Page 85 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"No," Carrington said.

Lucy took her hand off the door and didn't move otherwise.

"You have a file open with family services, Ms. Cole," Lucy said.

"I know what I have. I wrote to Melinda Alvarez on Sunday night."

Lucy's head came up. "You did what?"

"I put it in writing that the answer I gave her on the twentieth was a lie, and that I knew that at the time. I put in that the hiding was mine. That I made you do it, and you did it because I asked and for no other reason."

"Tell me you didn't sign it."

"I signed it and I dated it."

"Where is it now?"

"I mailed it Monday morning."

Lucy turned all the way around and looked up at the house. Then she came back.

"Does Diane know?"

"Diane told me not to send it. She said it plainly and she was right. But I sent it anyway."

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Lucy came off the car by a step, and her voice came up for the first time all evening. "That woman has an open casefile concerning Grace. You've handed her a signed page saying you lied to her face during a review."

"Yes."

"They can take her away from you."

"Yes, I know," Carrington said.

"Say something else."

"I don't have anything else to say. I haven't heard back. I don't know what it's going to do, but I'm going to find that out the same way you are."

Lucy put her hand up over her mouth and took it away again.

"Why?" she said. "You were in the clear. I was gone. Nobody had anything left in that house to come and look at."

"Because it was true."

"That's never once been a reason for you."

"No."

"So what changed?”

"I didn't like that I had lied on the record. I needed to fix it." Her voice went quiet on her and she didn't fight it. “I've lived with a great many things I've done. I couldn't live with that, though."

Diane had said the words state agency and guardianship to her on that call, in that order, and Carrington had put the envelope in the box the next morning anyway. Every day since, she had been at the desk before six with the phone face up on the mat, waiting for a call, and it hadn't rung.

"I've got more, and I'd rather you heard it tonight."

"I don't want any more tonight."

"I know you don't."