“I’d like that,” she said.
“Cool.” He grinned. “But don’t think that I’m going to let you get out of answering that question I asked earlier. I want to know what makes you happy.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Let’s go to my room and put together the Lego set!” Beverly said excitedly as she jumped out of the backseat of Lennox’s truck, immediately followed by Maria, who whooped like an escaped monkey from the zoo.
“Sometimes I wonder if kids understand the concept of an indoor voice,” Lennox murmured from where he sat beside Talia, reaching forward to turn off the vehicle. “I’ve been in firefights that were quieter than those two girls in the backseat.”
Talia laughed, completely understanding. She wasn’t sure if it was her experience as an au pair or simply because she was a woman, but she’d found that it was pretty easy to tune out screaming children. Still, she could appreciate the silence filling the pickup now.
The hyperactivity was all Lennox’s fault of course. While Talia and Katrina had been talking, he’d bought Maria and Beverly a mountain of sugary goodness at the park, including soda, churros, cotton candy, and Skittles. The two kids would be bouncing off the walls for hours. Which explained why Katrina had been more than happy to let Lennox drive the kids back to the McDaniel’s house. She’d known how loud the two girls could be when hyped up on sugar.
“Should we go in and take responsibility for Beverly being so spun up?” Lennox asked tentatively, like he was hoping she’d say no.
“We probably should so Katrina isn’t the one to get in trouble.” She gave him a pointed look. “Unless that was your plan all along.”
Lennox put a hand to his chest, looking wounded. “Ow, that hurts. I didn’t intend for them to eat that much sugar. I just had a hard time saying no when Maria and Beverly hit me with those puppy dog eyes.”
“Having been on the receiving end of those eyes a few times myself, I can understand,” Talia said with a laugh. “Let’s go in. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and the kids will hide in Beverly’s bedroom until they come down from their sugar rush.”
Since Maria and Beverly were best friends, Talia had been at the McDaniel’s quite a lot, which was how she and Katrina had become so close. The huge Mission Hills home was beautiful and one of the most expensive in the area, supporting the theory that Dayton and Roselyn McDaniel were very wealthy. Talia wasn’t exactly sure how the man made his millions. Something to do with biomedical research, she thought.
The moment the maid let them in, Talia could hear Maria and Beverly laughing somewhere upstairs, but it was the sound of voices near them on the ground floor that drew her attention. She and Lennox headed in that direction.
They found Katrina in the drawing room with Beverly’s mother, Roselyn, as well as Vera Rybak, discussing the children’s day at the amusement park. Talia was a little surprised to see Vera. Not that there was any reason Maria’s mother shouldn’t be here. The Rybak and McDaniel families were friends. But Talia had thought Vera and Bogdan were out of town this weekend.
“Mrs. Rybak. I didn’t expect to see you here,” Talia said, leading Lennox into the room.
Talia thought she saw surprise flit across Vera’s face, but it disappeared before she could be sure. Tall and regal, her blonde hair up in a fashionable twist that Talia could never pull off, she gave them a welcoming smile as she stood up to greet them.
“Talia,” Vera said. “And Petty Officer Thompson. What a pleasant surprise! I’m so glad you two are finally dating! Maria will be so happy!”
Talia almost face palmed. Did everyone think she and Lennox were a couple?
“We aren’t dating,” Talia said, giving Lennox an embarrassed look. “I just happened to run into Lennox and mentioned we were going to Legoland and he decided to join us. The girls and I rode back with him because his pickup is bigger than Katrina’s car.”
Vera looked a little dubious at that answer. “Okay, but now I’m confused. I was talking to Ken this morning and he said you didn’t stay on the property last night. That something happened and you went to stay with a friend?”
Talia knew she’d been caught, and it took everything she had to stop herself from visibly reacting. Ken Hull was the head of the security team Bogdan employed. Ken and his team were serious about the family’s security, conducting kidnapping and break-in exercises all the time. He even had Talia memorize a whole list of code words that could be sent out over the phone to alert the family if something dangerous happened.
Ken had been working the front gate last night when Lennox had brought her over to pick up some clothes. Talia hadn’t told him anything about the attack. In fact, she hadn’t told him anything at all, simply waved as they’d left the Rybak residence. She should have realized the man would brief Bogdanand Vera on it. Not because Ken was trying to get her into trouble, but because it wasn’t something she normally did.
“I did stay with a friend,” Talia said, glancing at Lennox from the corner of her eye. “Someone tried to attack me outside Anna Medina’s apartment building last night. You know, the Fredrickson’s au pair?”
“Oh, my goodness!” Vera gasped, her eyes going wide. A moment later she rushed over to take Talia in her arms, giving her a hug before stepping back to look at her. “Thank heavens you’re okay! Did the police catch the person? Was Anna attacked as well? Is she okay?”
The sudden change of direction caught Talia completely off guard, her head spinning as she tried to understand why Vera was suddenly asking about Anna.
Since the whole thing happened outside Anna’s apartment building, Talia supposed it made sense on some level that Vera would be worried about the other au pair. But that logic didn’t stop her stomach from twisting as a seed of doubt began to grow. After learning that the Fredrickson family might be involved in Anna’s disappearance, it was hard not being suspicious of everyone in that same social circle.
Could Bogdan and Vera be involved in Anna’s disappearance. If so, had they also been aware that the scary looking guy had chased her? Is that why Vera had looked so surprised to see Talia? Were they expecting her to be missing now as well?
A glance from the corner of her eye revealed Lennox standing there looking calm, but from the way his eyes narrowed slightly, it seemed like he was as suspicious as she was.
Talia’s first thought was to confront her employer, to demand Vera tell her what had happened to Anna but then she caught Lennox giving her a discreet shake of his head. She couldonly assume he didn’t want her letting on that they suspected Vera was involved in all of this.
“Anna is fine, as far as I know,” Talia said tentatively, relaxing when Lennox gave her a subtle nod. “Apparently, there was family emergency back in Bolivia and she had to leave to go back home.”
