Chương 3
He looked away.
Maisie’s eyelids lowered. Her tiny fingers closed around the edge of his shirt.
Elise began gathering the bottles from the rug.
“You can leave those,” he said.
“I’ll wash them.”
“Someone else can.”
“Someone else is asleep.”
“So should you be.”
“So should you.”
Daniel had no answer to that.
He stood in the nursery until Maisie’s breathing deepened. When he finally tried to place her in the crib, she woke and tightened her grip on his shirt.
Elise had to help free the fabric from her fingers.
“She does that when she thinks you’re going,” she said.
Daniel’s hand remained inside the crib.
“How would she know?”
Elise looked at Maisie rather than at him. “Babies know patterns before they know words.”
The hallway beyond the door seemed colder than it had minutes earlier.
Daniel pulled a chair between the cribs and sat down.
Elise lifted the headphones. “The monitor receiver is on the nightstand. Press the left button if you need me.”
“Where will you be?”
“The staff room.”
“No. Sleep in the guest room across the hall.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“It’s closer,” he said.
“The guest room is larger than my apartment.”
“That isn’t relevant.”
“It’s a little relevant.”
“Use it tonight.”
Elise gathered the gloves and headphones against her chest. She paused at the open door.
“Mr. Carter.”
“What?”
“You frightened me.”
Daniel’s eyes moved from her face to the crooked watercolor in the hallway.
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Her fingers tightened around the headphones. “You decided what was happening before you opened the door. You decided I was hurting them. Then you used the worst thing that ever happened to your family as a weapon against me.”
He rose halfway from the chair.
Elise flinched.
The movement stopped him.
He sat back down.
She watched him carefully.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” he said.
“Good.”
“I’m saying it won’t happen again.”
“That’s what people say when they want a problem to end before they’ve changed anything.”
The twins shifted in their cribs.
Elise lowered her voice. “I’ll stay tonight. Tomorrow, we talk about whether I keep working here.”
She left before he could answer.
Daniel sat between the cribs with the pink teddy bear at his feet. The nursery door remained open.
At six thirty, Mrs. Vale found him asleep in the chair, his long legs stretched awkwardly onto the rug and one yellow rubber glove over his left hand.
The house manager did not wake him immediately.
She was sixty-one, severe in the way only deeply competent people could afford to be, with silver hair cut bluntly beneath her jaw. She had managed the Carter residence for twelve years, first for Daniel and Rebecca in the smaller apartment on West Seventy-Third Street, then in the high-rise after the twins were born. She had organized medical schedules, household payroll, security clearances, meals, repairs, and more than one discreet removal of a drunken business guest.
She stood in the doorway and took in the open shirt, the crooked chair, the sleeping babies, and the rubber glove.
Then she coughed.
Daniel woke instantly. The glove struck him in the face when he raised his hand.
Mrs. Vale’s mouth tightened.
“Not a word,” he said.
“I had no intention of speaking.”
“You were about to.”
“I was about to ask whether you still intend to attend the eight o’clock call.”
Daniel looked at the clock.
6:34 A.M.
“I’ll take it here.”
“In the nursery?”
“In my office.”
He stood slowly. His back protested. Maisie made a sighing sound but did not wake.
Mrs. Vale noticed the headphones on the dresser. “Miss Navarro was instructed to keep electronic equipment out of the cribs.”
“It wasn’t in the cribs.”
“I am aware.”
“Then why mention it?”
“Because you appear to be wearing kitchen supplies.”
Daniel removed the glove and placed it beside the pink teddy bear.
“Miss Navarro is staying.”
Mrs. Vale’s expression did not change, but she folded her hands in front of her. “I thought I heard you dismiss her.”
“You heard wrong.”
“The door impact was somewhat clarifying.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Miss Navarro may not have.”
Daniel looked toward the guest room across the hall. Its door was closed.
Mrs. Vale followed his gaze.
“She asked me for a copy of her employment agreement,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because you fired her at two in the morning.”
“I rescinded it.”
“You have not rescinded it in writing.”
Daniel pressed two fingers against his forehead.
“Have legal draft something.”
Mrs. Vale did not move.
“What?” he asked.
“She is a nanny, Daniel. Not an acquisition.”
The use of his first name warned him that she had stepped outside ordinary household protocol.
“I know what she is.”
“Do you?”
He turned toward her.
Mrs. Vale lowered her voice. “She has been here eighteen days. In that time, the twins’ feeding has improved, Rosie’s reflux log is finally accurate, Maisie has stopped scratching the left side of her face, and both babies have begun sleeping in stretches longer than ninety minutes. Miss Navarro also convinced you to attend precisely one bedtime.”
“That’s not—”
“It was last Tuesday. You left before the second book.”
“I had a call.”
“Yes.”
The single word carried no accusation. It did not need one.
Daniel looked at the nursery floor. The pink teddy had fallen onto its side again.
“Rebecca handled nights,” he said.
Mrs. Vale’s face softened. “Rebecca is not here.”
The sentence landed without cruelty, which made it worse.
Daniel stepped past her into the hallway. The mounted rifles seemed darker in the early morning. They had belonged to his grandfather, a man who believed every room improved when something dead was displayed in it. Rebecca had hated them. She had once tied small red ribbons around the barrels before a Christmas party. Daniel’s father had removed the ribbons without comment.
May you like
“Take the rifles down,” Daniel said.
Mrs. Vale looked at the wall. “All of them?”
