Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(66)

Before she can touch it, the door jerks open.

“Oh, sorry!” A middle-aged blond woman with a strikingly pretty face—who also happens to be a complete stranger—faces her from the opposite side of the threshold. She’s wearing a Magic Maids T-shirt and carrying a bucket filled with cleaning supplies.

“It’s okay. I was just…”

Naked. I was just naked, and you almost caught me. And this is turning into an even crappier day than I expected.

“Go ahead.” Lauren steps past her and flees down the hall to her bedroom. There, she finds Olga, one of the regulars, stripping the sheets from the mattress.

“Hello, Mrs. Lauren,” Olga says pleasantly—though obviously a little taken aback to see her there in her robe.

“Hi, Olga. I’m sorry—I forgot you were coming.”

“Miss Rosa didn’t call?”

“No, she called, I just…forgot. The kids and I will be out of the way in a few minutes. I need to put on my clothes.”

“Of course.” Olga steps out into the hall, closing the door behind her.

Lauren dives into shorts, a T-shirt, flip-flops. She runs a brush through her wet hair, grabs a pair of sunglasses, and, as an afterthought, a bathing suit.

She might as well take the kids to the pool again. Maybe she’ll be able to swim some laps today, work off some of the bad energy.

Speaking of bad energy…

Maybe Beth will be there. And if she is, maybe I’ll ask her what the hell is up with Nick.

Opening the bedroom door, Lauren finds Olga standing down the hall in front of Sadie’s room—which appears to be barricaded by Sadie herself. Wearing a defiant scowl, she’s standing with her arms folded across her stomach, her back against the closed door.

“What’s going on?” Lauren asks brightly—though it’s pretty obvious.

“Your daughter, she doesn’t want me to go in there.”

“Sadie, Olga just needs to clean your room.”

“No!”

“Sweetie, we’re going out now anyway. When we get back, you can go back into your room, okay?” Until it’s time for the appointment with Dr. Prentiss, anyway.

Judging by her daughter’s troubled expression and the adamant shake of her head, Lauren figures that the appointment can’t come soon enough.

“No! No one can go into my room.”

“I’m just going to clean it. I’m not going to touch anything, honey.”

“No!” Sadie screams at poor Olga, who takes a step backward.

“Okay, you know what, Sadie? You don’t talk to people that way. Ever. Apologize to Olga right now.”

“I’m sorry.” Sadie bows her head.

“I’m sorry, too, Olga. She can be very touchy about her things.”

“It’s okay. I have kids too.” Olga smiles, revealing a gold tooth that matches the gold band on the fourth finger of her left hand—and tells Lauren that Olga’s kids probably aren’t dealing with the same problems her own kids are facing.

“Sadie.” She rests a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

Sadie looks up. “What?”

The bleak look in her eyes and the defeated slump of her narrow shoulders worries Lauren.

“You want Olga to skip your room for today? How about that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Lauren turns to Olga, who nods that she understands, just as the other maid steps out of the bathroom to empty the waste can into a large garbage bag in the hall.

“Mary—it’s Mary, right?” Olga asks.

The woman nods.

“This is Mrs. Lauren.”

“We met, sort of. Hello again, Mary.” Lauren smiles at the new woman, who looks as though it pains her to smile back.

“And this is her little girl. That’s her room. She doesn’t want us to clean it today, okay?”

Mary nods briefly, then disappears back into the bathroom.

She’s either very shy, Lauren decides, or very unfriendly, or she doesn’t speak much English. Probably not the latter, though you never know. At first glance, Mary struck her as the all-American type.

“I’ll tell the other two ladies, too,” Olga promises.

“Thank you.” Lauren starts to turn toward the stairs. “Wait—there are two more women here today?”

“Four of us. Yes.”

“I thought there were going to be just three.” Maybe she misunderstood Rosa’s message.

“Sometimes we change things,” Olga explains. “Depending on who is around. The more ladies, the faster it goes.”

Lauren nods. Whatever. She just needs to make sure she leaves tips for four instead of three.

“Come on, Sadie,” she says, “let’s get moving.”

“Just a second.” Her daughter crouches in front of her bedroom door as if she’s looking for something.

Lauren is about to ask her what she’s doing, but she gives an abrupt nod and straightens again. “Okay. Let’s go, Mommy.”

Lauren ushers her toward the stairs, worried. Sadie’s behavior is growing stranger by the day.

Thank goodness for the child psychiatrist. Hopefully Dr. Prentiss will say that it’s all totally normal, just a phase. If not…