Page 64 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"Ms. Harper takes her. I've been to the last two."

"Where does she do her schoolwork?"

"At the kitchen table," Lucy said. "Or outside at the porch table if it's warm enough."

She asked about the school, then about the pediatrician on Wells Street, then about who had signed the consent form. Carrington answered every one of them without a pause. Lucy stood down the hallway and listened. She smiled when Carrington got all the details right. In February, Carrington had needed to be told what color Grace liked.

They came down to the kitchen. Melinda went out into the courtyard on her own and stood on the stones with her back to the glass. Then she wrote something and came inside again.

The cottage was next. Lucy opened the door and stepped aside to let her in.

Melinda inspected the entire space in under three minutes. When she had finished going through everything, Melinda sat down on the left end of the couch to finish writing her notes while Lucy stayed by the door. Melinda got up and picked the logbook up off the table, turning the pages with her index finger. Her eyes scanned each page for about four or five seconds before she flipped to the next one. When she got to the end, she closed it and set it back down on the table.

"Do you write that yourself?"

"Every night."

"Is this everything of yours?"

"Yes," Lucy said.

Melinda Alvarez sat at the island with the folder open and her notebook beside it. Carrington stood across from her, and Lucy made the coffee and poured two cups for them. After, she went back to the sink and picked up a dish towel.

"Ms. Harper, what hours are you scheduled?"

"Seven in the morning until Grace is asleep. I have every other weekend off."

Melinda did not look up from the notebook.

"Does anybody else look after her?"

"No. The chef's here during the day, but she’s cooking."

"Any night in the last three months when Grace was in the house on her own?"

"No," Lucy said.

"Good." Alvarez turned a page. "Two more things and I’m finished. There's a written statement in the file. It came in after this visit was scheduled, so you wouldn’t have seen it. It's from someone named Deborah Mensah."

Carrington placed a hand flat on the island. "She was my sister's oldest friend."

"That's what she says. She's asking to be considered as somebody with a relationship to Grace. That part isn't mine to decide." Melinda turned the top page over. "The rest of it is about the household, and it's the reason I have to go through each detail of the form with you. I'll read you the part that matters."

Nobody said anything. The chef put something down on a shelf in the pantry.

"I'm not asking to take Grace anywhere. I think there’s something more going on in that house than is reported, and I'd like somebody to look at it and tell me I'm wrong." Melinda put down the form and looked up.

"She called the house in March," Lucy said. "Nobody called her back."

"She says that too."

"She can write to my attorney," Carrington said. "Diane Bell."

Melinda wrote that down. "Have you met her, Ms. Harper?"

"Once. She brought Grace a box of things out of Clara's house." Lucy pushed her sleeves back. "Grace didn't want her to go."

"Did you tell Ms. Cole she'd stopped by?"