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I told Marco about the situation, apologizing for the late hour.
“It’s not a problem, Will,” he said. “You know you can call any time of the day or night.”
“Thanks.” I already felt better, though the guilt that had been lying dormant for a while had returned in full force, this time for being suspicious of Bailey. I pushed it aside, not feeling like I had a choice. “Start tomorrow morning and don’t hesitate to intervene if you think there’s the slightest inkling the kids might be in danger.”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to Harrison and Ava,” he promised.
After we ended the call, I felt both better and worse. Was I doing the right thing in having Marco follow Bailey? All I really wanted to do was pull her from her room and demand to know what was going on, then assure her I would protect her if she was in trouble.
But what if Bailey was the thing we needed protection against?
Chapter 18 - Bailey
I started taking the kids to a different park a little further away, saying it was because it was dog friendly, and it was easier to be able to take Freddy. Since they adored him, they didn’t complain, and a week passed without any sign of Rick lurking around. I hated being constantly on edge, and when Harrison tried to show me some martial arts moves the other day, I got the brilliant idea to sign up for a self-defense class on my day off. I was sick and tired of being scared all the time and looked forward to getting some stress out by pounding on a life sized dummy.
Ava ran up to tell me some kids weren’t sharing the swings, and I told her to ask nicely and see if that worked, then report back if it didn’t. That was the problem with this park; it was less private, so it had more kids to compete with for the equipment. If things got ugly, I could take them to the duck pond, but a new wave of bitterness washed over me, missing the little park near the apartment, and even the busybody nannies. When would Rick stop infecting every aspect of my life?
Thinking of the other nannies, I wished I had someone to talk to about everything. I never shared the true nature of Rick’s and my relationship with anyone back home and just told them that things didn’t work out between us. At that point, I would have been too embarrassed to confess what I’d gone through just to get it all off my chest. I considered calling up Will’s brother’s fiancée, Violet, because she had seemed so friendly and open when we had lunch together at Coney Island, but it seemed like it was overstepping a boundary to suddenly confess my ex was possibly stalking me. And I didn’t want any of it getting back to Will. He saw me as a strong person, and I wanted to keep it that way. I liked the look of admiration in his eyes.
That is, when he used to look at me. He was being distant lately, but not in any way I could put my finger on. Maybe that was me working myself up to believe everything was about to come crashing down at any moment, thanks to Rick reappearing. Will was probably just busy.
“They’re still not letting me have a turn,” Ava whined, skidding to a stop in front of me.
“Do you want to see if Harrison will play in the sand with you?”
She made a face. “I don’t want sand in my hair again like last time.”
I remembered how long it took to get it all out when Harrison dumped a bucket on her head. I was irritated enough at the time that I let her reciprocate, but it was me who ended up suffering with double the cleanup.
“That’s a good call. Should we visit the ducks?”
Hearing the word, Freddy jumped up from where he’d been napping under my bench and let out a bark. Ava loved the ducks almost as much as he did, so we convinced Harrison to give up his construction project in the sandbox and join us at the pond.
They wheedled for ice cream, but it was too close to dinner time, then they wheedled for an apple when we passed a fruit stand. I figured an apple wouldn’t spoil their appetite, so after I dug for some cash to pay for it, I noticed a man inside the shop, looking over the canned goods.
I was sure I noticed him the other day, flipping through a newspaper near the park. My paranoia went into overdrive, but I forced myself to calm down. He was an older man with neatly combed white hair, cargo shorts, and a plaid, short-sleeved button-down shirt, not anyone I recognized from the degenerates who hung out with Rick. He was probably a resident of this neighborhood, so of course I’d seen him more than once when we came here almost every day. The same moms and nannies brought their kids, and I didn’t suspect any of them of following me.
I pushed him out of my mind when we got to the pond, but my mood was ruined once again by fears of my past. Watching the kids gambol happily with Freddy, who was too chicken to go in the water so ran back and forth along the edge with a crazed gleam in his eyes, I tried to forget that no matter how hard I tried, and how good things were going for me, I might never really be free.
Chapter 19 - Will
My brother Eli was waiting for me at the restaurant, with a coffee steaming in front of him, and his nose practically touching his tablet. The shock of losing our father hit him hard, like it did all of us, but while he never once missed a day of work and his magazines never suffered, his heart wasn’t in anything but drinking and womanizing for more than a year after the accident.
It was getting to the point where Ben and I were discussing an intervention. I had tried setting him up on blind dates to get him off the string of reckless one night stands, but he sabotaged them spectacularly. If it hadn’t been for Violet, things might have gotten really out of hand, but she not only dragged him out of his self-destructing habits, she pushed him to be his absolute best. I’d never seen such a hardworking and driven woman as Violet, and I’d been married to a top attorney. Her creativity never failed to astound me, and I smiled now as Eli shoved over his tablet to show me the new project they were working on.
“That’ll be another hit,” I said, scrolling through a layout for the magazine they’d started together.
I waved for the server and ordered a coffee, pushing down the mild wave of envy at how well their relationship worked, both professionally and personally. Then I had to fight the big wave of guilt for wanting something like that for myself. I wasn’t just meeting my brother for lunch for no reason. He was here for moral support while Marco delivered his findings after following Bailey for the past week. At least, he would be after I told him.
“You did what?” he asked, shaking his head at me. “Why would you think sweet, miracle-working Bailey needs to be investigated? There’s no way she could be up to no good. And you said her record was spotless.”
I shrugged, and told him about the strange encounter at the Coney Island restaurant, and then how some stranger had grabbed her arm in the play park a week ago. He frowned, mulling it over, but I saw Marco enter the restaurant and waved at him. We’d see in a few minutes if my fears were warranted or not.
Marco sat down and in his brisk, professional manner, which didn’t match his “grandpa on vacation in Palm Springs” attire, and handed over a file folder to me.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary,” he said. “Nothing that raised any of my alarms. If anybody’s following her, they’re doing a good job of it.”
He smirked, because we all knew if anyone was following Bailey, no matter how good they were at it, he would have sniffed them out. He was the best of the best, which was why my father put him on retainer all those years ago and why I still kept him on our payroll to this day.
