Free Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel by Frank Freudberg Page A

the first time he’d ever let his attraction to her leak out into speech. He bit his lip and wondered how wrong it was to have said that.
    Lock undressed and got into bed. Natalie was an exceptional woman, he thought, and they were quite a bit alike in some ways, while vastly different in others.
    She’d worry about every aspect of her orchids’ health. He’d worry about the kids he encountered through CPS. She had to have the humidity in the solarium perfect for the orchids and she didn’t trust Candice to take care of them. When she would travel, she’d hire a plant expert to come in once a day to check on the flowers. And Lock didn’t trust his colleagues to take good enough care of the kids under his supervision, so he rarely took vacation time. Although Lock knew all about trees, when it came to caring for plants, he resorted to his “brown method” of plant care—when some leaves turned brown and began falling, he would water the plants. And from the way Natalie instructed him on how to care for them, he realized he was alternating between killing them with neglect and killing them by over-watering.
    On the other hand, Lock never would have hired Candice to care for his kids, if he’d had any. He didn’t think Natalie had done adequate due diligence in vetting Candice, and he told her so. He suggested giving Candice an unannounced drug test. She laughed and said that demanding Candice submit to a test was way out of bounds. Lock countered, “Not if she’s driving the kids around. And you said you thought her boyfriend was a bad influence on her. Drug testing is definitely appropriate.”
    “She’d quit first,” Natalie said. “Then where would I be?”
    “In the market for a more suitable nanny,” Lock said.
    It was funny, Lock thought; the more Natalie disregarded most of his advice, the more he liked her.
    “Don’t worry about my kids, Lock, I take care of the things I love,” she said.
    “So do I.”
    “So take care of me,” she said.
    “Natalie, don’t push it.” But he smiled and was glad she couldn’t see it.
    And he was crazy about her. To say he was enamored was an understatement. He began to realize she was becoming an obsession, and it reminded him of his previous cocaine habit—how it had become all-enveloping and infected every fiber of his existence. He knew he’d have to end it before it got out of control. But good luck with that , he thought. He was hooked, bad, and he knew it.

8
    Lock knocked on the front door of the Mannheim residence. The day of their meeting had finally come, and he couldn’t wait to see Natalie. He had long since quit feeling annoyed that Witt had forced him to reschedule—the week he had spent away had been the best week Lock could remember in a long time.
    Candice opened the door and escorted him into the kitchen.
    Witt Mannheim sat upright at the breakfast table and nodded to Lock. He was about fifty, with a slight paunch, a round face, and a receding hairline. Lock took a seat at the kitchen table directly across from him.
    Natalie, dressed conservatively in dark blue slacks and a matching sweater, stood by the range while a kettle boiled water. She offered coffee or tea; Witt ignored her, and Lock politely declined.
    As soon as Natalie sat down, Witt spoke up. “I’ll take a cup, black,” he said. Natalie got up to get it. No flicker of the annoyance she must have felt showed on her face.
    “I’ve been thinking about this interview ever since we scheduled it last week,” Witt said, pointing a finger at Lock. “The more I think about it, the more I find this whole thing intrusive. I don’t see the problem here. I never filed that report with CPS, my lawyer didn’t, and I haven’t been negligent. So why are you wasting my time? Where’s your problem?”
    “I hate to agree with Witt,” said Natalie, “but—”
    “You’re agreeing with me about something? That’s a new one.”
    “Oh for God’s sake, Witt,” said Natalie,