Nanny for the SEALs by Cassie Cole
38
Asher
I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.
“Cora!” I demanded. “What are you doing?”
My daughter, the little person who I loved more than anyone else in the world, immediately started bawling. She threw herself onto her bed and buried her face in the pillows, too ashamed to even look at us.
Brady snatched the candy from the boys. “This isn’t for you, now is it? Come on, you two need some time-out.”
Heather and I shared a look, and then she gestured at the bed for me to proceed. I sat on the edge and gently rubbed Cora’s back. Her sobbing intensified, tiny little wails that made my chest hurt.
When the crying diminished, Heather said, “Cora? Can you explain yourself?”
My daughter slowly turned around and sat up in bed, but she wouldn’t look at either of us. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do know,” I said. “You need to tell us.”
“But you’re going to be mad,” she whined sullenly.
“Maybe,” Heather said. “But we’re mad right now. And we won’t stop being mad until you tell us everything. Why have you been giving your candy to your brothers?”
“Did they pressure you to do it?” I asked hopefully.
Cora wiped her eyes and shook her head. She still wouldn’t look at me. “I just wanted to be your little angel again.”
“Oh, sweetie,” I said, “you are. You never stopped being my little angel.”
“No,” she insisted. “I was the good one, but then Micah and Dustin started being good. Then everyone talked about how good they were being. Everyone stopped being nice to me, even though I had been good all along.” She finally looked up at me. “So I gave them my candy and told them to be bad. It felt nice to be the good one again.”
I shared a look with Heather. Of course. Cora had always gotten attention for how well-behaved she was, but as soon as her brothers were the same, she stopped getting special attention for it. So she bribed her brothers to misbehave.
My heart swelled with love and pain. “Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry if we have been giving the boys too much attention.”
I wrapped her in my arms and squeezed her tightly. Sometimes it shocked me how much I loved the tiny bundle in my arms. I would do anything for her. And I mean anything.
Treating her with a little extra love and attention was an easy solution.
“Thank you for being honest with us,” Heather said. “We’re going to have to ground you. Do you know why?”
Cora nodded sadly. “For lying. And for giving candy to my brothers?”
“That’s right. No sweets for a week.” Heather kissed her on the crown of her head. “Now let’s get ready for bed.”
I went through the motions of bedtime like a zombie. Although I was glad the solution was a simple one, everything I thought about my daughter had been flipped upside-down. She had lied to me. I didn’t even think she was capable of lying prior to that. Yeah, I know that’s naive, but that’s how I felt prior to tonight.
It made me realize that she wasn’t a perfect angel, and that she was growing up.
I didn’t like either revelation.
I tossed and turned that night. I needed two cups of coffee the next morning, rather than my usual single cup. Tonight was a big night, and I needed to focus. But it was difficult while thinking about Cora.
It’s just one lie, I thought. It doesn’t mean anything.
“Asher?” Rogan snapped. “You with us?”
“Yeah, sorry,” I replied. “I was just thinking about tonight.”
We were in the conference room. A map of a Los Angeles plaza was displayed on the screen at the front of the room. Rogan nodded at me, then continued his briefing.
“The big party is tonight. The entire cast of the movie will be there, because filming starts in two days. There’s a lot of social media chatter. Threats to Amirah’s life are intensifying, just like they did right before the last attack. If something is going to happen, it will happen at this party.”
Rogan pointed at the map. “The party is taking place here, at the Warwick Hotel. The ballroom is on the third floor, with a massive open balcony overlooking the outer courtyard. Cooper will be with Amirah at all times, watching her from inside and preparing to cover her if anything happens. But the balcony is a weak point. The platform blocks all view from the ground, but it is completely exposed to the rooms above. Rooms which have their own balconies. Someone above could spit down on the ballroom balcony.”
“Too bad spit’s not all we have to worry about,” Brady muttered.
Rogan gestured on the map. “We’ve rented a room in the Executive California, the hotel across the street. From there we’ll have a full view of the balcony and everyone above it.”
I leaned forward and squinted. “What if the threat comes from within the Executive California? Won’t someone there have a perfect angle down on the party?”
“The Executive California has no rooms with balconies,” Rogan explained. “And the rooms have earthquake-resistant glass. That’s glass with several plastic interlayers to reduce shattering. If someone tries to shoot through that, it will severely alter the trajectory of the bullet. Trust me, I called some experts on this: it’s functionally impossible to accurately shoot through this glass and hit a specific target on the balcony across the courtyard.”
Brady raised his hand like we were in homeroom class. “Then how will we return fire if we see a suspect above the party?”
“You won’t,” Rogan replied simply. “We’re acting as spotters. If we see a threat, we note the location and radio Cooper so he can extricate Amirah from the party. Security within the Warwick will take it from there.”
“Makes sense,” I said. Brady didn’t seem to like it, though.
“We’re taking four-hour shifts, to ensure we’re all fresh and rested,” Rogan continued. “Asher will watch from six to ten. Brady has ten to two. I’ll take two to six in the morning.”
Brady snorted. “Two to six? They’ll all be asleep by then.”
“It’s a Hollywood party,” Rogan said simply. “I actually expect that to be the busiest shift, which is why I took it myself.”
We prepped all afternoon. It was a good distraction from my Cora concerns. I went upstairs to change into some casual clothes, and then we told Heather what was going on.
“A stakeout!” she said excitedly. “I wish I could go. I’ve never done anything that cool before.”
“You want to go?” Rogan asked. “I’ve been meaning to bring up the fact that this nannying job is only supposed to be five days a week. I was going to offer to watch the kids tonight, until my shift at the hotel. If you want a night off, you’re welcome to it.”
Heather looked at each of us. “Are you serious? You’d let me go?”
“Only if you promise not to be a distraction,” Rogan warned. “We’re there to work. This is important.”
She dragged her finger across her chest in an X pattern. “Cross my heart, and hope to die. I’ll be helpful! An extra set of eyes looking out for anything suspicious.”
Normally, I would have pushed back on such an invitation. Heather wasn’t an expert in this sort of thing, and we were. But I longed for her company, so I smiled and nodded.
“I’ll monitor the kids until my shift,” Rogan said as we packed up and prepared to leave. “As long as one of you is back by then.”
“I’ll come back before then,” Heather agreed.
The three of us—everyone but Rogan—got in my SUV and drove over to the hotel. Heather was practically bouncing with excitement.
“Stakeouts are boring,” Brady warned her. “There’s a lot of sitting. Not much happens.”
“I don’t care!” she said happily. “I need the change of scenery.”
We got to the Executive California and met Cooper in the lobby, next to the hotel restaurant. He had already checked-in to our room for us. The smell of sushi was thick in the air.
“This hotel is clear,” he told us. “Security is tight, and the rooms don’t have balconies. Keycards are required to access the elevator or stairs. Nobody goes up or down unless they’re a guest.”
I nodded. “I already ran background checks on everyone staying here tonight. Same for the Warwick across the courtyard. There’s nobody suspicious. But that doesn’t mean Amirah is safe.”
Cooper pursed his lips. We all knew that if Jimmy Cardannon was behind this, he could easily forge an identity for one of his goons to get into the hotel.
“I’ll be inside the party,” Cooper said, clasping hands with me. “Watch my back. Let me know if you see anything suspicious.”
Brady clapped him on the back. “We got you. Stay sharp.”
The three of us took the elevator to our room on the sixth floor. It was a suite, with a bedroom closed off in its own room and a large living area with plush furniture and a dining room table. I set up my computer gear on the table while Brady scoped out the Warwick across the courtyard.
“Dumb place for a party,” he muttered. “Totally open.”
“It’s a great place for a party,” Heather said. “If you ignore the death threats, I mean.”
Brady handed her the binoculars. “I’m going to catch some sleep. Wake me a few minutes before my shift.”
He gave Heather a long kiss. I watched out of the corner of my eye. Strangely, I wasn’t jealous at all. I had never been the jealous type, but this was different. Sharing a woman, and seeing her with my partners…
I guess I was surprised at how easy it all was. Like we were meant to do this sort of thing.
“The windows are tinted,” I said as we pulled two chairs over to the glass. “They can’t see us at all.”
Heather nodded while gazing through the binoculars. “It looks like the party is starting. Oh holy shit!”
“What?”
“That’s J.J. Sherman, the director! Oh man, I wish I was over there talking to him. I would love to star in his next movie…” She trailed off and looked over at me. “Sorry. No distractions.”
I patted her leg. “Don’t sweat it.”
Heather ordered a carafe of coffee and plates of sandwiches from room service. We got settled in to watch the party across the courtyard. We were three floors above it, which gave us a perfect view down onto the wide balcony where actors and Hollywood bigwigs were drinking and mingling.
Amirah wasn’t arriving at the party for another hour, so I let my mind drift a bit. Of course, it drifted back to my daughter and the scheme she had enacted.
I had spent the last six years thinking I was the perfect father. Even though Brady, Rogan, and I treated the triplets with equal love, we all slightly favored the child that was ours. I took immense pride in the fact that Cora was quiet and well-behaved, while Dustin and Micah were little terrors.
But my flawless little bubble had been burst. Cora had been lying to me, bribing the boys to act out in order to make her look good. She was doing it because I wasn’t giving her the love and attention she needed.
It was a tough pill to swallow.
“You okay over there?” Heather asked.
I snapped out of my thought process. “Yeah. Just thinking about stuff.”
“Cora?”
I smiled. “Am I that obvious?”
Heather scooted her chair closer to me and rubbed my back with her fingernails. “It’s not that big a deal. I’m kind of glad we discovered what was causing the boys to act out again, because now we can fix it.”
“I know,” I said. “But I still blame myself. I could have… I don’t know. I could have been better with her, rather than taking her good behavior for granted.”
“Maybe so. But I still feel like…” I struggled to find the words. “Like I’m suddenly clueless about everything. I thought I knew how to be a good father, but now I realize I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.”
Heather paused to look through her binoculars, then turned back to me. “Let me tell you a secret about raising kids: nobody knows what they’re doing. Everyone is flailing around, trying to figure it out as they go. Anyone who claims to be an expert is a liar. Trust me: I nannied for a lot of families before moving out here. Everyone is clueless.”
One of the things I loved about Heather was that she was very blunt. She didn’t sugarcoat things, and she didn’t shy away from a hard truth. If she claimed that nobody knew what they were doing, then I knew she wasn’t just saying it to make me feel better. It was the truth.
I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, Heather. I needed to hear that.”
“I know you did. Now snap the fuck out of it. Cora is still one of the most well-behaved girls I’ve ever known. You’re insanely lucky to have her as a daughter. You’re not allowed to mope around just because she rebelled one time.”
I chuckled as I gazed through my binoculars. I’m not just lucky to have Cora as a daughter. I’m lucky to have Heather as a nanny, too.
