenly turned insipid. “That b—er, witch has been pretending she likes kids. But no doubt about it, if she gets Randall to marry her, the first thing that’ll go is Jenny.” She shrugged. “Which isn’t exactly a bad thing, you understand. The tot would be a lot better off if her mom got sole custody.”

  “Do you think Kelley Stanton is a good doctor?” Shawn figured he’d push the questions as far as he could under the guise of a concerned caretaker of the “tot.”

  “Of course.” The words exploded from Madelyne. “Though that has nothing to do with her mothering ability. I take it you’ve heard the hospital scuttlebutt, though why it would get to the ears of a childcare attendant—no offense, Shawn, but it really isn’t your business how Dr. Kelley Stanton practices medicine.”

  Oh, but it is, Shawn’s thoughts contradicted.

  Just like it was his business to find out why, after the way they’d gotten along last night, Kelley was acting today as if he’d sprouted horns and a forked tail.

  “I know,” he said smoothly, “but if her concerns affect her daughter, that’s my business.” He proceeded to describe the day with Jenny, as he had with Janice Fritz. “She wasn’t with her mother last night, but she wasn’t with her father, either.”

  “She saw her daddy when Claire’s mom brought her in this morning,” Madelyne said. “Did Jenny tell you?”

  Ah, the exact opening Shawn was looking for. “No, but I did ask Claire’s mother whether she knew of anything that might have set Jenny off this morning. She said she saw you talking with Dr. Randall Stanton and Cheryl Marten, but didn’t know why Jenny would get upset about that.”

  “Me, neither,” Madelyne said.

  “What were you discussing?”

  “A case.” Her tone, and her belligerently outslung lower jaw, suggested to Shawn that she had no intention of saying more.

  “Which case?” He kept his own voice ingenuous, as if he were driven by sheer curiosity.

  Madelyne sighed and rose. Her bleak expression indicated she didn’t want to talk about it further. “Let’s just say we were talking about Kelley. Randall keeps—well, never mind about that. I’m sure you’ve heard how Kelley saved the day with that Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever patient. There’s a lot of good in how Kelley practices medicine.”

  “And a lot of bad?” Shawn suggested.

  She reeled on him. “I didn’t say that.”

  But she didn’t deny it, either.

  “Look,” she continued as she paced the area rug on her wooden floor. “I’ve been a physician a lot longer than Kelley, and even I fail to catch things. I really thought that kid had mononucleosis. Classic case. Only it wasn’t. Kelley got it right, maybe saved the kid’s life.” She stopped pacing and faced Shawn. “Stuck me where it hurt—right in the old professional pride. But we all make mistakes sometimes. And that’s why we encourage our patients to get second opinions.”

  Shawn was skating on thin ice, but there was a question he had to ask. “Do you know of any situations where Kelley made mistakes? Like, in her treatment of the Silver Rapids flu patients?”

  “If you want to believe rumors, go ahead,” she said angrily. She visibly got hold of herself, but the leer she turned on him this time looked forced. “And if you don’t intend to show me any part of your anatomy for a diagnosis, this session is at an end.”

  But Shawn realized, as he left Madelyne’s office, that she hadn’t given her opinion about whether Kelley’s treatment of the flu patients had been wrong.

  And that might have been an answer in itself.

  “DID JENNY SAY anything?” Kelley asked Shawn.

  It was much later than she’d planned to get to KidClub to pick up her daughter. She had been delayed by a last-minute appointment with a patient whose mild, ignored cold had turned into severe pneumonia requiring immediate attention.

  Now it was six-thirty in the evening. Time for KidClub to close. She was the last parent to pick up a child.

  And she’d come in to find Jenny sitting in a corner. According to Shawn, it was her second time-out that afternoon. Her fourth that day.

  Guilt danced through Kelley like a demented demon, making her want to weep. Of all days to be late, when she knew her daughter was hurting…

  “She didn’t say much,” Shawn replied to her question in a low voice. Jenny had been told to stay put for another two minutes. She was looking over her shoulder so sadly that Kelley had to quash the urge to dash over to comfort her. At least she probably couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Kelley was glad Shawn was taking no chances.

  Leaning on the sign-out desk beside her, he looked beat. His broad shoulders appeared to have deflated, and dark circles underscored his reddened eyes. Somehow, though, he still looked like a hunk. One who needed a good night’s sleep.

  The kids must have gotten to him.

  Jenny must have gotten to him.

  He confirmed it. “Unless what you’re asking is whether she decided to practice her loudest singing at naptime. Or whether she yelled until Claire shouted they weren’t best friends anymore, and then they both cried.”

  Kelley’s smile was bittersweet. “That’s n
ot what I meant.”

  “I know.” He shook his head. “I did some other checking, to try to figure out if anything upset her today.” He described how he’d questioned first Claire’s mother, then Madelyne. “I didn’t get much, only that Janice had to bring the girls back especially early this morning, and that Jenny saw Randall, Cheryl and Madelyne together near the parking lot and they were most likely arguing.”

  “About…?”

  Shawn’s blue eyes opened a shade wider.

  “Me?” Kelley guessed.

  “That’s what I gathered.”

  Kelley could imagine the gist—Randall badmouthing her, Cheryl seconding what he said and Madelyne defending her.

  Only—she had stepped on Madelyne’s toes over the Heather Harrell case. If she hadn’t, Heather could have sickened further. Maybe even died.

  Madelyne wasn’t the type to hold grudges. Was she? But if the argument had been about Kelley, her friend and colleague would have been the only one likely to take her side.

  Randall and Cheryl certainly wouldn’t.

  “Thanks for checking,” Kelley told Shawn. “I only wish…” His gaze caught hers. She sensed sympathy and something more.

  Something she refused to allow herself to identify.

  “So,” Shawn said, straightening so that she again had to look up to see into his face. “Where are we going for dinner?”

  Kelley blinked in astonishment. “We?”

  “After last night, I’m not letting you out of my sight this evening. Jenny, either. And if she starts talking about what upset her, I want to be there.”

  “I’ll take care of Jenny,” Kelley said stiffly. “And we’ll be fine. Both of us.” But now that Shawn had reminded her of the incident that hadn’t really left her thoughts all day, she saw again in her mind the ambulance speeding toward her….

  Recalled how Shawn had saved her.

  Recalled that Louis Paxler had known she’d spent the night in Shawn’s apartment.

  She didn’t really think Shawn had told Paxler she’d been there. But now that she knew for sure that his agenda was to draw information out of her, some of which she wasn’t prepared to reveal, she had no intention of spending any more time in his presence than she had to.