Page 47 of Cruel Lies

13

CALI

The next Wednesday, I get a text.

RONAN AKOV: Friday. 7 P.M. I'll send a car.

Does he explain how he got my phone number? No, he does not.

Does he add anything else to sound slightly less like a serial killer? No, he does not.

Does the direct, unapologetic, and unvarnished way he asks me out on a date please me in some strange way I can't quite explain?

… Maybe.

I squint at the text for a full minute, debating whether to tell him that I can't possibly send my children off into the night so I can go gallivanting with a man whose entire vibe isunsolved homicide.I have responsibilities. My nine-year-old needs help with a diorama about photosynthesis and my six-year-old who refuses to fall asleep without me readingGoodnight Moonin what she calls "the cow voice."

So I text back the only reasonable answer.

I have kids. I can't just leave.

RONAN: A sitter will arrive at 6:15. She has been bonded, background-checked, references available on request. CPR certified. You'll have her file before she rings the bell.

Ronan Akov is teaching me new things about myself. For instance, I didn't know that "references available on request" was dirty talk that would really rev my engine. Now, I know.

ME: You vetted a babysitter?

RONAN: I don't do things halfway, Ms. Meadows.

I set the phone face-down on the counter and walk away from it like it's something that might bite. Then I walk back, because I am weak and curious.

Sure enough, by the time I do my guilt trek back, I have a new file sitting in my email. The sitter's name is Juliet Stein. She has a degree from Harvard in early childhood education, a record so clean that I can't even find evidence of a parking ticket, and a glowing reference from a family whose last name I recognize from the society pages. There's also a note that she once won a regional Scrabble tournament.

Hayden is going to be thrilled.

Friday arrives the way all unwelcome inevitabilities do: too fast, and dressed up like something I should be excited about.

By six o'clock, I've tried on four outfits and discarded three, which is a personal record for a date I keep insisting isn't really a date. It'sdata,not a date.Data,not a date.

If I keep saying that enough times, maybe it'll actually be true.

I settle on the green wrap dress I bought myself two years ago and never had anywhere to wear. Todd thought green "washed me out," a phrase I now suspect was code forplease dim yourself so I shine brighter.

Tonight, though, I don't feel washed out. I feel, against all odds, kind of pretty.

Juliet Stein rings the bell at 6:15 on the dot. She is twenty-six, radiates the calm of someone who has never once raised her voice, and within ninety seconds, has Hayden showing her his diorama and Isabella interrogating her about whether she's ever performed surgery on a narwhal.

("Not professionally," Juliet says gravely. Isabella decides on the spot that they are best friends.)

"I'll have my phone," I tell her, hovering by the door. "On me the entire time. If anything happens?—"

"Ms. Meadows," Juliet says gently, "go enjoy your evening. We'll be fine. I brought Bananagrams."

Hayden looks at her like she's just announced she's secretly a fighter pilot.

The car is waiting at the curb at 6:45, black and gleaming and so quiet I have to look twice to confirm it's running. The driver, an older man with a gray beard and warm eyes, opens the door before I reach for the handle.

"Ms. Meadows," he says.