Nanny 911 Read Online Free PDF Page A

usurper for being there. But if I transfer off the team, or get cut because Kincaid is a better man…”
    She turned off the hot water and hugged her arms around her naked body as the water ran down the drain and the locker room’s cool air raised goose bumps across her skin. If Dr. Kilpatrick wasn’t so good at her job, then Miranda might not still be shaking from the embarrassing accuracy of the psychologist’s next question.
    “Do these self-esteem issues go back to that incident this summer when the Rich Girl Killer attacked you?”
    “He wasn’t after me. He wanted Sergeant Delgado’s girlfriend—his wife now—because she could ID him.”
    “I read Delgado’s report myself. He said you slowed down the RGK long enough for him to get there to save his wife from being murdered.”
    Backhanded praise was no better than a reprimand. “My job wasn’t to slow him down. It was my job to stop him. I failed. He got the drop on me, bashed my head in and I failed.”
    “There’s a reason it’s called a team. It takes all of you, working together, to complete your mission. You’re there to complement each other’s strengths, and, on certain days, compensate for a weakness. Every man on that team knows that. Every man has been where you are. No one blames you for having an off day.”
    That indulgent, don’t-be-so-hard-on-yourself tone only made the self-doubts whispering inside Miranda’s head shout out loud. “You know it’s different when you’re a woman, Doc. ‘Good’ isn’t good enough. If I can’t perform when my team needs me to, then why the hell should Captain Cutler keep me around?”
    The psychologist jotted something on her notepad, then leaned forward in her chair. “SWAT Team 1 is your family, aren’t they? That’s why you’re being so hard on yourself, why you’re so afraid of making a mistake. You don’t want to lose your family again.”
    Stupid, intuitive psychologist! That was why the session with Dr. Kilpatrick had upset her so much today. She’d gotten Miranda to reveal a truth she hadn’t even admitted to herself yet.
    With her parents both gone and her older brother stationed in Afghanistan, Miranda had no one in Kansas City. No one, period. All she had was this job. Being a cop—a highly select SWAT cop—was her identity. It gave her goals, satisfaction, a sense of community and worth. If she screwed it up, then she’d really be up a creek. Of course, the holidays only exacerbated that reeling sense of loneliness she normally kept at bay.
    And she’d actually revealed all that to the doctor?
    “Ow!” The pinch of sanity on her scalp told her that (a), she was tugging too hard with the hairbrush, and (b), she needed to get a grip. If she wanted to make the claim that she was a strong woman who deserved to have the job she did, then she needed to quit wallowing in these weak, feminine emotions that felt so foreign to her, and get her head on straight.
    Decision made. Time to act. Emotions off.
    “Now get out of here, Murdock,” she advised her reflection in the mirror.
    After pulling her long, straight hair back into a ponytail, Miranda dressed in her civvies and bundled up in her stocking cap and coat to face the wintry air blowing outside. Night had fallen by the time she hurried down the steps toward the crosswalk that would lead her to the parking garage across the street.
    Heading south for half a block, she jammed her hands into the pockets of her navy wool peacoat and hunched her shoulders against the wind hitting her back. When she reached the crosswalk and waited for the light to change, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket to check the time. Great. By this hour on Christmas Eve, none of the usual restaurants where she liked to pick up a quick dinner would be open. She tried to picture her freezer and wondered what microwave choices she had on hand that she could zap for dinner, or if she’d be eating a bowl of cereal again. Why couldn’t she remember