Almost Lost (The Au Pair—Book Two)

CHAPTER ONE

Cassandra Vale stood in the long, slow-moving queue for the London Eye. After half an hour’s wait, she was close enough to see the giant wheel looming above her, its steel span arching into the overcast sky. The aerial view of London was a major attraction even on this gloomy November day.

She was on her own, although it seemed everyone else was here with friends or family. In front of her was a nervous blonde woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, about Cassie’s age. She was in charge of three unruly, dark-haired boys. Bored with the wait, they had started shouting and squabbling, jostling each other and breaking away from the line. They were causing such a disruption that people were starting to complain. The elderly man ahead of her turned and glared.

“Could you please tell your boys to be quiet?” he asked the blonde in exasperated, upper-class British tones.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll try,” the young woman apologized, looking on the point of tears.

Cassie had already identified the stressed blonde woman as an au pair. Watching this confrontation took her straight back to where she’d been a month ago. She knew exactly how helpless the woman felt, trapped between unmanageable children who’d begun acting out, and disapproving onlookers who’d started to criticize. This could only end badly.

Be glad you’re not in her situation, Cassie told herself. You have the chance to enjoy your freedom and explore this city.

The problem was that she didn’t feel free. She felt exposed and vulnerable.

Her ex-employer was about to stand trial for murder and she was the only person who knew

the whole truth about what had happened. Worse still, by now, he would have learned that she’d destroyed some of the evidence he was hoping to use against her.

She felt sick with fear that he would be hunting for her.

Who knew how far the reach of a wealthy, desperate man extended? In a city of millions, she’d thought it would be easy to hide, but the French newspapers were all over the place. Headlines shrieked at her from every corner shop. She was aware of the intensive camera monitoring, especially at tourist attractions—and central London was basically one huge tourist attraction.

Glancing up, Cassie saw a dark-haired man standing on the platform by the wheel. She’d felt his gaze a while ago, and saw he was staring in her direction again. She tried to reassure herself that he was probably a security guard or a plainclothes police officer, but that gave her no comfort. She was doing her best to avoid the police, whether they were plainclothes, or private detectives, or even ex-cops who’d taken up a more lucrative line of work as paid thugs.

Cassie froze as she saw the watching man pick up his phone, or maybe it was a walkie-talkie, and speak urgently into it. The next moment he left the platform and strode purposefully in her direction.

Cassie decided she didn’t need to see an aerial view of London today. Never mind she’d already paid the entrance fee—she was getting out. She’d come back another time.

She turned to go, ready to push her way through the line of people as fast as she could, but saw to her horror that two more police officers were approaching from behind.

The teenage girls who’d been standing behind her had also decided to leave. They had already turned and were shoving through the line toward the exit. Cassie followed, grateful that they were clearing the way for her, but panic surged inside her as the officers followed.

“Wait, ma’am! Stop now!” the man behind her shouted.

She wasn’t turning around. She wasn’t. She’d scream, she’d grab onto the other people in the line, she’d beg and plead and say that they had the wrong person, that she didn’t know anything about the suspected murderer Pierre Dubois and had never worked for him. Whatever it took to get away, she would do.

But as she tensed for the fight, the man shouldered past her and grabbed the two teenagers ahead of her.

The teen girls started shouting and struggling just as she’d planned to do. Another two plainclothes police converged, pushing the bystanders aside, grasping the girls’ arms while one of the uniformed police opened their bags.

To Cassie’s astonishment, she saw the cop take three cell phones and two wallets from the taller girl’s neon pink rucksack.

“Pickpockets. Check your purses, ladies and gentlemen. Please inform us if any of your possessions are missing,” the officer said.

Cassie grabbed her jacket, relieved to feel her phone safely stashed away in the inside pocket. Then she looked down at her purse and her heart plummeted as she saw the zip was open.

“My wallet’s missing,” she said. “Someone’s stolen it.”

Breathless with anxiety, she followed the police out of the line and around the corner to the small security office. The two pickpockets were already waiting there, both in tears, as the police unpacked their bags.

“Are any of these yours, ma’am?” the plainclothes officer asked, pointing to the phones and wallets placed on the counter.

“No, none of them.”

Cassie felt like bursting into tears herself. She watched as one of the officers upended the rucksack, hoping she would see her scuffed leather wallet fall out, but the bag was empty.

The officer shook his head, annoyed.

“They pass them down the line, get them out of sight very fast. You were in front of the thieves, so yours was probably taken a while ago.”

Cassie turned and stared at the thieves. She hoped that everything she felt and thought about them showed in her face. If the officer hadn’t been standing there, she would have sworn at them, asked them what right they had to ruin her life. They weren’t starving; she could see their new shoes and brand-name jackets. They must be doing this for cheap thrills, or to buy alcohol or drugs.

“Apologies, ma’am,” the police officer continued. “If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, we’ll need you to make a statement.”

A statement. Cassie knew that wouldn’t work for her.

She didn’t want to be the focus of any police attention at all. She didn’t want to give them her address, or say who she was, or have her details noted down on any official report here in the UK.

“I’m just going to tell my sister that I’m here,” she lied to the officer.

“No problem.”

He turned away, speaking on his walkie-talkie, and Cassie hurried out of the office.

Her wallet was history, it was gone. There was no way she could get it back, even if she wrote a hundred police reports. So she decided to do the next best thing, which was to walk away from the London Eye, and never come back.

What a disaster this outing had been. She’d drawn a lot of cash that morning, and her bank cards were also gone. She couldn’t go into a bank to withdraw money because she had no ID with her—her passport was at the guesthouse and there was no time to fetch it, because she’d planned to go straight from the London Eye to join her friend Jess for lunch.

Half an hour later, feeling shaken by the crime, appalled by the amount of money she’d lost, and thoroughly annoyed with London, Cassie walked into the pub where they were meeting. She was ahead of the lunchtime rush, and asked the waitress to reserve a corner table for them while she went to the bathroom.

Staring at herself in the mirror, she smoothed down her wavy auburn hair and tried a cheerful smile. The expression felt unfamiliar. She was sure she’d lost weight since she and Jess had last met, and she thought critically that she looked too pale and too stressed—and this wasn’t only due to the trauma she’d been through earlier today.

Exiting the restroom, she was just in time to see Jess walk into the pub.

Jess was wearing the same jacket she’d had on when they’d first met more than a month ago, both on their way to au pair jobs in France. Seeing her brought the memories flooding back. Cassie remembered how she’d felt as she boarded the plane. Frightened, uncertain, and with serious misgivings about the family she’d been assigned to. These had proven to be well founded.

In contrast, Jess had been employed by a lovely, friendly family and Cassie thought she looked very happy.

“It’s good to see you,” Jess said, hugging Cassie hard. “What fun this is.”

“It’s so exciting. But I have a crisis on my hands,” Cassie confessed.

She explained about being pickpocketed earlier.

“No! That’s awful. What bad luck that they found other wallets, but not yours.”

“Could you loan me some money for lunch and bus fare to get back to my guesthouse? I can’t even withdraw cash at a bank without my passport. I’ll transfer it back to you as soon as I can get online.”

“Of course. It’s not a loan, it’s a gift. The family I’m working for has come to London for a wedding, and they’re all in Winchester with the bride’s mother today, so they threw money at me to enjoy London for the day. After this, I’m going to Harrods.”

Jess shook back her blonde hair, laughing as she shared the cash with Cassie.

“Hey, shall we take a selfie?” she suggested, but Cassie declined.

“I have absolutely zero makeup on,” she explained, and Jess laughed and put her phone away.

The lack of makeup wasn’t the real reason, of course; she was trying her best to stay under the radar. The first thing she’d done after arriving in London was to change her social media settings, turning them fully private. Well-meaning friends might say something, and the path could be traced. She didn’t want anyone knowing where she was. Not her ex-boyfriend back in the States, and certainly not her ex-employer and his legal team in France.

She had thought she would feel safe once she’d left France, but she hadn’t realized how accessible, and interconnected, the whole of Europe was. Going straight back to the States would have been a more sensible choice.

“You’re looking amazing—have you lost weight?” Jess asked. “And are things going well with the family who employed you? You said you were worried about them.”

“It didn’t work out, so I’m no longer with them,” she said carefully, glossing over the ugly details that she couldn’t bring herself to think about.

“Oh dear. What went wrong?”

“The children moved to the South of France, and the family didn’t need an au pair anymore.”

Cassie kept it as simple as possible, hoping a dull explanation would prevent any further questions, because she didn’t want to have to lie to her friend.

“I guess that happens. It could have been worse. You could have worked for that family everyone’s talking about where the husband is standing trial for murdering his fiancée.”

Cassie looked down hurriedly, worried that her expression would give her away.

Fortunately they were distracted by the arrival of the wine, and after they’d ordered food, Jess had moved on from that juicy morsel of gossip.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked Cassie.

Cassie felt ashamed by the question, because she had no coherent answer. She wished she could tell Jess that she had a plan and wasn’t just living day to day, knowing that she should make the most of her time in Europe, but feeling increasingly uncertain about her situation here.

“I’m not sure. I was thinking of going back to the States, finding work somewhere warmer. Florida, perhaps. It’s expensive to stay here.”

Jess nodded in understanding.

“I bought a car when I arrived. Someone at the guesthouse was selling it. That took a lot of my cash.”

“So you have a car?” Jess asked. “How awesome!”

“It has been wonderful. I’ve gone on some amazing drives out of the city, but using the car with the gas and everything, and even day-to-day living, is costing more than I expected.”

Hemorrhaging money without any prospect of earning income was stressing her out and it was reminding her of the battles she’d gone through when she was younger.

She’d left home at sixteen to escape her violent and abusive father, and ever since then she’d had to look after herself. She’d had no security and no savings and no family to fall back on, because her mother was dead and her older sister, Jacqui, had run away a few years earlier and had never been in touch again.

Living on her own had been a case of month-to-month survival for Cassie. She’d sometimes only made it by the skin of her teeth. Never mind having peanut butter at month’s end; it had been her staple diet when times were tough, and she’d gotten into the habit of taking restaurant or bartender work, partly because the jobs came with a free staff meal.

Now she was panicking about living off a dwindling nest egg that was all she possessed in the world, and thanks to the cash that had been stolen today, that nest egg was even smaller.

“You could look for a temporary job to tide you over,” Jess advised, as if reading her mind.

“I have. I’ve approached a few restaurants, and even applied for bartending work at some of the pubs, but I got turned down right away. Everyone here’s a stickler for the correct paperwork and all I have is a visitor’s visa.”

“Restaurant work? Why not au pairing?” Jess asked curiously.

“No,” Cassie shot back, before remembering that Jess knew nothing about the circumstances of her previous job. She continued.

“If I can’t work I can’t work. No visa means no visa, and au pairing is a longer commitment.”

“Not necessarily,” Jess countered. “It doesn’t have to be. And I have personal experience of doing it without a visa.”

“You do?”

Cassie knew her mind was made up. She wasn’t going to au pair again. All the same, what Jess was saying sounded interesting.

“You see, all the restaurants and pubs get checked regularly. There’s no way they can hire anyone without the right visa. But working for a family is different. It’s such a gray area. After all, you could be a family friend. Who’s to say you’re actually working? I stayed with a friend in Devon for a while last year, and ended up doing a few babysitting and temporary childcare jobs for neighbors and people in the area.”

“That’s good to know,” Cassie said, but she didn’t have any intention of exploring that option further. Talking to Jess was cementing her decision to head back to the States. If she sold the car, she would have enough money to support herself there until she got back on her feet.

On the other hand, she’d expected to spend much longer traveling. She’d been looking forward to a full year abroad, hoping it would give her the time she needed to move on from her past. This was her chance to make a fresh start in life, and to return as a changed person. Arriving back home so soon after leaving would feel like giving up. Never mind that other people would think she hadn’t made a go of it—she would personally believe that she’d failed.

The waiter arrived, bringing plates piled high with nachos. Hungry, because she’d skipped breakfast, Cassie dug into the food.

But Jess paused, frowning, and took her phone out of her purse.

“Talking of part-time jobs, one of the people I worked for called me yesterday to see if I could help him again.”

“Really?” Cassie asked, but her attention was focused on the food.

“Ryan Ellis. I worked for him last year. His wife’s parents were moving house, and they needed someone to look after the kids while they were away. They were lovely people, and the kids weren’t bad either—they have a boy and a girl. We did lots of fun stuff. They live in a beautiful seaside village.”

“What is the job?”

“He’s looking for somebody for about three weeks, urgently, to live in. Cassie, this could be just what you need. He paid very well, gave me cash, and didn’t mind about the visa at all. He said if I had been accepted by an au pair agency I was clearly a trustworthy person. Why not call him and find out more?”

Cassie was tempted by the prospect of cash in her pocket. But another au pair assignment? She didn’t feel ready. Perhaps she never would be.

“I’m not sure it’s for me.”

Jess, however, seemed determined to sort out Cassie’s future for her. She tapped keys on her phone.

“Let me send you his number anyway. And I’ll message him now and say you might get in touch, and that I recommend you highly. You never know, even if you don’t work for him, he might know someone who needs a house sitter. Or a dog walker. Or something.”

Cassie couldn’t argue with her logic, and a moment later her phone buzzed with the arrival of Jess’s message.

“How’s your work going?” she asked, once Jess had finished her messaging.

“It couldn’t be better.” Jess piled guacamole onto a tortilla chip.

“The family is lovely. They’re very generous with time off and keep giving me bonuses. The kids can be naughty but they’re never nasty and I think they enjoy me, too.”

She lowered her voice.

“Last week, with everyone arriving for the wedding, I was introduced to one of the cousins. He’s twenty-eight and gorgeous and he runs an IT support business. I think he likes me, and let’s just say it’s fun to be flirting again.”

Even though she was glad for her friend, Cassie couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy. This dream job was what she had secretly hoped for. Why had everything gone wrong for her? Had it only been bad luck or was it, in some way, because of the decisions she had made?

Cassie suddenly remembered what Jess had said to her on the plane to France. She’d shared with Cassie that her first assignment hadn’t worked out, so she’d ditched it and tried again.

Jess had only gotten lucky on the second try, and that made Cassie wonder if she was giving up too soon.

When they had finished their nachos, Jess checked the time.

“I’d better run. Harrods is waiting,” she said. “I’ll have to buy gifts for everyone back home, and for the children, and for the gorgeous Jacques. What should I get him? What do you give someone you’re having a flirtation with? It may take me a while to decide!”

Cassie hugged Jess goodbye, feeling sad their lunch was over. The friendly chat had been a welcome distraction. Jess seemed so happy, and Cassie could see why. She was needed and valued, she was earning money, she had a purpose in life and was secure.

Jess wasn’t drifting around on her own, lonely and jobless and paranoid about being hunted down because a murder trial was starting.

A few weeks in a remote village might be exactly what she needed right now, in more ways than one. And Jess was right. The phone call could lead to other opportunities. She’d never find them if she didn’t keep trying.

Cassie headed out of the crowded pub to find a quiet corner, glancing around in case any pickpockets or phone grabbers were passing by.

She took a deep breath, and before she could think too hard about it and lose her nerve, she dialed the number.