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woman in charge, who looked nothing like the flower and greeted her with a curt nod. Mr. Magoo at the office had conveniently waived the background check when he came up shorthanded. It had been enough that Bea had scribbled in the name of a Florida cleaning company on her fake résumé, listing Frank’s cell phone number in case Mabry Maids called for a reference.
    The younger woman in their trio, Liz, slipped on headphones once they were on the road, and Rose drove in silence, calloused hands knotted on the wheel. Bea slouched in the backseat and looked out the window, resisting the urge to fiddle with her wig. It looked like real hair, but it was best not to call attention to it. Her chest tightened when Rose pulled off Route 28 onto Fox Chapel Road. As they turned onto Wakefield Drive, Bea sat up, heart rate increasing like a moth fluttering.
    The Lassiter house was so large, so luxurious. She’d driven past many times, each time struck again by its size. It was a neighborhood of massive homes, newer construction, and Bea knew that all of them would have the same soaring entranceways and vast kitchens that Frank laughed about. He’d done construction on homes like these during the good years. Sometimes he had described them to her at night, when they were sitting out on the screened-in porch off the back of their two-bedroom ranch in Tampa. “What do they want all that space for in the hallway? So everybody can sit there staring up at the ceiling?” He’d talk about how nobody who owned these homes did any housework. They’d hire cleaning crews and lawn crews and painters and plumbers and any service person they could think of to avoid doing any honest labor.
    The family car was backing out of the Lassiter driveway as the van pulled up to the house. Bea averted her eyes as the Toyota sped past. Not that Jill would recognize her; only the child had seen Bea’s face. Still, she had to be more careful. If she hadn’t knocked over the planter that morning, trying to get a better look through the French doors, she wouldn’t have been forced to dive for the cover of the bushes along the side of the house. It was lucky that the neighbors on that side were away or someone else might have spotted her.
    It felt strange walking up to the house in broad daylight. Bea had to resist the urge to look over her shoulder and see if anyone was watching. Rose took a ring of keys from her pocket and used one to open the front door. Bea caught only a glimpse before the keys went back in Rose’s pocket. She wasn’t sure how, but she had to get the key to make a copy. No security system beeped as they trooped past the door; it appeared the Lassiters didn’t have one. There was one problem solved. Before Rose could assign her a task, Bea immediately volunteered to clean upstairs.
    *   *   *
    The preschool drop-off had become one of Jill’s responsibilities. “Just for a few weeks,” David said, while he got through this difficult case. Jill couldn’t say no, especially since the only other option was asking David’s mother. “I know she’d be happy for the one-on-one time with Sophia,” David had suggested, pulling out his phone.
    “No, that’s okay, I’ll do it.”
    “You’re busy, too, and she loves to help out. Why not ask her?”
    The last thing Jill wanted to have to deal with in the morning was her mother-in-law. “She doesn’t know how to use the car seat.”
    “I’m sure we could teach her.”
    “She doesn’t want to learn; she thinks they’re unnecessary. Don’t you remember the last time she took Sophia out? She didn’t even have the straps tightened.”
    “It’s not that long a trip to preschool.”
    “She could still have an accident,” Jill said, pretending she didn’t see David shaking his head in frustration. “I can take Sophie; it’s no problem.”
    And it wouldn’t have been a problem, they were out the door more or less on time, except Jill had made it a mile down the road toward