Inherit the Dead

saw her narrowed eyes, and sat back in his chair. It was a very comfortable chair. “The easy answer is, because I’m paid to,” he said.
    She waited, her eyes steady on his face.
    He shook his head. “Look, Ms. Williams, it doesn’t take a genius to see that she’s in trouble. Her mother says she only wants to be reunited with her estranged daughter, whom she hasn’t seen in a year. Her father, with whom she has been living, hasn’t seen her for two weeks and doesn’t appear to be too concerned about it. Her best friend says she hasn’t seen her and told me to check with Ms. Loki’s boyfriend. The boyfriend says he hasn’t seen her in a week and to check with a new boyfriend, and either he isn’t the jealous type or he never gave a shit in the first place.”
    He took another appreciative sip of his coffee. “The new boyfriend comes with so much baggage they wouldn’t let him on a seven forty-seven, even if he was flying up front. As in he’s married with three children and more than the swing vote on the local town council. And he won’t admit to having seen her in the last two weeks.”
    He felt his voice beginning to rise and cut himself off, taking another deliberate pull at his coffee. “All I know is she’s missing,” he said, “and nobody I talk to knows or will say where she is.”
    “You’re that concerned over a girl you haven’t even met?” There might have been pity in her voice, although it might equally have been contempt, or maybe it was a combination of the two.
    “You knew she wasn’t in her car,” he said. “You didn’t even blink when I told you the cops found it. So where is she, Ms. Williams?”
    Her face closed up again. No sale. The silence stretched out between them.
    “She’s just a kid,” he said.
    “She’s not just a kid,” Athena Williams said. “She’s never been just a kid. But she’s smart—smartest child I ever took care of—because she had to be.”
    She looked annoyed, more with herself than with him, probably for volunteering information.
    “Seems like somebody ought to be looking out for her,” he said mildly, “and nobody is.” He thought of Nicky, and again he felt the oppressive guilt of the absentee father press down on his shoulders. But his ex, Noreen, wasn’t Julia Drusilla, thank God, and he wasn’t Norman Loki.
    “I looked after her,” Athena Williams said.
    The words wrenched themselves out slowly, one phrase at a time. “I looked after her as best I could. As best as they would let me.”
    He kept his own voice low and without expression. “How did you come to be Angelina Loki’s nanny?”
    “A woman with my education, did you mean?” But she closed her eyes on a sigh, and for a moment only looked her age, and tired. Her eyes opened again, and the moment was gone. “I got my degree from Brown University. And then my mother got sick.” Her smile was twisted. “It turns out that a professional nanny, especially one with a master’s degree, earns a lot more than a high school history teacher. Angel was my fourth job.”
    “How long were you with her family?”
    “From the week Angel was born,” she said, “until her graduation from high school.”
    “So you spent time with her after the divorce?”
    “Yes. Mama died when Angel was eight, and I could have quit, but by then . . . ” She shrugged.
    He looked around the well-appointed room. “You’re retired now?”
    She followed his train of thought with no difficulty. “I have feathered my own nest nicely, haven’t I?”
    He thought of his employer, the thin, bitter matron in her big, sterile penthouse on Park Avenue. “I have no doubt you earned every penny twice over, Ms. Williams.”
    She almost looked over her shoulder and stopped herself, but not before he noticed. “Only the best butter, Mr. Christo.”
    Again, he wondered who else was in the house. “I’m not asking you to betray any confidences, Ms. Williams,” he said, raising his voice a little. “When I find Ms. Loki, if she doesn’t want me to, I won’t tell anyone I have.”
    “I thought that was what you were paid to do.”
    He smiled. “I didn’t say I was any good at it.”
    She did smile this time, reluctantly.
    “At this point, I’d be happy to know she was all right. And if I can help her, I will.”
    He pulled out his wallet and extracted a card. “You can call or text me twenty-four/seven at that number, or e-mail me at that address.”
    She took the card gingerly, as if