Page 52 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

Out in the driveway, Deborah opened the car door and stood still for a moment. "Thank you for the coffee. And for letting me inside."

"Any time."

"You'd tell me if she wasn't all right?"

"Yes," Lucy said.

"All right, then." Deborah got in, pulled the door shut and put the window down. "Bye, Grace." She reached out through the window and put two fingers on Grace's shoulder.

"Bye."

Deborah drove around the fountain and went off down the gravel driveway, and Grace walked out onto the stones after her, three or four steps, and stopped.

"When's she coming back?"

"I don't know," Lucy said.

The gates were already open. Deborah drove between them and turned out onto the road and went out of sight behind the hedge.

19

CARRINGTON

"Then tell me what closes the file," Carrington said.

"Nothing closes it," Diane Bell said. "It isn't a proceeding, Carrington. There's nobody on the other side of it to beat."

Diane had written the will and handled every piece of paperwork that came out of Clara's death, and she didn’t call on a Saturday for no reason. Carrington had come down for coffee at ten past nine, and she was still at the island with the phone against her ear. She hadn't poured the coffee or gotten dressed yet. Grace was up on the stool at the other end with the bowl dragged over in front of her, and Lucy was melting butter in the pan, tilting it to coat the bottom.

"Read me the rest of it," Carrington said into the phone.

Diane read it. The file had opened when Grace’s custody was signed over to Carrington, and it ran twelve months from that date, which put it into next January. A social worker, likely Alvarez since she had opened the file, would check in every so often, and there would be one more visit to the house. It was set for Wednesday at ten.

"Reply by Friday," Diane said. "Confirm the appointment and that you'll be there. Confirm her address and her school haven't changed. And they want the household list again."

"The what?"

"Everyone living on the property, what they do there, and what hours they’re there. It's the same sheet you filled in for me in March."

Grace cracked an egg on the rim of the bowl and got most of it in. Lucy picked the pieces of eggshell out of the bowl, and Grace reached for a second egg.

"Is this the school again?" Carrington said.

"No. Nobody has said a word about Grace since March, and nobody has complained about you." Diane turned a page. "I have four clients getting one of these visits this month. The only ones that ever drag on are the ones where the list of who lives on the property doesn't match who the caseworker finds there when she walks in. Then she has to come back and work out why you got it wrong. Write down the people who actually live there and she'll be gone in forty minutes."

"It'll match."

"Good," Diane said. "And is there anything going on out there I should know about before this goes back?"

Behind her, Lucy poured the first pancake into the pan and it hissed.

"No," Carrington lied.

Carrington looked back at her. Lucy had shoved her sleeves up past her elbows, and there was a smear of flour along the inside of her right forearm. She watched the edges of the pancake set and didn't look up.

Carrington wanted to cross the kitchen and put her hands on her, but she stayed where she was.

"Then you're fine. I'll send the copy Monday." Diane waited a beat. "How is she?"