The Near & Far Series

by Serena Clarke

  But for all that, he was different now. She worked to force her body into line with her head. Whatever the susceptible, impressionable parts of her felt, her rational view of him was completely altered. Did he know she’d seen him in action at the flash mob? And had he forgotten their last encounter, before she closed the door in his face? It was a long moment before she replied, her voice wary.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “That’s not exactly a royal welcome.” He was unfazed, his tone dry.

  She came up the rest of the steps and plunked her things down. “What do you expect? You wanted me to go. You told me to. After you totally felt me up.”

  He gave a laugh. “You felt me up, remember?”

  She smarted at the sound of his laughter, but ignored his comment. “And then, I saw you rioting with the best of them at the flash mob. What the hell was that?” Was her voice getting posh? Well, too bad. There was another, more important question. “Anyway, none of that’s important now. Have you seen Shelby?”

  The humor went out of his expression, but he ignored her question about the flash mob. “No, but I think I can help you find her. That’s why I’m here.”

  Something in his words sent up a warning flare. “Wait. How did you know she was missing?”

  He looked sideways. “I called everyone afterwards, and the only other people I couldn’t get a hold of were Kyle and Shelby.”

  Kyle too. That came as no surprise. His stupid decisions were responsible for the flash mob disaster—he’d better not be responsible for Shelby going missing too.

  “Look, if you know where she is, just tell me,” she said. “Holt has his lawyer onto it, and he said he’ll be keeping on top of the police. Next stop is the British consulate. So if you have any information, you should just say so now.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  She threw up her hands. “You can’t, you just can’t, whatever. This is important, Reid. Don’t mess me around. I’m going back to the city to look for her myself.” She bent to pick up her things, but he took a step forward.

  “That’s why I came. I hoped you might be here. I was trying to call you, too, but you didn’t answer. I thought either something had gone wrong, or you were mad at me.”

  For a second she enjoyed the fact that he’d been worried about her…then she remembered all the ways she was mad at him. “I would have answered! Shelby’s more important than you.” She hoped it sounded as dismissive as she intended. “I lost my phone.”

  “Okay. Well, I can help. But it needs to be just between us.”

  “What do you know?” She looked at him. “You’re tied up with the protestors, aren’t you? You and bloody Curly, Curly and Moe Weasel.”

  A laugh burst out, but he tamped it down when he saw her face. He started to answer, then stopped, looking over her shoulder to the garden below.

  Cady turned around, and saw a small figure in an orange t-shirt, pink tutu and silver glitter sneakers coming across the grass toward the house. Her dark hair was caught up in a braided ponytail, and she carried a doll under her arm. She was maybe five or six years old, and she looked like the most charmingly colorful woodsprite Cady could imagine.

  “Hi,” said the little apparition, regarding her with big brown eyes. Brown eyes the color of caramel, or honey…

  “Hello,” Cady said, smiling, her anger extinguished by the little girl’s arrival. Then she looked at Reid, her eyes questioning.

  He nodded, knowing exactly what she was thinking. “Cady, may I introduce my daughter Lily. Lily, this is Cady.”

  “Dad!” Lily admonished him. “You forgot Violet.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Cady, this is Violet. Violet, please meet Cady.”

  Lily nodded, satisfied. She held out the doll, and Cady could see it was wearing a t-shirt that matched Lily’s own, with a glitter star on the front.

  “Hi, Violet,” she said. “You girls look lovely today.”

  “Thanks,” said Lily. “We were climbing the tree.”

  She pointed to the old oak at the bottom of the lawn. It had a ladder attached to the side and a rustic platform tree house in the lowest branches. From Holt’s childhood, Cady guessed. Then she remembered something.

  “Is this, by any chance, the friend who likes the park with Quetzalcoatl?”

  He grinned. “It is, the very same.”

  Lily tipped her head to the side, regarding Cady carefully. “Your voice is different. You sound like a princess.”

  Cady laughed. “Thanks. I’m not though, sadly.”

  Reid came down the stairs and took Lily’s hand. “Maybe just a little bit, right Lady Cady? Like you, Lily-Pilly.”

  Lily grinned, and Cady could see the same mischievous glow in each of their faces. Her heart pinged like mad seeing them there hand in hand, two sets of brown eyes, two matching smiles. Oh, danger, Will Robinson. This secret he’d been keeping was the very one that would hit right in the tendermost depths of her heart. She wondered why he hadn’t mentioned Lily before, and where her mother was.

  “So, what do you say?” he asked, going back to their conversation. “Do you want some help?”

  If Cady had been surprised to see Reid, she was completely thrown by his daughter’s appearance. “I do, but…” She looked at sweet Lily, hanging onto her dad’s hand, Violet tucked under her other arm. Surely their mission wasn’t one to take a little girl along on? But again, he knew what she meant.

  “We can drop you with Nanny and Poppa, right Lily? Then Cady and I can go do our job.”

  “Will Nanny make pancakes?” Lily’s face was hopeful. When Reid nodded yes, she pumped a small fist in triumph. “Yes! Aw-right!”

  Her delight made them both smile. He caught Cady’s eye, and for a moment they shared their pleasure in her excitement. Then she remembered, again, the situation she faced, and her smile faded. Bus burned out, sister gone, help offered by the flash mob rioter she just couldn’t get a handle on. While father and daughter made a charming tableau, that didn’t erase his potential dodgy dealings. There were plenty of shady guys wrapped around the fingers of their darling daughters.

  He saw her expression change, and took the lead. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s hit the road. Your carriage awaits, in the parking lot.” He gave Lily a wink, and she grinned.

  Cady hesitated for a moment. “I need to charge this phone up.”

  “You can plug it in in my truck.”

  She nodded, decision made. “Okay. I’ll just leave a note for Holt.”

  She headed inside, gathering her things from the porch on the way. Holt and Preston were obviously still over at the office. She felt a bit bad disappearing again, but she wasn’t up for any discussion about why she should stay here. If Reid thought he knew where Shelby was, she was on board. She had to be. Okay, she didn’t know which ‘side’ he might be on, but she’d take the risk. It might not be long before she wanted to throw her sister back out on the street, but for now, she wanted her safe—by fair means or foul.

  As she threw the shopping bags into the suitcase, and wrote a quick note to Holt in the kitchen, she wondered about Reid. His actions at the flash mob may have veered into the ‘foul’ camp, but his appearance was still way, way on the fair side. Which was patently un-fair. Faced with him, she was all fluster and helpless sizzle, while he seemed to find it all too easy to step away. Well, back to faking her composure. Lucky she’d had plenty of practice.

  Before she stepped back out onto the porch, she paused to peek out the window. Lily was pirouetting on the grass below, her braid flying, giving Violet a dizzying ride. Reid was watching them spin, an indulgent smile on his face. All this time, he’d never mentioned her to Cady—and obviously not to anyone on the bus, either. Why would he keep this little poppet a secret? He’d never given much away, even when she asked, but the last twenty-four hours had shown that she knew even less about him than she thought she did. One thing she did know, was that she was considerably more into him than he was
into her. She only wished he didn’t know it too.

  Thirty-Three

  As they sped along, Lily kept up a stream of questions and commentary from her booster seat in the back. She was a lively conversationalist, to say the least, and Cady kept having to turn away to hide her laughter at the earnest comments. But eventually her eyelids started to droop, and she dropped off to sleep, Violet’s hand clutched in hers.

  “Tired,” Cady commented, looking back at the sleeping cherub. She admired the thick, luxurious lashes resting on Lily’s cheeks, still baby-plump. “How old is she?”

  “Only five. She’s exhausted. It’s been a big few days.”

  She turned back to him. “What’s she been doing?”

  He was silent, his eyes steady on the road in front of them, and she figured he wasn’t going to answer. But then he glanced over his shoulder at his daughter. “I have shared custody with her mother, Jody. I live in Mom and Dad’s guest house so they can take care of her when I’m away for work, and her bedroom is in their house. They’re like another set of parents for her. The night you and I…talked, she woke up with a fever and vomiting, so Mom came down to get me.”

  “Oh, no.” Cady wasn’t pleased to hear Lily had been sick, but she was relieved to know why he’d ended their heated phone call so suddenly. She looked back at the little girl, sleeping peacefully with her head resting against the curved side of the booster seat. “Poor little chicken. She seems okay now, though?”

  “Yeah. They bounce back so fast. But I wanted to be there last night, in case she had a relapse. Sometimes they seem okay during the day, but go downhill again at night.”

  Cady listened to him talking like an old hand at parenting, amazed at this unexpected side of him—confident, thoughtful, and grown-up. She liked it. It shed new light on his ease with Dayna and Brad’s boys, too. And maybe on his question about how many children she wanted, as they’d stood outside the bus in their pajamas that night. Then she thought back to the frustration of his sudden, post-kiss departure from Marian’s guesthouse. “Why didn’t you tell me that was the reason you had to leave?”

  “I asked myself the same thing as I was driving home. You’re the kind of person who would appreciate her.”

  She felt her cheeks warm at this compliment. His words were simple, but their implication was greater. Was this the beginning of him letting her into his real life?

  “Anyway,” he continued, “Jody came and got her early this morning, for her week. Then a while later I got a phone call, from a payphone on the road up north. She was planning to take her back to Canada, for good. But she had sudden second thoughts.”

  “Can she even do that? Take her to another country?”

  “No. There are laws.” He shook his head. “And the truth is, she doesn’t really have the…temperament for parenthood.”

  His tone suggested that was a huge understatement, and she could only imagine what might have gone on up until then. “I’m sorry. Sometimes people don’t turn out to be what you expected, or hoped.” Jeremy, for one. Her mother. Holt. And Reid himself. She was learning that you could never predict what people might have in store.

  He kept talking, apparently wanting to tell her more. “Yeah. It wasn’t the best period in my life. I thought I’d found one thing, but it turned out to be something else. But I have Lily. She’s my best thing. That makes it all worthwhile.”

  “Thank goodness she changed her mind. But then you had to drive all that way to get Lily.”

  “Not all that way.” He shook his head firmly. “I’d go anywhere, any time, for her.”

  Damn. That was clumsily said. “Yes, I’m sure…of course you would.” She cleared her throat. “I can’t believe you never mentioned her.”

  “I have to keep some parts of my life separate.”

  This reminded Cady about the other unexpected side of him she’d seen the day before. “Like the part about being a rioting eco-activist?”

  He kept his gaze fixed on the road, but she saw his jaw tense. “Yep.”

  She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “Come on, Reid. What’s the story? My sister is gone. I’m involved in this now. Don’t you think I deserve to know?”

  Her voice was low, but insistent. She could hear the accusing tone, but she didn’t care. He had his best thing, safely dreaming about pancakes in the back seat. It was a stretch to call Shelby her best thing, but she didn’t have many things left, and Shelby was her nearest now, if not her dearest.

  “I’m not going to explain myself to you.”

  So much for the beginning of something. She pressed her lips together, drawing on some of his restraint. If it wasn’t for Lily dozing in the back seat, she’d up the volume a notch.

  “Well, you bloody should. You were part of starting that mayhem, and look how it ended. You heard about the bus, right?”

  “I did.” He handed her his iPhone, ignoring the rest of her comment. “Here. Go online and register your phone. It should be charged up enough now.”

  “Fine,” she muttered. They’d finish this conversation later. For now, she focused on getting her phone set up and working. Samsung, not iPhone. Shelby would laugh at that.

  By the time she figured it all out, they were through San Francisco and heading out the other side, toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “Oh,” she sighed, looking out and up at the iconic red spans as they drove onto the bridge. The sidewalk was dotted with cyclists and pedestrians, most draped with cameras. There was plenty of fog hanging around the bay, but the bridge itself was in sunshine. While Reid drove on, unmoved by what was everyday scenery for him, she craned her neck, taking in the view from every possible angle. But then she caught herself thinking how much Shelby would enjoy this too, and her pleasure was cut short. Well, when Shelby was back, they’d do all these things. When she was back.

  She looked at Reid. Their brief moment of connection, thanks to Lily, had passed. The man of mystery was back in the driver’s seat. Could he really find Shelby? And how?

  He glanced over at her. “San Francisco’s number one suicide spot.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Really? Did you have to?”

  He shrugged, letting a sideways grin show on his face. “Real life.”

  Speaking of real life…something had occurred to her. “If you want to keep the parts of your life separate, why did you bring Lily to Santa Almendra today, instead of taking her home first?”

  His face changed. If he wasn’t so tan, she’d swear she could see him blush a little. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.

  “I don’t know, it’s…I wanted you to meet her.” He met her eye then, and even behind his sunglasses she could see an openness and vulnerability in his expression that she hadn’t seen before. Then he returned his eyes to the road. But that one look was enough for her to understand the significance of him choosing to share Lily with her.

  “Thank you,” she said. That was enough, for now.

  They travelled the rest of the way to his parents’ house in silence. There were a hundred things she wanted to know—the story about him and Jody, the reason why he kept Lily a secret, the truth about the three weasels and his involvement in the flash mob, and how he was going to help find Shelby. Some of it was none of her business, as much as she wanted it to be. But some of it she had a right to know. And once Lily was safely delivered home, she was going to find out.

  * * *

  With the new phone in action, she tried Shelby’s number, which she’d copied down from Holt’s phone. It went straight to answerphone again. There were endless comments and questions with the #Flashpointers hashtag on Twitter, but nothing from the account itself. Likewise on Facebook. She logged out of everything, frustrated. If he valued his organization and his followers, Kyle should be saying something about the debacle. Where was he?

  Soon they pulled into the driveway of an unassuming-looking house at the top of a quiet, winding street. As Reid turned the engine off, Lily woke up.r />
  “Dad, are we home?” Her cheeks were still flushed sleepy-pink, and her hair was mussed where she’d been resting her head against the seat. Cady reached back and picked Violet up from where she’d fallen on the floor, and returned her to Lily’s lap. She was a little doll herself.

  “Yeah, we’re home.” Reid’s voice gave a hint of the relief he must have been feeling to have her back, instead of heading for the Canadian border.

  In an instant, she was fully awake. “Can we have pancakes now?”

  He laughed. “Probably. Come on then, Nanny and Poppa will be glad to see you.”

  Cady watched as he helped a wiggly Lily get out of her seat, and grabbed her suitcase from the trunk. Then they all went down a few steps and along the path that led to the front door. The house looked like it was from the sixties, but had been updated in an understated style, with low plantings along the path and front fence, and a single feature tree on each side of the lawn.

  The front door opened and an older woman came out, her heart-shaped face matching Lily’s in excitement. She flung her arms out and Lily went into them, full-tilt.

  “Nanny, I’m back already!”

  “I know! What a treat.”

  Lily held up her small matching friend. “Violet wants pancakes, you know.” She looked long-suffering, as though Violet had been very trying with her demands.

  Her Nanny laughed. “Well, if she uses her manners, that’s definitely a possibility.” She stood back up, smiling at Reid and Cady waiting on the path.