Page 89 of The Perfect Nanny

Minutes are passing as I try to use the tip of the knife to cut through the tie, but I can’t slide the knife between her wrist and the plastic with the little room there is to work with. “I need to try a pair of scissors. I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.”

I run across the hallway and into my bedroom. I collapse to my knees by my bed so I can pull out some of my old shallow storage boxes from under the bed frame. It takes me a few minutes to rummage through all of them before finding the old red toolbox I snatched from the garage years ago. I unclasp the clips and pull out what I need.

I return to their bedroom just as the front storm door opens and closes, slapping shut because of the missing spring Dad hasn’t fixed in at least five years.

“Who’s here?” Dad asks, struggling against his restraints.

“Haley…wh-what in the world are you doing with that thing?” Mom cries out. “How did a gun get into our house?”

“It’s the only thing that made me feel safe here while living with you two. What other explanation is there?”

“Haley?” Willa calls out from the living room. “Where are you? What can I do to help?”

“Last room on the left,” I call out to her. “I need a pair of scissors.”

“Willa’s here?” Dad whispers. “Is that who called you?”

I hold the pistol up toward the open door, waiting for my former roommate and dearest friend to step into sight.

“Where can I find scissors…” Willa’s eyes bulge when she turns the corner to find me, and the state Mom and Dad are still in. The doe-eyed-look is gone. No time left for lies now. “Whoa, whoa…what’s going on? Why…why do you have that thing? Put it down, Hales.”

I inhale sharply through my nose and hold my breath for a few, long seconds. “You know, I trusted you…like a sister, Willa, and you knew that. Yet, you could never bring yourself to tell me the truth about why we became so close in the first place. It wasn’t just a natural friendship forming on its own, was it?”

“Haley,” Willa moans, holding her hands up in the air as if she’s innocent. “What are you talking about?”

“Put the damn pistol down, Haley,” Dad growls.

“Tell me why my parents are giving you weekly payments,” I say, keeping the pistol locked in my grip.

Willa’s gaze floats toward my dad.

“What? No-no, they—they’re not paying me…” Willa stutters.

I point the pistol in the direction of the kitchen. “Actually, there’s a register of payments, clearly documented in their checkbook. I was flipping through the pages and through all my bewilderment noticed the checks stopped at the end of May. Well, until yesterday when a new one was written for a different, smaller amount than usual. Coincidental timing, seeing as you moved out, huh? Oh, and so glad you could make it to the trial today to sit with me. That’s what friends do for each other, right?” I shake my head, still in a puddle of disbelief. “No wonder money was never an issue for you.”

“It wasn’t like that, Hales,” Willa mutters.

“It wasn’t like what? I wasn’t born into this family yesterday. I’ve been under lock and key for as long as I can remember just to ensure that I wouldn’t ever consider the option of divulging their true identities. I thought they were going to give up the battle of holding me hostage after I turned eighteen because I figured they might have been concerned I would end up as a ward of the state if they were taken back to a facility. But they only tightened their vise grip on me, and I couldn’t figure out why. I chalked it up to their illness. I tried to be patient with their needs, but two years ago when I needed to devote my entire focus on my courses and research, I had to take a step away from them. I cut them out of my life.” I let my statements sit with Willa for a moment as the rage continues to eat through every one of my organs. “Ironically, just after I cut them out of my life, you got a raise after a steady stream of payments you’ve been earning since we first met each other. I assume it cost extra to be the only one keeping tabs on me, right?” They must have found Willa and hired her before we casually met at a pre-first year orientation. I should have questioned the odds of finding the most perfect roommate so quickly.

“We have been protecting you from yourself, Haley,” Dad grumbles. “You think we’d just leave you to your devices?”

“They were worried…that’s all,” Willa says, defending them.

They were worried. The two of them…who should be locked away for child abuse, among all the other crimes they committed when escaping a behavioral hospital before I was born. “Did I ever do anything to cause you concern?” I ask Willa.

“No, no, of course not,” she says, peering out of the corner of her eye toward Dad.

Unreal. “Youshouldhave been worried,” I tell Willa. “I bet they didn’t tell you about their past—how Mom was incarcerated in a behavioral health facility, Dad was too, and helped herescape. They managed never to be caught under their new false identities.”

Mom and Dad both groan. “Please can someone release us from these ties,” Dad says.

“Is it true, Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn?” Willa asks, holding her stare steady at the barrel of the pistol.

“No. We told you everything and nothing but the truth,” Mom tells Willa.

“Did you?” I question, cocking my head to the side.

“I left the checkbook out on the kitchen counter last night when I went to bed,” Dad says. “It was locked away in a desk drawer before that.”

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