The Littlest Target. Maggie K. Black

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       ONE

      Daisy Hayward brushed a kiss over nine-month-old Fitz Pearce’s tender head and gently lowered him into the crib, just as a deafening crash sounded through the darkened country house below. The baby’s eyes shot open. Fitz’s lip quivered. Tears filled his anxious gaze. Instantly, Daisy plucked her tiny charge from the crib and held him to her chest to rock him back to sleep. He nestled against her. The pervasive anxiety that seemed to fill little Fitz’s unhappy home tightened around her heart like a vise.

      Lord, I feel so trapped in this miserable place. Sometimes, I don’t know how much I can take.

      In the eight and a half months since she’d become Fitz’s nanny, there’d been moments when she’d almost felt like a prisoner in the remote Quebec countryside estate. Endless days of long, uncomfortable tension stretched whenever Gerald Pearce was away on business, only to then erupt into angry shouts and paranoid accusations between him and his young second wife, Anna, whenever he came home.

      For Daisy, growing up in a small English village where jobs were scarce, being hired to care for the son of a wealthy Canadian computer developer had felt like a dream come true. It wasn’t until she’d arrived in Canada that she’d discovered the truth. Fitz’s mother, Jane Pearce, had died in childbirth. A hasty wedding to Anna, one of Pearce Enterprises’s lead graphic designers and almost thirty years Gerald’s junior, had followed. But despite being newlyweds, their relationship was fraught with shouted accusations and slamming doors, and even one late night visit from two police officers. None of which was helped by Daisy’s suspicions that Gerald’s paranoid and scattered mind was slipping.

      She could hear things breaking now, as if Anna and Gerald had given up on shouting and decided instead to trash their expensive home. Fitz’s pudgy hand grabbed a fistful of her long blond hair and held it tightly. She slid a finger between his gums and felt the telltale bump of a new tooth getting ready to come through. He was teething.

      Daisy СКАЧАТЬ