CHAPTER 31

Grant was with me on the Christmas committee for the neighborhood. Each year, we decorated the front gates and organized a toy drive for needy kids. Grant was always pretty quiet but the sort of guy who would jump in and help, no matter what. We try to get everything on each needy family's list, but sometimes we're short, you know? Last year, Grant went out himself and bought everything that was missing and anonymously donated it. I know right now a lot of crazy things are being said, but he was a good guy. A really good guy.

—Russell Stern, financial adviser

With five weeks before Sophie's birthday, I needed to expand the clusterfuckery of the event. Grant was a great fall guy for the original Folcrum killer to set up, but I needed to provide a motive if I wanted the police to seriously consider him for the crime. A motive, and another potential villain or accomplice. Someone the police could examine before they settled in on or eliminated Grant.

After careful consideration, I decided a nanny would work. A nanny with an obsession for my lifestyle—one who would kill to get it for herself. She would have to be slightly unbalanced in order to be believable. A few worrisome traits that would increase in intensity leading up to the crime.

She would need to be perfectly flawed, and perfection didn't exist, so I set out to build her, starting with an ad placed in the country club bulletin, the Pasadena Gazette , and on three online job sites.

WANTED: A Nanny for a Brighton Estates family. Pay is excellent, references not required.

If that didn't bring the crazies out of the woodwork, what would?

I'd never wanted a nanny before. It was a ridiculous idea, pawning your child off on someone else, especially when being a mother was so easy.

Maybe not in the beginning. In the beginning, there had been the diapers and the crying and the latching on to my teat, sucking the life out of me as I vacantly stared out an upper-story window and considered throwing the infant down onto the pavement. The beginning was horrible, especially with a child whom my husband wouldn't stop raving about.

I'd only kept her back then because of the way Grant looked at me every time he saw her in my arms. It was so drenched in love, that look. So wistful. So powerful. It was like I was the goose and I was holding the golden egg in my arms, and I would have been stupid to drop it, stupid to get rid of the one thing that, at the time, was holding our marriage together.

By the time we moved into Brighton Estates, Sophie was four, and while every woman in my new circle complained about the chore of parenting, I still couldn't see the issue. If you raised your child right, then they minded. They took care of themselves. I knew that better than anyone. Sometimes less parenting was better than overparenting.

Sophie amazed them. The four-year-old who ate Italian roulade and cauliflower steaks without hesitation, a napkin tucked under her chin, her tiny hands using her adult-size knife and fork with awkward but precise dexterity. They gushed when she used her manners; giggled when she asked if she could be excused from the table; and all but fell over in their chairs when she scraped her dish into the trash, then pulled her stool over to the sink and washed her plate before loading it into the dishwasher.

It wasn't rocket science. She did it because she had been taught to do it. Because it was expected of her. When I had only had a father, one who worked long hours at a hard job, I was the one who had cooked. Who had cleaned. Who had made sure that his clothes were washed and my own lunch was packed. I signed permission slips and took money from his wallet when I needed it, and each of those small things fortified the woman I eventually became.

Thanks to me, Sophie was independent, intelligent, and aware. She knew she had certain responsibilities, and she knew what the consequences of not doing those responsibilities were.

Granted, those consequences were weak and mild. Earlier on, I had thought they needed to be harsh and scary, but it's pathetic how little influence and threat it took to manage a child.

Maybe that wasn't a surprise. If anyone knew the power of an adult's dominance over a child, it was me.

"Well, I think it's a good thing you're finally getting a nanny." Tracy Maldivik set her spoon down and put her skinny elbows on the table, linking her fingers together and looking over them at me. "The fall festival is coming up. Now you can finally chair the committee."

"Oh no." I stirred my tea with my straw. "Joey does a great job as chair. I'm happy to help, but I'm too busy to chair, even with this help."

"Joey had cupcakes at the raffle table," Suzanne said flatly. "Cupcakes."

I nodded somberly. It was true—the cupcakes had been an idiotic choice, especially the ones he chose, which were clearly from the grocery store bakery when Beth's Cakes was just fifteen minutes up the road and created couture-worthy bites. Not that cupcakes should have even been in the conversation, much less lined up before the raffle displays like we were an afternoon bake sale at the public library.

"You know who would be a great nanny?" Chun chimed in, pausing right before she took a bite of her blueberry-salmon salad. "Estelle, Yolanda's girl. She retired, but if it's just Sophie, I know she'd take the job. She didn't want to deal with Yolanda's girls, but Sophie?"

All the women at the table murmured in agreement. "Estelle's good," Tracy said.

I knew Estelle. Estelle was a battle-ax ex-librarian with an impeccable reputation. Likelihood of killing three preteen girls? Zilch. I made a face. "I was actually hoping for someone younger. Someone who could be more of a friend to Sophie."

"Oh, you don't want a young nanny." Chun leaned forward, and everyone followed suit, curious as to what she was about to say. "You know Stephanie's girl? Definitely sleeping with her husband." She glanced at me. "I mean, not that Grant would ever cheat on you—"

"No, never," Suzanne murmured, and I wondered if Stephanie's girl was up for grabs.

"—but you have to be careful about these things. The younger girls, they just don't respect a household—a family dynamic—in the same way."

"The older, the better," Tracy said. "I like a wrinkly hag, myself."

I laughed. "I'm not choosing a nanny based on whether or not I think she'll want to sleep with my husband. Like you all said, Grant would never." I pierced a cube of melon with my fork and then a folded strip of prosciutto.

Looks darted between them, ones I pretended not to see.

"It's not him that we worry about," Chun tried again. "It's just that ... Look, we've all had nannies. We all have nannies now. And the young ones ... they just lead to a disaster, every time."

Exactly what I was hoping for. I hid my smile by popping a big purple grape into my mouth. I shrugged and took my time to chew it.