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another minute to regain her
composure, Tessa glided cautiously through the hallways back to her
waiting car.
    Tessa's head began to
pound. I must be asleep, she reasoned. Things
like this don't happen in real life, at least not in
mine.
    A moment later, though, her mind
wandered to the conversation she had overheard. Perhaps Liset held
another job along with the Wilson's, though Tessa could not imagine
that Liset had time for two jobs and a full time education.
Besides, why would Liset keep such a job secret from
Tessa?
    Then Tessa considered
Liset's words. Her client? Tessa questioned. Could
Liset be talking about me? Not likely, in
light of the man's assertion, because Tessa had never seen him
before, so, what information could he have on her? Tessa had no
“information” worth gathering; her life consisted of routine and
boredom. Except for
today , she sighed.
    Tessa made her way back to her parking
spot, a lengthy trek to a distant spot, since Tessa had feared
discovery. Despite the new information, Tessa felt disappointed and
a little bit defeated. In following Liset, Tessa had sought to
either satisfy herself of her own folly or find something with
which she could go to Merritt. Now, though, Tessa really couldn't
tell Merritt anything. Though her suspicions of Liset's duplicity
had been confirmed, Tessa realized just how Merritt would view her
actions. In order to tell Merritt what she had seen, Tessa would
also have to tell him that she had followed Liset, and despite his
claim of fearlessness, he lost his cool when Tessa acted
recklessly. She didn't particularly wish to face his
reaction.
    Of course, she knew the validity of his
opinion. She had acted rashly, in a risky and thoughtless fashion.
Now knowing what she knew, Tessa could effect little without
telling Merritt, not even fire Liset. Fortunately, Tessa had a
month before Liset would be anywhere near her children, and Tessa
hoped to come up with some plausible reason for letting Liset go by
then.
    Knowing she would never be brave enough to
try to eavesdrop on the conversation at La Parisienne, Tessa
immediately gave up the idea of learning any more about Liset.
Tessa knew she could never successfully maneuver Merritt into
leaving her alone in the morning. Anyway, knowing the danger
inherent in following Liset, Tessa couldn't think of any reason,
except base curiosity, to know any more about her soon-to-be
ex-nanny. With the vision of the man on his knees, Tessa determined
that she would forever say goodbye to Liset Cortes.

Chapter 3
    The music throbbed loudly in Tessa's head
causing a relentless ache in her head, and the resulting pain
sapped her of her usual mental acuity. As the unknown crowd milled
around her, the crash of tinkling glass pounded her brain like a
thousand tiny hailstones against a shattered window. The
overwhelming tang of alcohol warped the air with its pungent scent.
The sensations sent Tessa's mind reeling, impotent to manufacture
the poise she so desperately wished to maintain in her present
circumstances. It did not help Tessa's state-of-mind that she
loathed her husband's office parties; so much so, in fact, that the
lingering effects of parties past created in Tessa a visceral
aversion, an involuntary revulsion prone to resurface at a moment's
notice.
    Like a scene from a movie,
every person in attendance wore designer clothes on his slim form
and carried a designer drink in his soft, polished fingers. The
dimness of the overhead lights intensified the shimmer of
streetlamps in the city below, and Tessa pressed her way directly
to the opposite wall. Not a
wall , she corrected herself. Instead of
masonry, every corner and divot of the room looked through
transparent glass to the earth below. Only the floor and ceiling
offered Tessa any sense that she did not float, suspended, four
hundred feet above the ground.
    Tessa leaned her forehead
against the cool glass, trying to catch a breath in the pocket of
air above some decorative