MONDAY MORNING, ANGELA ARRIVED WITH AN ATTITUDE. SHE was miffed, wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t even look at me.
I tried to deal with her. “You got your nails done,” I said. They were about three inches of crimson acrylic, a pattern of rhinestones glittering on her ring fingers. Molly craned her neck over the kitchen counter to see.
“Yeah.” Her word pierced the air like a shot.
“Your hair looks nice, too.” It had a few extra layers of spray, tough to break through.
She didn’t answer.
“Can we paint my nails, too, Mom? Can we?”
“Sure. If Angela wants to. Go get the nail kit.” The nail kit was an old shoe box where we kept polish and clippers; Molly scampered off to get it. As soon as she was out of the room, I asked, “Okay. You want to tell me what’s up?”
“Nothing’s up.”
“Angela. Either tell me or don’t, but either way, deal with it.”
She turned to me, hand on hip. “Okay, you wanna know? You got no business setting me up with that guy.”
It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about. Then I remembered: Jake. The ride home.
“I got you a ride home so you wouldn’t have to walk alone—”
Angela wheeled around. “Look, there’s just somethin’ about that guy.”
“He was probably flirting. Don’t take it so seriously.”
“No, no. I don’t like him and I don’t want his damn rides. I can take care of myself.” Her fingers flew, nails carving the air. “I don’t need no personal bodyguard. I take kickboxing. Don’t worry about me. I know what to do, anybody messes with me.”
“You take kickboxing?”
“I do. I’ll teach you, too, if you want. I’m teaching Molly.” “You’re teaching Molly?”
“Sure. Why not? She’s gotta know how to defend herself, same as the rest of us.”
“Angela, look. Those classes are great, but a real killer might not approach you the way the instructor demonstrates—”
“What do you know about it? They show us all kinds of ways. They come at us from every direction.” Then she softened a little. “Look, Joe’d have a fit, me getting rides home from work with some guy. I know you got my interests at heart, Zoe. But I got it covered. Nobody’s gonna bother me.”
She took two eggs out of the fridge and cracked them into a bowl for Molly’s breakfast. She beat the eggs a little too enthusiastically.
I understood about Joe, though. Her longtime boyfriend, a car mechanic with perpetually dirty fingernails, was known for his fragile ego and a hot temper. He was possessive and shifty-eyed, and I’d often wondered what Angela saw in him. “You know, with all those nannies missing, Joe should be glad someone drove you home and kept his eye on you.”
“Yeah? Well, anybody keeps his eye on me, Joe’s gonna punch it out.”
“I don’t think he’ll mess with Jake.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You think Joe’s not as buffed as Jake? He lifts every day. Joe can lift one-sixty.”
“I didn’t mean that.” Well, I did, actually. Joe was probably six inches shorter than Jake; he’d get clobbered. “I meant he had too much sense to mess with a guy who’s only trying to help us out. If there were more people like Jake in the neighborhood, maybe some of those women would still be around.”
“What? Are you inferring that it’s Joe’s fault that women are disappearing?”
“Implying,” I said. “Not inferring.”
She sputtered, defending her boyfriend, and I considered what she’d just said. Even if Angela didn’t consciously suspect him, did she sense that Joe had something to do with the missing nannies? Joe wasn’t local, but he was in and out of the neighborhood because of Angela. Besides, he had a nasty temper, insecurities about women. Should I mention him to Nick? What was happening to me? Because of Nick and his damned profile, I was beginning to suspect everyone. Joe wasn’t capable of kidnapping and murder. He couldn’t be.
Something out the window caught Angela’s attention. She stopped scolding and stood on her tiptoes to see better.
Beyond the passing cars, Phillip Woods stood on his porch, buttoning his coat. A construction crew huddled with thermoses of coffee.
“There’s Jake now.” Angela’s long nails arranged her hair. “I gotta go deal with this.”
“Are you sure? With the whole crew around, you might not want to—”
But she was already out the door, a petite, busty woman without a coat, in skin-tight jeans, high-heeled boots, and fancy fingernails, headed smack into a cluster of bulky construction workers. I expected hoots and fireworks, but as she strutted up to them, they nodded cordially or tipped their hats. She and Jake stepped aside. Talking, gesturing. If her body language meant anything, it wasn’t a fight.
“Here—I got it.” Molly returned with the nail kit. “Where’s Angela?”
Angela was standing in front of Jake, pointing her finger into his chest. Was she threatening him or flirting? Her clawlike nail rested on his jacket, provocative, either way.
“She’ll be right back,” I said. “Let’s pick a color. I have to go to work soon.”
“I want the same as Angela.”
“Red, then.”
“I know. Which red?” She searched the bottles, lining reds along the counter.
“Molly,” I said, “has Angela taught you kickboxing?”
She grinned. “Yeah. It’s like karate. Wanna see? Somebody comes at you from the front, you smash their nose like this and kick like that.” She demonstrated on the air. “Or you go like this behind their knee and they fall.”
She jabbed her foot into empty space, buckling an imaginary leg, an unfamiliar viciousness in her eyes. Who was this child? “I think this is the red Angela has.”
She came running over to look.
Outside, Angela tossed her head and sashayed back to our house. Jake stood watching her, head tilted, bemused. If she’d wanted him to leave her alone, she might not have made her point.