The Babysitter

Chapter 14 — The Detective

The school resource officer caught Jess between third and fourth period on Thursday.

“Jess Miller? Your dad’s here. He’s in the front office. Said it won’t take long.”

Jess’s stomach did a slow flip. Her dad never came to school. Not for conferences, not for games, not for anything — Detective Cole was a “work comes first” kind of father, the kind who missed dinners and showed up at midnight smelling like coffee and rain. If he was at her school in the middle of the day, something was wrong.

She found him in the little conference room by the main office, sitting at the table in his blazer, his badge clipped to his belt, a paper coffee cup going cold in front of him. He smiled when she came in — that tired, lopsided smile — and her panic eased a fraction.

“Hey, kiddo. Don’t look so scared. You’re not in trouble.”

“Then what are you doing here?” She dropped her backpack and sat across from him. “Did Mom send you? Am I grounded and nobody told me?”

He laughed. “No. Work stuff. I’m canvassing — talking to people in a neighborhood, seeing if anyone’s noticed anything unusual.” He pulled out a small notebook, flipped it open. “You babysit for the Callahans, right? Over on Maple Street?”

Jess’s heart stopped. Just for a second. Just long enough to notice.

“Yeah,” she said carefully. “The Callahans. Why?”

“Routine,” her dad said, in the tone that meant it was anything but. “We’ve had some reports of — activity in that area. Nothing specific. I’m just asking around. Have you noticed anything odd around their street? Strange cars? People you don’t recognize? Anything out of place?”

Jess thought of the wall panel sliding open. Of Ray’s gaunt face in the dark. Of Sarah crying at the kitchen counter.

“No,” she said. “It’s a really quiet street. Nothing weird.”

Her dad nodded, made a note. “What about the house itself? The family’s been — normal?”

“Totally normal.” The lie came out smooth, and that scared her more than anything. When had she learned to lie to her father this easily? “Tommy’s a sweet kid. Sarah and Mark are nice. It’s boring, honestly. The most exciting thing that happens is Tommy’s Lego phase.”

Her dad smiled at that — a real smile, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Boring is good. Boring means nobody’s getting hurt.” He tapped his pen against the notebook. “Nobody hanging around the house? Delivery people, workers, anything like that?”

“Nope. Just — normal suburb stuff. A lady with a golden retriever. That’s it.”

“Golden retriever,” her dad repeated, writing it down like it mattered. Jess almost laughed. He was so thorough about everything, even the nothing things. That was what made him good at his job, her mom always said. He noticed the details other people stepped over.

“You’ve been working there a while now,” he said, not looking up from the notebook. “A month? You like it?”

“A few weeks.” Jess shifted in her chair. “It’s good money. Tommy’s easy.”

“And the parents? Easy to work for?”

“Sure.” She kept her voice light. “Sarah’s a little intense about the schedule, but — normal mom stuff.”

“Normal mom stuff,” he echoed, and wrote something else down. Then he looked up at her, and for just a second his detective face flickered — the assessing look, the one he wore at crime scenes. Jess’s blood went cold. But then he smiled again, and it was gone, and she told herself she’d imagined it.

He stood, and for a moment he was just her dad — the man who taught her to parallel park, who fell asleep on the couch during movies, who put too much hot sauce on everything. He ruffled her hair like she was twelve.

“How’s the job going, anyway? The kid treating you okay?”

“Tommy’s great,” Jess said, and her throat was tight. “He’s a great kid, Dad.”

“Good.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Love you. Be home for dinner tonight? Your mom’s making lasagna.”

“I’ll try.”

He left, and Jess sat in the empty conference room for a full minute, staring at the table. Her dad, asking about the Callahans’ street. Routine questions. Neighborhood canvassing.

It meant nothing. It had to mean nothing. Cops asked about neighborhoods all the time — that was just what they did. He was probably working some burglary ring, some string of car break-ins. Maple Street was a nice street. Nice streets got canvassed. And her dad canvassed everywhere; it was practically his hobby. Last year he’d spent three weeks asking an entire subdivision about a stolen lawn mower.

She repeated all of this to herself like a mantra as she walked back to class, but her hands were cold, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something enormous was moving underneath her life, quiet and patient, like a shape behind a wall.

She didn’t connect it to Ray. Not yet. She refused to. Ray was a jewelry-store thing, a three-months-ago thing, a sad secret in a wall. Her dad was here about — something else. Something routine. Something boring.

But all through fourth period, she kept seeing his face in the conference room — the assessing look, there and gone — and she kept hearing his voice: “If you notice anything odd.” And she thought about the promise she’d made Sarah at the kitchen counter, and the hope on Ray’s gaunt face, and the lie she’d told so smoothly, and her stomach churned until she had to ask to use the bathroom just to splash cold water on her face.

By the time the bell rang, she’d decided: it was nothing. It was routine. She was being paranoid. Seventeen-year-olds with secrets were always paranoid — that was practically a law of nature.

That night she sat with Tommy while he built a Lego spaceship, and he chattered about how Uncle Ray said spaceships were real, and Jess smiled and nodded and felt the lie sitting in her chest like a stone. Her dad was just doing his job. That was all. Just his job.