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after all? She might very well be the way she was today because of episodes like this very one.
    Lily turned her attention back to the bed—to the
thing
surrounded by
stuff
on the bed—and tried to identify it. Funny, it did seem familiar somehow, but she couldn't quite place where she had encountered such a thing before. She had tilted her head to one side in an effort to contemplate it from another angle when Leonard Freiberger, having evidently heard the screams, too, came crashing into the room.
    She was amazed he'd been able to pinpoint the source of the outburst from Schuyler's office two floors and a couple of hallways below. That showed real investigative talent. She'd only known to come here herself because, well, this sort of thing had happened at least once a week since Chloe Sandusky had come to live with them. Who else could have been screaming
but
Mrs. Puddleduck?
    The nanny
du jour
was always Chloe's favorite target.
    "Hello, Mr. Freiberger," Lily said as she turned to greet him, wondering if being exposed to Chloe's habits on his first day at work would prevent him from returning tomorrow. Goodness, she hoped not. She was reluctant to replace the nanny, even though she and the other woman hadn't much agreed on anything, especially where Chloe was concerned. (And there had also been that business about Mrs. Puddleduck thinking that Clarence Thomas had told the truth.) But Lily
really
didn't want to have to replace Mr. Freiberger. She rather liked him.
    "Miss Rigby," he replied, his even timbre of voice at odds with the expression of stark horror etched on his face. "May I ask what all that screaming was about?"
    "Oh, by all means," Lily told him.
    He hesitated for a moment, waiting for her to explain, and when she didn't, he added, "Uh, then… what was all that screaming about?"
    Lily sighed. "I'm afraid Mrs. Puddleduck has been the victim of a little prank."
    "A little prank?" the nanny repeated. "A little
prank
? You call that… that… that
thing
on my bed a little prank? And it's
Poddledock
," she added. "I wish you would remember that."
    Her question directed Mr. Freiberger's attention to the bed, and his expression of stark horror was immediately replaced by one of vague repugnance.
    "
What
," he said, pointing toward the offending item, "is
that
?"
    With what she hoped was an encouraging smile to both of them, Lily covered the remaining length of the room in a half-dozen strides and extended her hand toward the thing on the bed. But before she could touch it, Leonard Freiberger moved in from behind her and caught her hand deftly in his.
    "Maybe you should let me," he said.
    She noted then that he looked different from the way he had appeared earlier at the front door. He'd shed his jacket, loosened his tie, and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. He'd also rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and she couldn't help but notice that he had some very good musculature for someone whose primary activity in life was pushing pencils. Even with number two lead, a man must have to push an awful lot of them to get muscles like that.
    She also noticed that he wasn't wearing a wedding ring, but that was really neither here nor there.
    More than his physical appearance, however, something else was different—his entire demeanor since this morning seemed to have gotten somehow… larger. That was the only way Lily could describe it. Although she'd already thought him tall and broad, suddenly he seemed even taller and broader. He wasn't slouching anymore, but there was more to his expansion than that. He just seemed… larger. All over. More self-assured. In every way. Just
more
. More than he had been before. Lily had to force herself not to take a step backward in an act of self-preservation.
    "It's all right," she told him, shaking off the odd realization as she tipped her head toward the mess on the bed. "I have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. I know what I'm doing."
    She patted his hand with