Six Single Dads' Nanny (Love by Numbers 5)

But one should always fear being too happy, because inevitably, someone will come along to ruin it.

I didn’t know who my someone was. I was approaching my apartment door and at the same time, a delivery person was walking away from it. He had a large, Manila envelope in his hand and tilted his head when he saw me.

“You wouldn’t happen to be Jordan Kent?” he asked.

“Yes?” I replied. “Can I help you?”

He held out the envelope to me. “This is for you, but it was signature required.”

“Oh.” I looked down at the envelope, and it did indeed have my name and address on it, but there was no return address or indicator of who it was from. “Do you know who it’s from?”

The delivery man shook his head. “I just drop em.” He held out an electronic, signature system. He scanned a barcode on the back of the envelope and then handed me the small pen that was attached to it by a twisted cord. “Sign for me.” I signed my name on the screen and then he took the system back and shoved it in his pocket. “There’s a sticky on your door saying I’ll be back tomorrow. Just disregard it. Have a wonderful day.”

“Thanks, you too.”

I made my way down to my door, removed the sticky note, and entered my apartment. I looked over the envelope, but was mostly confused. I didn’t know anyone who would send me mail, certainly not someone who would send me something that needed to come in such an official envelope, and unmarked.

I thought back over all the bills I had to pay for the month. I was no stranger to working the system a little bit, especially when I was trying to make a paycheck do way more than it could. I was a master at due date extensions, payment plans, and even the lesser known ‘I paid it online, if you don’t see it, it’s because there was a problem with your system.’ Typically, when bills got seriously past due, the bill collector would send an important looking piece of paper warning that if the bill wasn’t paid by a certain date that the service would be interrupted. I gave it a look over, thinking that might be what it was, but those always had a return address on them, because they wanted to be paid, and they weren’t typically mailed certified because they didn’t need to be.

I was stumped.

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and tucked it into the corner of the envelope and slid it across the envelope’s mouth. I pulled out the contents and a chill ran down my spine. The top document was a blank piece of paper apart from some typed letters dead center on the page.

‘He MuRdErEd HeR iN hEr BeD aNd yOu’Re NeXt!’

I tossed that page down to the table to see what was under it, and I was horrified at what I found. There were half a dozen pictures of some woman, who looked a terrifying amount like me, laying in the middle of a large, lavish bed. Her blond hair was a mess across her head, and her eyes, though open, were totally vacant. She was dead. There was the remains of a dribble or foam at the corners of her mouth, and there were a couple of patches of dried blood just below her nose and streaming down her chin.

My stomach turned and my mind became instantly dizzy. I dropped the pictures and bolted for my bathroom, only just barely managing to make it as what I had consumed of the Santa Claus frapp came spewing from my mouth. My head was pounding and I had no idea what to do or think. I sat on my chilled, bathroom floor simply trying to wrap my mind around the situation and figure out who could have sent me something so terrible.

The note referred to a male. My dad left me when I was child, and I didn’t have any siblings. If I did have cousins, I didn’t know them, and I almost exclusively hung around women, making the rare exception for boyfriends or siblings of friends, but that was it. The only men in my life were the men in the Single Dad Club; my men. But there was no way the note was referring to one of them. I knew them. They were wonderful parents, and wonderful lovers, they wouldn’t kill someone.

Well… they could, but they would never. Oliver was a police officer, and could easily cover up a murder, and then Cade could make it so the DA’s office didn’t look into it. Lowe had access to tons of cars that could be used to transport something secretly, and Ethan was a structural engineer for the city, and Harrison was the C.E.O. of a construction company, they all knew the city like the back of their hands and could easily dispose of a body. Last, but certainly not least, Rogan was a hunter with his own cabin in the woods; the horror story writes itself.