Chapter 1

“There must be some mistake.” The doorman frowned when he studied his clipboard. “There's no Abigail Townsend on here.”

Abbie shifted from one foot to the other. “Are you sure? I have an appointment for nine o'clock. It's my first day of work.”

He sat down on the stool behind his podium. “I'll call up and see.”

Abbie wandered around the condo apartment building lobby while the doorman murmured into his phone in hushed tones. It sure was a nice building. The outside looked like any run-of-the-mill apartment building. Inside, stately potted palms dotted the checkerboard tile floor. Deco brass railings and stained glass offset the magenta carpet and burnished wainscoting.

At last, he hung up and waved her back over to his podium. “All right. You can go up.”

“What happened?”

“I don't know. Maybe they just forgot. You can go up now, but I'll have to use my key to set the elevator.”

Abbie didn't understand what that meant, but she didn't tell him so. She followed him to the elevator and waited when he pushed the button to call the car. He smiled a fake smile when she caught his eye. He ran his eye up and down her curvy form. Her khaki slacks hugged her hips, and her smart matching jacket set off her full bust. She carried all her paperwork in a leather satchel over her shoulder, with a rolling suitcase at her side. Her curly platinum hair bounced around her shoulders.

When the doors opened, he stuck his head in and inserted a key from his key chain into the control panel. He turned it and bowed to her with a flourish. “After you, Madam.”

Abbie pretended to laugh, and when she stepped inside, the door closed him out in the lobby again. A blessed silence accompanied her up into the building. The elevator showed the same signs of modern luxury as the rest of the building. She hesitated to ride in some of the decrepit elevators whizzing around this city. Their gears crunched, and rust surrounded their control panels like they hadn't been maintained in years.

The car sailed into the sky and glided to a stop without a peep. The doors whooshed open, and Abbie stepped out into a high entrance foyer leading down carpeted stairs into a long hall. Not a sound welcomed her out of the elevator. Three marble statues of naked nymphs smiled down at her. Sunlight glowed down on their heads through skylights and gave them an angelic halo.

Abbie paused in the foyer and waited. No one appeared. No one spoke inside this...this place. She couldn't even recognize what sort of place it was. Was it an apartment? Too big. Was it a museum? More likely.

She was supposed to meet her new employer and start work this morning. She always made sure to be on time, perfectly groomed and tastefully made up, so why didn't her employer give her the same consideration? This did not bode well for a profitable working relationship.

She parked her suitcase by the elevator. No need to make herself comfortable when she might be leaving in a few minutes. Maybe the doorman was right. There must be some mistake. Maybe they didn't want her working here after all. Maybe she got the address wrong. If that was the case, why did they agree to let her come up in the first place?

She took one step along the beige tiled floor and called out, “Hello?”

Nothing. She waited a few minutes longer and ventured another few inches farther along. She stopped before she stepped on the carpet. “Hello? Is anybody here?”

Not a sound answered her. She peered down the stairs and caught a glimpse of sun shining through windows down the hall. Her prospective employer might be down there somewhere. Maybe he or she couldn't hear her for some mysterious reason.

She bent down to the first stair and called. “Hello? It's Abbie Townsend. Is anybody here?”

By now, she didn't expect to get any answer. Anyway, she was here so she might as well find out what sort of place this was. If she could work out exactly who or what she was supposed to be working for, maybe everything would work out in the end after all. She ought to take a look, anyway, before she left in defeat.

She put her foot down on the first squishy stair and climbed down into the hall. Photographs of idyllic family life lined the hall, but she couldn't discern any clues from them. They could have been stock photos taken from the internet for all she knew. She crept all the way down the hall. Nothing stirred in any of the manicured rooms on either side. Those rooms stood perfect and yawning empty. If they stood that way since the beginning of time, with no one setting foot in them or folding back the bedclothes, no one would ever know the difference.

She came to the end of the hall and craned her neck around the corner. As she foresaw, sun streamed through enormous windows overlooking the whole city. A living room flooded in sun sunk another level below the hall. The windows sparkled, and the room gleamed with leather and crystal. Now that she saw the place in its entirety, she recognized a massive luxury condo, bigger than most houses she worked in.

Abbie called out one more time. “Hello? It's Abbie Townsend, from Personnel Solutions. Is anybody here?”

Her voice bounced off the windows and echoed through the condo. It rose to the high ceiling. That was the only sound in the place. She took one more step into the living room and looked around with a heavy sigh. She might as well leave. She wasn't starting work in this place this morning.

Just then, a slight movement caught her eye. She took another look down into the sunken living room. A head of straight brown hair shook on the leather couch and went still again. Abbie inched forward. “Hello?”

The head didn't turn. One more step closer, and Abbie finally saw the head belonged to a young girl. She sat on the couch with her back to Abbie, facing the windows. Abbie lowered her voice to a more conversational tone. “Hello?”

Still nothing. The girl didn't turn around or acknowledge Abbie in any way. So this was the condo's mysterious occupant, but this girl certainly hadn't hired Abbie to come over this morning. She couldn't be more than thirteen or fourteen.

Abbie stole around the sunken living room in front of the girl. From her new vantage point, she clearly saw two wires rising from a cell phone in the girl's hand to enter her ears. Her thumb moved back and forth across the phone's screen. So that's why she didn't hear Abbie come in.

Abbie bolstered her courage to face the firing squad and stepped down into the sunken living room. She stopped right in front of the girl where the girl couldn't fail to notice her. Still, the girl didn't look up from her phone. Abbie passed her hand back and forth in front of the girl's face but got no response.

Abbie pursed her lips. So this was how it was going to be. Abbie could handle this. She'd handled much worse in her time. She backed off and sat down on the couch opposite the girl. The girl kept twiddling with her phone. In the silence, Abbie could make out the tinny ruckus coming from her earphones.

Abbie crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap. She settled in to wait it out. This could take a while. She sat for an hour or longer. She didn't dare take out her own phone, although it buzzed in her pants pocket more than once in that time. That might be her employer trying to get in touch with her to explain why he or she wasn't here to meet her.

The girl never moved except for a few sideways sways of her head in time to the music. Her thumb made a continuous circuit of the phone screen, again and again without stopping. She must be playing a game or something.

Every time Abbie came close to getting up, she told herself to wait just a little longer. This couldn't go on all day. After another half hour of putting off the inevitable, though, her natural fiery spirit took over. If her would-be employer didn't have time to meet her, she didn't have time to sit around waiting, either.

She hoisted herself off the couch and strode over to the girl. She yanked the wires out of her ears and the phone out of her hands before the girl could cry out, “Hey!”

Abbie tucked the phone and wires into one hand and smiled. “Hi. I'm Abbie. I'm supposed to start work this morning.”

The girl sank back on the couch and held out her hand. She snarled at Abbie with narrowed eyes. “Give me back my phone. That's not yours. That's stealing.”

Abbie squared her shoulders. “I'm talking to you. You've ignored me for an hour and a half, and now you're going to talk to me. I'm Abbie. I'm supposed to start work this morning. I'm a nanny, and I'm here to take care of some child, so I guess that's you, unless you know of some other child in this place.”

“Great. So you're a nanny and you're here to take care of some child, but I'm not a child and I don't need taking care of. Just give me back my phone and leave me alone.”

“I won't give your phone back until I get some answers, and from what I can see, you're the only person around here who can give them to me.”

The girl crossed her arms over her chest and glared out the window. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“You can start by telling me your name.”

“Trina. Katrina, but everybody calls me Trina.”

Abbie smiled. “All right, Trina. Now we're making progress. I'm guessing you didn't hire a nanny to take care of you, so who did?”

The girl waved her hand, but she still didn't look at Abbie. “I guess that's my dad. Hiring a nanny to take care of me is just the kind of idiot maneuver he would come up with.”

Abbie started to relax. “Where is he now?”

“How should I know?”

Abbie looked around one more time. “If he's not here, who's taking care of you now?”

“No one. I told you, I don't need taking care of.”

“So you're dad went off and left you alone?”

“He always does. He's too busy to hang out here doing nothing all day.”

“What does he do?”

“I couldn't care less.”

“What's your dad's name?”

“Malcolm Malloy.”

“It seems your dad forgot to tell the doorman I was coming over today. Did you tell the doorman to send me up?”

“I never would have told the doorman to send you up. I would have told the doorman to kick you out on the street. I don't need you hanging around bugging me. Anyway, the doorman doesn't consult me about who comes up and who doesn't.”

“Then he must have called your dad. He must know I'm here.”

Trina didn't reply.

Abbie tried one more time to thaw the ice. “What do you do all day while your dad's not here? Do you go to school, or what?”

Trina gave an imperceptible shrug. “I used to, but I don't anymore.”

Abbie set her jaw. So Trina didn't go to school anymore. Maybe she got into trouble. Maybe she got expelled. “Okay, Trina. Thanks for telling me all that. Here's your phone. I'll leave you alone now.”