I’m still pinned against the mansion like a butterfly in a frame, but at least I’m still alive. A car door slams, and then there’s a large shadow looming over me.

“What the fuck are you doing? You could have been killed,” says the shadow.

Somehow his voice booms over the rain, as if it’s above ordinary things like the weather. I open my mouth to reply, but pinned butterflies can’t speak. Everyone knows this. Shock holds my throat tight even as my heart pounds out of my chest.

“You don’t belong here. This is private property.”

I swallow hard. “I’m Jane Mendoza. The new nanny. Today is my first day.”

There’s silence from the shadow. In the stretching silence he turns into a man. A large one who seems impervious to the cold. “Jane,” he says, testing my name. “Mendoza.”

He says it with this northeastern accent I recognize from the Uber driver. Mend-ohhh-sah. In Texas, most people were used to Mexican last names. I’m wondering if that will be different in Maine. Maybe I would do a better job of defending myself if I weren’t about to get hypothermia, if I hadn’t just traveled two thousand miles for the first time in my life.

All I can hear are the words you don’t belong here.

I’ve never belonged anywhere, but definitely not on this cliffside. “I work here. I’m telling the truth. You can ask inside. If we can get inside, I’m sure Mr. Rochester will tell you.”

“He will.”

I can’t tell if it’s disbelief in his tone. “Yes, he knows I’m coming. The Bassett Agency sent me. They told him I’m coming. He’s probably waiting inside for me right now.”

“No,” he says. “I’m not.”

My stomach sinks. “You’re Mr. Rochester.”

“Beau Rochester.” He sounds grim. “I didn’t get an email, but I haven’t checked lately. I’ve been busy with… other things.”

I fumble with my phone, which is incurably wet at this point. “I can show you. They sent my resume. And then the contract? Well, that’s what they told me anyway—”

He’s not listening. He turns around and circles back to the driver’s side of the vehicle, which I can see now isn’t a car, but is instead some kind of rough-terrain four-wheel thing. There are apparently no windows, only metal bars forming a crude frame. The kind of thing a rancher might use to move around his property or a good old boy might use for recreation.