Paula Graves: Major Nanny

Even if you are.

The hours since Zachary woke her had passed slowly, unaided by anything approaching actual sleep. She’d tried to go back to sleep after Zachary was finished with his snack and safely tucked under the covers again, telling herself she was overreacting to finding Harlan gone when she awoke. But as the sleepless hours ticked away, the truth seeped through the barrier of self-protective lies she’d constructed.

It had been sex. Good sex-no, great sex-but that was all it had been. It hadn’t been the start of some wonderful new relationship. It wasn’t going to be the first of a lifetime’s worth of nights spent curled up in Harlan McClain’s strong arms.

And the sooner she dealt with those facts, the sooner she’d get past the pain and shame and get on with her life.

Giving up the pretense of sleep, she rose for good, directing her restless energy to the task of cleaning up the painful reminders of their brief intimacy, changing the sheets and pillowcases so that they no longer smelled like him. She picked up his discarded clothes and packed them away, along with the rest of his clothes, into the pair of large duffels he’d brought with him after he moved in.

He wouldn’t need to be here after tonight’s fundraiser, after all. He could go back to his real life-and let her and Zachary get on with theirs. Zachary wasn’t going to be happy, of course, but she’d figure out some way to distract him until he settled into the idea of Harlan no longer being around.

At 6:00 a.m., she called Charlotte Manning to make sure she could still watch Zachary during the fundraiser, but once she heard her friend’s gentle voice, she found herself blurting out the mistake she’d made the night before, giving in to the need to cry on her friend’s shoulder. She didn’t go into details, but Charlotte was a smart woman who easily read between the lines.

“Are you sure you have this right?” Charlotte asked after Stacy finished, her voice soft with sympathy and concern.

“How else am I supposed to read it?” Stacy dashed tears from her cheeks with angry jabs of her fingertips. “Not a note, not a goodbye, just slam, bam-”

“Come on, Stacy. He’s in the middle of an intense security project. How do you know he didn’t get called away for something related to the fundraiser?”

The surge of hope Charlotte’s words evoked was almost embarrassing. “I thought about that, but it doesn’t explain why he didn’t at least leave me a note.”

“I just think you should discuss it with him before you jump to any conclusions.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Stacy said sharply. “Harlan and I both knew before we got ourselves into this mess that neither of us wanted anything serious. Anthony cured me of that kind of romanticism.”

“And that’s why you’re crying your heart out over a one-night stand?” Charlotte’s voice flattened. “Anthony hurt you, Stacy, but that doesn’t mean Harlan-or some other guy-is going to do the same thing.”

“I’m glad you can still believe in true love and happily ever after,” Stacy said, meaning it. Maybe, if she were stronger and braver, if she didn’t have Zachary’s welfare and happiness to worry about, she’d be more willing to take a chance on something impossible.

But she couldn’t take any more chances, especially after making the mistake of putting aside her lingering doubts last night and taking a leap of hope.

“Stacy, at least talk to him-”

“I have to go. You need to get ready for school, and Zachary will be up any minute.” She said a quick goodbye and hung up before Charlotte tempted her good sense any further.

She woke Zachary and dressed him for school, expecting Harlan to walk through the door any moment with some lame excuse about where he’d gone and why he hadn’t left her a note or called. She was ready for him, however-his bags were packed by the sofa and she was cleaned up and sobered up by cold, hard reality.

No tears. No arguments. No begging for any sort of reconsideration. And if she felt hurt or ashamed by her mistake last night, she’d be damned if she showed it.

But by the time she had to leave to take Zachary to school, Harlan still hadn’t arrived or even called.

She wrote a quick note and tucked it under the canvas strap of one of the duffels, where he couldn’t miss it.

Taking a final look at the bags sitting on the floor by the sofa, she followed Zachary out the front door.

JEFF ARRIVED HOME a little after 7:30 a.m., his grim expression making Harlan’s gut twist with apprehension. Harlan didn’t know the deputy well enough to know whether his grimace denoted finding something disturbing during the search of Trevor Lewis’s apartment-or finding nothing at all.

The answer was both. Sort of.

“The sheriff doesn’t think this is automatically actionable, by itself,” Jeff explained in an apologetic tone, laying a manila envelope on the table in front of Harlan. “But it’s not nothing. ”

Harlan eyed the envelope, torn between anticipation and dread. Jeff pushed it toward him, giving silent assent to go ahead and take a look at what was inside.

Harlan opened the envelope flap and carefully emptied the contents onto the table surface. A small collection of eight-by-ten photographs lay in front of him.

“Sheriff Hale said it was okay to show them to you, since you’re heading up the governor’s shindig tonight,” Jeff said.

Harlan flipped through the photographs, his stomach tightening with rage as he saw the subject matter. The photographs depicted the interior of a small but well-furnished bedroom. Big iron bed, expensive-looking bedding and curtains. A low, wide dresser with a mirror took up most of one wall. And on the dresser, filling almost every available inch of surface stood a series of framed photographs.

Photographs of Stacy Giordano.

“That sick son of a-”

“I know.” Jeff Appleton nodded with understanding. “I don’t know what law he’s broken by doing that, but I don’t see how we can just ignore it, either, especially after what happened at the ranch yesterday.”

Harlan looked back through the photographs again, paying particular attention to the close-up shots of the framed images on the dresser. They were all clearly candid shots of Stacy, taken without her knowledge, save for an ominous-looking image near the end of the dresser. That photo had clearly been clipped from the Austin newspaper only a few short days ago.

The photo depicted Stacy, dressed in her grimy, rumpled business suit, her face bloodied and haggard. It had been snapped just after she’d freed the governor from the collapsed dais; Harlan remembered seeing it the day it came out in the paper. Her gaze fixed on something beyond the camera lens, she looked shell-shocked and tragically beautiful, but Harlan doubted, somehow, that the aesthetic appeal of the shot was what had compelled Trevor Lewis to clip it from the newspaper.

Harlan clenched his jaw so tightly it ached. “It may not be enough to take him into custody, but it’s enough to give the governor cover to fire him.”

Appleton nodded soberly. “The sheriff gave me permission to let you take these copies to the governor as evidence. I don’t know if he’s dangerous to Stacy or not, but it’s not a risk I think anyone wants to take.”

“What about his connection to Planet Justice?” Harlan asked. “Did you find anything incriminating?”

“Some literature. Some black bloc-style clothing in his closet. But those things aren’t illegal, and we didn’t find any bomb-making material anywhere in the apartment.” Jeff shrugged. “That doesn’t mean he’s not the bomber, though. Maybe he wouldn’t want explosives where he lived. That’s a high-end apartment for someone who works as a stable hand. He’s got to have income coming from somewhere else.”