decorating holiday cookies, that I understood the effectiveness of my reassurances.
“You know Angela?” she asked Nicholas.
“Course.” He smeared blue icing on a Santa cookie.
“She might be killed.” Molly spread colored sprinkles over a pink snowman.
“How do you know?” He took the sprinkles from her.
Karen put down her spatula and touched my arm, eavesdropping along with me. She still hoped Tamara was alive. She didn’t know about the finger I’d found or the bag of limbs that had been discovered a few blocks away.
“I’ve seen him. He sneaks around and watches her.” Molly knocked over the bottle of cinnamon candies. “Oops—uh-oh.” They began stuffing the spilled pieces into their mouths, giggling.
Karen whispered, “What’s she saying?”
“It’s anxiety,” I whispered back. “She’s imagining stuff.” She had to be. There was no other explanation.
Karen nodded and went back to taking cookies from the tray. “I love these.” Nicholas’s mouth was stuffed with candy. “Me, too.”
Karen’s eyes began to relax. “I guess it’s her way of coping,” she whispered. But we continued to eavesdrop on the children. “Where’d you see him?” “By my house.” “For real?” “Uh-huh.”
“Then what’s he look like?” “Like—just—scary.” “You’re making it up—” “I am not—I’ve seen him—”
“Nicholas,” Karen interrupted. Her eyes were disapproving. Alarmed. “Here’s a batch of stars. You haven’t done any stars yet.”
The conversation was halted, the topic changed. The rest of the afternoon, nobody mentioned Angela or a scary man or any of the missing nannies. But when we said good-bye and left with arms loaded with cookie tins, I knew what would linger there, so I avoided Karen’s eyes.
TWENTY-FOUR
MONDAY MORNING, ANGELA ARRIVED WITH AN ATTITUDE. SHE was miffed, wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t even look at me.
I tried to deal with her. “You got your nails done,” I said. They were about three inches of crimson acrylic, a pattern of rhinestones glittering on her ring fingers. Molly craned her neck over the kitchen counter to see.
“Yeah.” Her word pierced the air like a shot.
“Your hair looks nice, too.” It had a few extra layers of spray, tough to break through.
She didn’t answer.
“Can we paint my nails, too, Mom? Can we?”
“Sure. If Angela wants to. Go get the nail kit.” The nail kit was an old shoe box where we kept polish and clippers; Molly scampered off to get it. As soon as she was out of the room, I asked, “Okay. You want to tell me what’s up?”
“Nothing’s up.”
“Angela. Either tell me or don’t, but either way, deal with it.”
She turned to me, hand on hip. “Okay, you wanna know? You got no business setting me up with that guy.”
It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about. Then I remembered: Jake. The ride home.
“I got you a ride home so you wouldn’t have to walk alone—”
Angela wheeled around. “Look, there’s just somethin’ about that guy.”
“He was probably flirting. Don’t take it so seriously.”
“No, no. I don’t like him and I don’t want his damn rides. I can take care of myself.” Her fingers flew, nails carving the air. “I don’t need no personal bodyguard. I take kickboxing. Don’t worry about me. I know what to do, anybody messes with me.”
“You take kickboxing?”
“I do. I’ll teach you, too, if you want. I’m teaching Molly.” “You’re teaching Molly?”
“Sure. Why not? She’s gotta know how to defend herself, same as the rest of us.”
“Angela, look. Those classes are great, but a real killer might not approach you the way the instructor demonstrates—”
“What do you know about it? They show us all kinds of ways. They come at us from every direction.” Then she softened a little. “Look, Joe’d have a fit, me getting rides home from work with some guy. I know you got my interests at heart, Zoe. But I got it covered. Nobody’s gonna bother me.”
She took two eggs out of the fridge and cracked them into a bowl for Molly’s breakfast. She beat the eggs a little too enthusiastically.
I understood about Joe, though. Her longtime boyfriend, a car mechanic with perpetually dirty fingernails, was known for his fragile ego and a hot temper. He was possessive and shifty-eyed, and I’d often wondered what Angela saw in him. “You know, with all those nannies missing, Joe should be glad someone drove you home and kept his eye on you.”
“Yeah? Well, anybody keeps his eye on me, Joe’s gonna punch it out.”
“I don’t think he’ll mess with Jake.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You think Joe’s not as buffed as Jake? He lifts every day.