Page 29 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

Grace went to sleep that night at eight-thirty. Two pages of the fox book, the closet latched, the nightlight already burning in its socket by the door, the curtains open at the same gap since April.

The strip of paper had ridden home in her coat pocket and returned to the nightstand, squared against the base of the lamp. Grace nudged it a quarter inch out of line and left it there.

"Kayla's dad brings the drinks every year," Grace said. "He does the whole cooler."

"That's a good job," Lucy said.

"He does it because he's not allowed to cook," Grace said.

"Also a good job," Lucy said, and killed the lamp.

"Is Aunt Carrington coming to the picnic?" Grace asked.

"I don't know," Lucy said.

"Okay," Grace said, and turned over to face the wall.

Lucy walked down the path at a quarter to nine. She washed the cup in the sink and left it upside down on the towel. She started a load of Grace's uniform shirts, ate half a sandwich standing at the counter, and shoved the other half into the fridge under a plate.

At nine, she sat down at the table. The log had lived on the counter since February, four or five handwritten lines every night about how a seven-year-old's day had gone. But now that it was optional, there was nobody left to read it. She carried it to the drawer with the take-out menus, dropped it in, and shut the drawer.

Then she wiped a table that was already clean, stopped the machine ten minutes early with the shirts still spinning, and hung six of them on the rail by the door.

At ten, she took a paperback she'd already read twice to bed, read four pages of it, and could not have said what happened on any of them. She turned the lamp off and laid in the dark, staring at the ceiling, restless. Then she switched the lamp back on and got out of bed.

The cottage kitchen window faced back up the path toward the corner of the main house. At eleven, she reached over to switch off the light above the stove.

Lucy put her shoes back on. The low path lights burned along the edge of the gravel, buried at the ankle. The gravel gave under her shoes, and no matter how softly she stepped, she couldn’t help but to make noise. Halfway up, she stopped and stood there long enough for the cold to work its way through her sleeves, then she walked the rest.

When she reached the top, she knocked.

13

CARRINGTON

Somebody knocked on the courtyard door.

Carrington's hand opened and three pins dropped into the carpet. She had been at the dresser a while by then, half her hair down and the rest still up, and she didn't move for a second and a half. Then she dropped the rest of the pins into the dish by the mirror and went out onto the landing.

Eleven at night, and the call box at the gate hadn't rung. Nobody had been buzzed through. Whoever was at that door was already on the property, and that could only be one person.

Grace's door was second on the left, standing ajar, a strip of amber light laid across the boards. Carrington waited at the gap for the sound of Grace's breathing, heard it, and went on to the stairs.

She came down with one hand on the rail. Lucy had come up to the house after dark twice since February, and both times something was wrong with Grace. But this time, Grace was asleep two doors behind her.

The study door stood open on her left and the desk lamp was still on in there. She went past it. The courtyard door had a bolt at the top that nobody had ever used and an outside light on the same switch as the path. Carrington switched the light on and opened the door.

Lucy stood on the step with her hands in her coat pockets. She had brought the cold up the path with her and it was still coming off her.

"Ms. Harper," Carrington said, and then, "Has something happened?"

"No," Lucy said. "Grace is fine."

Carrington kept her hand on the edge of the door.

"You let me write your name on the school picnic sheet," Lucy said.

"Yes," Carrington said.