by Anne Calhoun
She was in the house, and safe. The first part of that sentence was temporary: Cady was leaving town again, sooner rather than later. He’d damn well make sure she was safe when she left.
* * *
The woodpile workout gave him an excuse to take another shower, so he did, then pulled on a Henley and fresh jeans. His laundry was piling up, so he took it downstairs, threw in the pile of towels sitting in the basket to round out his load, puzzled his way through the high-end washing machine’s digital readout, and pressed START. Water started flowing into the drum, so he guessed it was working.
“Hey there,” Cady said. “Thanks for throwing the towels in.”
He turned to see her peering around the doorframe into the laundry room. “As long as I don’t throw in the towel?”
“Something like that,” she said with a smile. “But you didn’t have to do that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever lived with a guy who offered to do anyone else’s laundry, much less did it without being asked.”
It was hard to unlearn patterns you learned as a kid. Travel light. Do your own laundry, wash your own dishes, be helpful if you can. He remembered all the times he offered to do the dishes, or mop floors, or fold laundry, trying to make himself useful so when he fucked up, lost his temper, got into trouble, he wouldn’t be passed along to the next relative. It hadn’t worked; enlisting was basically his best bet after he turned eighteen. He shrugged. “They were there, needing to be washed. It didn’t make any sense to do a half-full load of my own stuff. Unless you’ve got some special secret towel washing method I don’t know.”
“Open door, insert towels, dump in detergent, hit start.”
“That’s what I did.”
“You’re golden, then.”
“How did the session go?”
“Meh,” she said with a casual shrug that didn’t match the haunted look in her eyes. “Some days it’s easy peasy. Other days it’s a painful grind. Doesn’t matter. You show up and do the work.”
He caught her arm. “Hey,” he said, quiet, low. “How did it go?”
“Pretty fucking awful,” she replied, just as quiet. Like if the universe heard her, it would be twice as bad next time. “Thanks for asking. Want some lunch?”
“Sure,” he said.
They walked back into the kitchen. “I heard you going at the woodpile,” Cady said as she opened the refrigerator door. “Thanks. You also didn’t need to do that.”
“I’m used to a lot more stimulation than this,” he admitted.
“So am I,” she said, setting containers of stew and chopped-up veggies on the counter, then reaching for the pan to heat up the stew. “No, sit down, I’ve got this. Unless, if you need something to do, I wouldn’t mind being uncivilized and eating off trays in front of the fire.”
He used the leather carrier to haul in some of the logs from outside. By the time he had the fire going, she was carrying over a big tray laden with bowls of beef stew, sliced whole-grain bread, butter, and the fresh vegetables. After setting the tray on the tufted leather ottoman, she handed him a plate for bread and veggies, then a bowl of stew.
Her gaze was distant as she tucked her feet under her and settled in with her own bowl, eating with an absentmindedness that told him she was still far, far away. “You’re not worried about what’s going on?”
“One of the things I learned early on was that if I was going to hire someone to do a job, I either let that someone to do his or her job, or they were just a distraction. You seem extremely competent. I do neither of us any favors if I micromanage you. More importantly, I trust you.”
Her words startled him. She had no reason to really trust him, not at a time when he didn’t know who he could trust himself. The people he thought had his back might in fact be betraying him right now. Cady had family, friends, connections. He had nothing but himself.
He was hers, if she wanted him.
The thought flashed through his mind with the speed and searing impact of lightning. Where the hell did that come from?
“Good,” he said. He went back to eating stew, but now too distracted to really appreciate the flavors. It was a relief when he heard a car pull into the driveway, followed by a second vehicle. “Hawthorn and Dorchester,” he said with a quick glance at his watch.
Doors slammed. One, two … three … four. “Get out of sight,” Conn said.
“I’ll clean up,” Cady replied, stacking dishes on the tray.
The kitchen put her out of the line of sight to the door. Hand on his holster, Conn walked to the window and peered through the slatted blinds. He saw Dorchester’s Jeep, Hawthorn’s Durango, and a Mercedes no one he knew could afford. They’d come in personal cars to avoid drawing attention to Cady’s house, and parked in front of the big evergreens, so no one could see the cars from the street.
Heads appeared on the stairs, Detective Joanna Sorenson behind Hawthorn, which accounted for one door. But the head that appeared after Matt had smooth black hair glinting in the weak winter sunlight. Eve Webber. Matt had brought along emotional reinforcements.
The last person trotting up the stairs, in a suit and tie, was a lawyer Conn knew only by reputation. Caleb Webber.
Conn opened the door, and his mouth. “No, we weren’t followed,” Hawthorn said.
Eve patted him on the arm to say hello, then headed for the kitchen like she knew the place. “You sure it was a good idea to bring her along?” Conn said to Matt. “She’s had enough excitement to last most people a lifetime.”
“She’s not most people,” Matt said wryly as he unzipped his army jacket and shrugged out of it. “And she insisted.”
“I didn’t insist,” Eve called from the kitchen. “I simply pointed out that Cady might like a friend at the table. I know what it’s like to be in the middle of something like this. Conn, do you know my brother?”
Caleb Webber held out his hand, not bothering to smile. “Caleb Webber. I’m Cady’s local attorney. Her agent asked me to be here.”
“I’ll call Chris,” Cady added as she fiddled with her phone. “It’s so sweet of you to take time away from Eye Candy.”
“Natalie owes me, big time,” Eve said. “She took a few days’ vacation with no notice and just got back today.”
“That’s nice,” Cady said. “Where did she go?”
“Nowhere with sun. She’s as pale as she was before she left.”
“It’s a little early for me,” Cady said. “February. That’s when you want to get away, when it’s been cold and cloudy and slushy for months and you can’t take another second of it.”
“But you’ve still got March to go,” Eve added. “You were in Turks and Caicos last year, right?”
“Just before the tour started,” Cady confirmed.
Keeping Cady safe, let alone getting her any privacy, was going to be an impossible job. Anyone with access to the internet knew where she was, who she was with, what she was doing.
She gave him a bright smile. “Coffee, anyone?”
Everyone respectfully declined. It was interesting to watch Hawthorn, who was one of the most stone cold operators Conn had ever met, and Sorenson, who didn’t flinch for anyone, watch Cady out of the corners of their eyes.
“Really?” Cady said, “I’m making some for myself.”
“No coffee, Cady,” Chris said, the sharpness of his tone moderated by the fuzzy speakerphone sound quality.
“I’m sorry, Chris, I was driving under a bridge and didn’t hear that last bit,” she said, pouring beans into her fancy coffeemaker. “Come on, people. I don’t like to drink alone.”
“I’d love some,” Sorenson said. After that, the dam broke and everyone wanted coffee. Conn could almost smell Chris fuming away in Brooklyn as Cady happily scooped beans into the coffee maker’s reservoir.
“How’s the weather out east?” Conn asked casually.
“Typical December in the big city,” Chris said readily. “Yesterday it was in the fifties. Today the high is nineteen
, and it’s going to get sloppy.”
Nothing anyone with a weather app couldn’t recite. Chris was no fool.
Coffees in hand, everyone clustered around the big island in the kitchen, Cady’s phone on speaker so Chris could hear everything and add to the conversation. Conn stood by Cady, both because he could, and because he wanted to keep one ear tuned to the background noise when he spoke. The guy was muting his end when he didn’t have something to say; there wasn’t enough static for the line to be open all the time.
They ran through official introductions so Chris would know who was who, then Hawthorn nodded at Conn. He flipped open his notebook and started the basic rundown of what had happened since he became Cady’s official bodyguard. It was embarrassingly short: threat level high, actual progress on said threat level low.
“Counselor, who knows Cady owns this house?”
Caleb didn’t bother to flip open the leather portfolio he’d brought with him. “All work and payments were processed through the limited liability corporation my firm set up for Cady. I know. My partner knows. Our paralegal knows. That’s it.”
Conn added three more people to his list of possible leaks.
“What are our next steps?” Hawthorn asked.
“We should install security cameras,” Conn said.
“No,” Cady said.
“I’m with Cady on this one,” Chris said from Brooklyn, or possibly from some hidey hole in the woods behind Cady’s house.
Conn’s gaze flickered to Hawthorn, who lifted one eyebrow ever so slightly. Cady missed this, because she was staring at the phone, coffee cup halfway to her lips. “Who are you and what have you done with my manager?”
“The best security you have right now is the fact that no one knows you bought this house,” Chris said. “If we involve a security company, that’s one more group of people who know someone important lives at that house. All we need is one curious tech starting to dig, ask questions, post pictures, and your privacy is gone. Then the security cameras are no longer optional.”
“People know where my mom lives,” Cady said to Conn. “That’s basically an open secret, and she doesn’t have security cameras.”
“Not that your mom’s not a lovely, lovely woman,” Chris said, “but no one really cares about her. Or your sister.”
“You’re pretty casual with the two people who matter most to Cady,” Conn said.
Silence from everyone around the kitchen island, and from Chris. Cady’s eyes were wide, unblinking. “You think this is a real threat. You’re not just being paranoid.”
“I’m absolutely, one hundred percent paranoid,” Conn said. “That’s my job. Over the last two weeks someone has taken down your website more than once and come into your home and stolen one of your most meaningful mementos. The attacks are getting closer. More personal. I’m making a very strong recommendation. You can choose not to take it, but if you don’t, you’re making my job that much harder.”
More silence.
“We can install the cameras,” Sorenson said. She was looking at Cady when she said it, not talking to Chris, or to Conn.
“We? As in one of your officers, who might also talk?” Chris asked.
“I can do it,” Sorenson said.
“Who are you? Have we met? How do I know you won’t talk?” Chris demanded.
Sorenson gave the phone a look that would have curdled milk. Dorchester hid a grin behind a cough. Hawthorn, as the ranking officer present, spoke. “The expression on Detective Sorenson’s face may not be translating well through the phone—”
“Actually, it is,” Chris said. “Ice crystals are forming on my screen as I speak.”
“I can assure you that you can trust the discretion of every officer in this room,” Hawthorn said smoothly.
“Up to you, Cady my dear.”
Cady worried at her lip again. “I really, really don’t want to do this,” she said. “Home is the only place I go where I don’t have to think about cameras. Every time I set foot off my property, I’m aware that someone could be taking my picture, or recording me. I have to think about what I’m wearing, doing, saying. Even here in Lancaster. It’s different than before.”
“Because you’re a bigger star now,” Chris interjected. “All the work, the millions the label has invested, is paying off. Just something to keep in mind, in case you were thinking about momentum. That sort of thing. Carry on.”
Conn glared at her. Millions? Millions invested in Cady’s next album?
It was Cady’s turn to look daggers at the phone. “But when I’m in my home, it’s the only place I can really relax. If you put up cameras, that changes the dynamic.”
“They’d be on the perimeter only,” Conn said, striving for reassuring. This wasn’t his forte, negotiating with people he cared about. “Entrances and exits. The woods.”
Cady shook her head. “It closes me down even more, Conn. My world is getting smaller and smaller when I need it to be big. Wide open. I need somewhere I can just be me. Not Maud. This house was supposed to be that place. Cameras turn it into a Maud space.”
He thought about what she said about needing lots of material, space, and time to write her songs. He thought about how small she was, how delicate, how easy it would be to hurt her. “Someone broke into your house. This is the safest thing we can do.”
“No one broke into my house,” she pointed out. “There were no signs of forced entry. Whoever it was had a key. We got the locks changed. I asked Mom to take the key off the hook by her back door. That’s going to narrow our field considerably.”
But not exclude Chris, who had now heard everything, and managed to talk Cady out of installing cameras.
“Trust me, Cady,” Conn said. The words echoed in his head. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me.
Cady looked at him, looked away, then glanced around the table. He was making this too intimate. He knew it, but didn’t care. If making her safe meant exposing how he felt, then he’d do it.
“No cameras. For now,” she said.
Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. They stared at each other for a second, and in that instant, Conn knew what he was going to do. He was going to install security cameras without her consent. He wasn’t trained in the technology, but he knew enough to figure out the basics. A couple of cameras transmitting on a secure wireless network to his laptop. No big deal. Cady didn’t want it, but the thought of someone sneaking in and out of her house made his skin crawl. He knew he was doing exactly what Hawthorn counseled him not to do, going rogue, but there was too much at stake.
Cady was at stake. Her safety, her security, her happiness. He’d probably just made the choice that would cost him her confidence, but better to remain alone than to be with her and lose her. He was used to alone. He was used to not letting the door hit him on the ass on the way out.
“No cameras,” he said, not at all surprised to hear how level his voice was.
“Great,” Chris said. “If we’re done, Cady, I need a few minutes.”
She picked up the phone, switched off the speaker mode, and walked toward the windows, her voice too low for Conn to hear. He pulled out his own cell phone and sent a text to Shane.
Need you to pick up a few things for me. He followed it up with a list. Cameras. Discreet, wireless, secured.
Shane’s reply was almost instantaneous. Want me to get the same setup I got for the garage? Easy to use.
Yes.
It’ll be cheaper online.
I need it ASAP.
I’m on it.
He turned to Hawthorn. Now was the time to tell him about Cesar’s accusation, something that had been circulating about the Block for a long time. But Conn wanted proof, something solid to take to his LT, something that protected his own hide. So he stuck to the subject at hand.
“I don’t trust her manager as far as I can throw him.”
“You don’t really have grounds not to trust him,” Hawthorn said, still focused on his spreadsheets
or pie charts or tables.
“Besides the fact that Cady’s thinking about changing her direction in a way that could cost him his percentage of whatever Cady makes when her next album comes out?”
Finger poised over the power button, Hawthorn looked up from his laptop. “Come again?”
“I signed a confidentiality agreement. I can’t say anything more than this: Chris and Cady are butting heads over her future. He could lose big bucks in the coming year if Cady gets her way. You saw him, LT. Two weeks ago he was dead set on her having total protection, and now he talks her out of getting security cameras?”
“Understood,” Hawthorn said. “But none of this is what we’d normally classify as serious intent to harm.”
“Which is a flaw in the law, and in your way of thinking.” Caleb Webber spoke up unexpectedly. “It’s psychological. The most damaging thing you can do to a woman is make her think she’s not safe. As long as she thinks she isn’t, she’s off-balance, easier to control. This could easily be an attack not on her person but on her creativity.”
Sorenson’s face changed ever so slightly from professional blankness to faintly assessing. She gave him a small nod. “McCormick’s got a good point. Cady’s managed to tune out the internet trolls, but this is personal. If her manager wants to control her, this would go a long way toward doing that.”
“He’s not here, though,” Dorchester said. “You’d think he’d swoop in to save the day.”
“Maybe that’s the next step,” Conn said. “Freak her out, then calm her down. Problem solved, especially if the threats end.”
“Did anyone else hear the SoMa trolley in the background when Chris was talking?” Eve asked.
They all stared at her.
“You’re right,” Conn said. “That was the dinging during his call. I knew it was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.”