Well, so did Lauren Thomas.
And it was that moment I understood why I had been flown across the country to suburbia.
I looked up at Bray, who had stood beside me to lean over the photos. “So, you want me to infiltrate their operation. Their baby operation.”
“Babyproducts,” he corrected with a nod. “Don’t say baby operation; it gives the wrong idea.”
He made a good point.Baby operationcould mean something else entirely.
“And yes. I can’t crack them, so that’s where you come in.” He placed a hand on the table and angled his body toward me.
I eyed the length of his arm, the curve of his thumb where it rested atop the photos. His hands were clean, soft. I guessed he did a lot of desk work. “How exactly do Icome into this case, Agent Bray?”
His lips split into a grin, and he picked up the center photo. “Lucky for us, Melanie Browning needs a new nanny.”
A laugh burst from my mouth. I had posed as many things over the years: a student, an art gallerist, an insurance agent, a cult member, a drug smuggler, a radicalized nutjob on the verge of domestic terrorism, but this … This might have been my hard limit.
“Ananny?I don’t know anything about kids.”
Bray gave a pleasant chuckle. “Come on, you have to have nieces and nephews or something. Friends with kids?”
I gave him a stare so flat it could have penetrated lead. “Have you read my file?”
His smile dropped, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob when he gulped. “I read what I could. Parts of it are classified.” His voice hitched with interest, but now was not the time to get into that element of my past.
“Then you know I have no siblings and had no childhood because my mom died when I was twelve and my father was a career criminal who used me as bait. Then when I was eighteen, he got himself sent to prison and almost took me with him. Lucky for me, the DSA was there to prey on a vulnerableyoung woman who bargained immunity in exchange for a life of servitude. Or is that last part not in my file?” I gave him an artificially sweet smile.
He looked mortified.
“So, in case it’s not clear, no, I don’t have any nieces or nephews. And you have to have friends in order to have friends with kids. Kind of a prerequisite, no? Hard to keep any gal pals around when you’re constantly lying about your identity and moving cities all the time.” My tone dripped with sarcasm, and a look of genuine remorse smoothed over his face.
“Look, Lauren, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought …”
I waited for him to finish his thought, but he didn’t. He left the sting of my new name lodged in my chest like a thorn.
“It’s fine. All part of the job.” I gave him a tight smile, which didn’t reach my eyes.
Bray tried to smile back, and most of it ended up in his eyes. The bottomless blue-gray swam with sympathy. It turned that thorn into something soft and warm. He released a tight breath and picked up Melanie’s photo. Back to business. “She’s kind of the queen bee of the neighborhood. I figure you get close to her, and we get close to the whole operation from the inside.”
I took the photo and studied it. Melanie Browning’s shiny smile reminded me of a tiger. I got the sense she knew how to hunt and enjoyed the thrill of toying with her prey. “What happened to her old nanny?”
“She fired her.”
I had a feeling I knew the answer to my next question—or at least I knew what the answer wouldnotbe—but I asked anyway. “How many nannies has Melanie Browning fired?”
A telling beat of silence passed.
“Four.”
I scoffed, hard, just as the doorbell rang.
Bray’s hand snapped out and gripped my arm. Notforcefully, but protectively, and I put a little more faith in his reflexes. I felt the warmth of his curled fingers through my hoodie and decided not to shake him off. When his other hand moved to his holster, a nervous tingle started at the base of my spine.
“Who’s that?” he whispered.
“Hopefully Wallace coming to save me from this,” I muttered. “Why are you whispering and reaching for your gun?”
He looked down as if he suddenly realized he was holding on to me and his weapon. He dropped his grip from both and began shuffling all the photos back into a folder. “Sorry. Just … be careful.”
