Jason
Shauna regarded me with a careful expression from across the back of the car.
“Do you think she suspects anything?”
I glanced up from my iPad, the screen colorful with charts from that week’s earnings review.
“One day into the job and you’re already wondering something like that? Someone’s paranoid.”
She chewed her lip slightly and glanced away before turning her eyes back onto me.
“I don’t know. I talked to her this morning about what she’d heard Willa say.”
“Are you serious? You brought that up? Why?”
“Because Willa straight-up mentioned people thinking you’re a criminal. No way that didn’t get April thinking.”
Her news frustrated me. The last thing I wanted to worry about was whether or not my new nanny had suspicions about my business.
“You shouldn’t have said anything. By bringing it up, you drew attention to it. And if you were new to this game I’d tell you that ‘attention’ is the last thing we want. But you’re not new—so you have no excuse.”
Shauna pursed her lips, and for a moment I wondered if I’d gone too hard on her. No—this was too important to worry about something like that.
“I guess I wanted to throw her off the scent. And I can already tell she’s no dummy. She’s going to start wondering before too long.”
“Then she can start wondering on her own time. We don’t need to be putting any ideas in her head.”
There was something else. I could tell Shauna was holding back.
“What is it?” I asked. “You know I don’t like having to pry things out of people.”
“At the park. Willa mentioned she’d run into an old boyfriend.”
“And?”
“And…I don’t know. I brought it up with her today, and she got cagey about it.”
“What’s the issue there? Not everyone wants to talk about things like that. Private matters.”
“I get it. But it was like I’d hit something sore, like I’d caught her in the act. And she clammed up as soon as I mentioned it.”
“Could be nothing.”
“But you’re not paying me to write things off as ‘nothing.’”
She had a point. Shauna was my eyes and ears around the city.
“Then what do you suggest?”
“That I keep an eye on her. Maybe she’s not what she seems.”
“What are you implying?”
“Maybe she’s got some secrets. But maybe it’s nothing—you could be right that she’s just a private person.”
I considered her words.
“How about this,” said Shauna. “I spend some time with her, maybe take her out for drinks—something like that. Get to know her in a way you won’t be able to.”