Eight Classic Nora Roberts Romantic Suspense Novels

by Nora Roberts

  Brian didn’t know how much more he could take, kicking around the big house day after day, sleeping night after night beside a woman who cringed away from his slightest touch.

  He was on the phone nearly every day, hoping Kesselring could give him something, anything. He needed a name, a face that he could vent his helpless fury on.

  He had nothing but an empty nursery, and a wife who drifted through the house like the ghost of the woman he loved.

  And Emma. Thank God for Emma.

  Rubbing his hands over his face, he pushed back from the table where he’d been trying to compose. He knew if it hadn’t been for Emma over the past weeks, he’d have gone insane.

  She was grieving too, silently, sadly. Often he sat up with her long past her bedtime, telling her stories, singing, or just listening. They could make each other smile, and when they did the pain eased.

  He was terrified every moment she was out of the house. Even the bodyguards he’d hired to see her to school and back again didn’t take away the gut-knotting fear he felt when she walked out the door.

  And how would he feel when it was time for him to walk out the door? No matter how much he missed his son, the day would come when he needed to go back to the stage, back to the studio, back to the music. He could hardly tie a six-year-old girl around his waist and haul her with him.

  And there was no leaving her with Bev. Not now, and not, as Brian saw it, in the near future.

  “Mr. McAvoy, excuse me.”

  “Yes, Alice.” They had kept her on, though there was no child to nurse. She nursed Bev now, Brian thought and dug a cigarette from the pack he’d tossed on the table.

  “Mr. Page is here to see you.”

  Brian glanced back at the table, the scatter of paper, the jumble of lyrics and half-phrases. “Bring him on in here.”

  “ ’Lo, Bri.” With one look Pete took in the evidence of a man struggling to work without much success. Balls of paper, a cigarette smoldering in an overflowing ashtray, the faint scent of liquor, though it was barely noon. “Hope you don’t mind me popping ’round. I have some business and I didn’t think you’d care to come in to the office.”

  “No.” He reached for the bottle that was never far from his hand. “Have a drink?”

  “I’ll hold off a bit, thanks.” He sat, trying for an easy smile. The mood between them was stiff and uncharacteristically formal. No one seemed to know how to behave around Brian, what questions to ask, what questions to avoid. “How’s Bev?” he ventured.

  “I don’t know.” Remembering his cigarette, Brian plucked it out from among the butts. “She won’t say very much, won’t go out at all.” He let out smoke with a long, uneven sigh. When he looked at Pete there was both a plea and defiance in his eyes. The same, Pete thought, as there had been years before when Brian had come to him, asking for management. “Pete, she sits in Darren’s room for hours at a time. Even at night, sometimes I’ll wake up and find her in there, just sitting in that bloody rocking chair.” He took a swallow from his glass, then another, deeper. “I don’t know what the hell to do.”

  “Have you thought of therapy?”

  “You mean a psychiatrist?” Brian pushed away from the table. The ash from his cigarette crumbled onto the rug. He was a simple man, from simple people. Problems, private problems, were handled privately. “What good would it do for her to talk about her sex life and how she hated her father or some bloody thing?”

  “It’s just an idea, Bri.” Pete reached out a hand, then dropped it to the arm of his chair. “Something to think about.”

  “Even if I thought it might help, I don’t know if I could get her to agree.”

  “Maybe she just needs a bit more time. It’s only been a couple of months.”

  “He’d have been three last week. Oh, Jesus.”

  Saying nothing, Pete rose to pour more whiskey into Brian’s glass. He handed it over, then eased Brian into a chair. “Do you hear anything from the police?”

  “I talk to Kesselring. They’re no closer. That makes it worse somehow. Not knowing who.”

  Pete sat again. They needed to get past this thing, all of them, and move ahead. “What about Emma?”

  “The nightmares have stopped, and the cast comes off in a few weeks. She has school to keep it off her mind, but it’s always there. You can see it in her eyes.”

  “She hasn’t remembered any more?”

  Brian shook his head. “Christ, Pete, I don’t know if she saw anything or just had a bad dream. It’s all monsters with Emma. I want it behind her. Somehow we’ve got to put it behind all of us.”

  Pete paused a moment, considering. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I don’t want to push you, Bri, but the record company would very much like a tour to commence with the release of the new album. I’ve put them off, but I wonder if it might not be good for you.”

  “A tour would mean leaving Bev, and Emma.”

  “I realize that. Don’t give me an answer now. Think about it.” He took out a cigarette, lighted it. “We can go through Europe, America, Japan, if you and the lads are willing. The work might be just what you need to help you through.”

  “And it would sell plenty of records.”

  Pete gave a thin smile. “There’s that. No pushing an album over the top these days without touring. Speaking of records, I signed that new boy on. Robert Blackpool. I think I mentioned him.”

  “Yes. You said you had high hopes.”

  “And so I do. You’d like his style, Bri, which is why I want you to let him record ‘On the Wing.’ ”

  Simple surprise had Brian pausing before he drank again. “We always record our own music.”

  “So you have, thus far. But it’s good business all around to expand a bit.” Pete waited a moment, gauging Brian’s mood. Because he sensed it was more responsive than he’d expected, he pressed on. “You pulled that particular piece from the last album, and it suits Blackpool to the ground. It wouldn’t hurt to have a new artist record a ditty you and Johnno turned out. In fact in this case it’ll only enhance your reputations as songwriters.”

  “I don’t know.” He rubbed his hands over his eyes. It didn’t seem to matter. “I’ll run it by Johnno.”

  “I already have.” Pete smiled. “He’s agreeable if you are.”

  Brian found Bev in Darren’s room. Though it cost him, he went inside, trying not to look at the empty crib, at the toys neatly sucked on the shelves, at the huge teddy bear he and Bev had bought before Darren had been born.

  “Bev.” He laid a hand on hers and waited, fruitlessly, for her to look at him.

  She was too thin. The bones in her face were too prominent for elegance now. The luster in her eyes her hair, her skin was gone. He found himself gritting his teeth to keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her until life bloomed in her again.

  “Bev, I was hoping you’d come down and have some tea.”

  She could smell the liquor. It turned her stomach. How could he sit and drink and scribble his music? She took her hand from his and laid it in her lap. “I don’t want any tea.”

  “I have some news. P.M.’s gotten himself married.”

  She looked at him then, a flick of a disinterested glance.

  “He was hoping we’d come out for a short while. He’d like to show off his house at the beach and his chesty new wife.”

  “I’ll never go back there.” There was such quick, angry violence in her voice, he nearly stepped back. But it wasn’t emotion that stunned him nearly so much as the look in her eyes when they met his. Loathing.

  “What do you want from me?” he demanded. He bent close, gripping both arms of the rocker. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Just leave me alone.”

  “I have left you alone. I’ve left you alone to sit in here hour after hour. I’ve left you alone when I’ve needed so badly just to hold on to you. And at night, I’ve left you alone when I’ve waited for you to turn to me. Just once to turn t
o me. Goddamn you, Bev, he was mine, too.”

  She said nothing, but the tears began. When he reached for her, she jerked away. “Don’t touch me. I can’t bear it.” When he backed off, she slipped out of the chair to go to the crib.

  “You can’t bear me to touch you,” he began as his fury built. “You can’t stand me to look at you, or speak to you. Hour after hour, day after day, you sit in here as if you’re the only one who hurts. It’s time to stop, Bev.”

  “It’s easy for you, isn’t it?” She snatched a blanket from the crib to press it to her breasts. “You can sit and drink and write your music as if nothing happened. It is so bloody easy for you.”

  “No.” Weary, he pressed his fingers to his eyes. “But I can’t just stop living. He’s gone, and I can’t change it.”

  “No, you can’t change it.” The helpless grief welled up to rub the wound raw. “You had to have the party that night. All those people in our home. Your family was never enough for you, and now he’s gone. You had to have more, more people, more music. Always more. And one of those people you let into our home killed my baby.”

  He couldn’t speak. If she had taken a knife and slashed him from heart to gut there might have been less pain. Certainly less shock. They stood, with the empty crib between them.

  “He didn’t let the monsters in.” Emma stood in the doorway, her books dangling from their strap, her eyes dark against her white skin. “Da didn’t let the monsters in.” Before Brian could speak, she was rushing down the hall, her sobs trailing behind her.

  “Good job,” Brian managed to say while his jaw clenched and unclenched. “Since you want to be alone, I’ll take Emma and go.”

  She wanted to call after him, but couldn’t. Tired, much too tired, she sank into the rocker again.

  It took him an hour to calm Emma. When her tears had put her to sleep, he began his calls. His decision made, he ended with Pete.

  “We’re leaving for New York tomorrow,” he said shortly. “Emma and I. We’ll hook up with Johnno, take a few days. I need to find her a good school and arrange security. Once she’s settled, and safe, we’ll go to California and begin rehearsals. Fix up the tour, Pete, and make it a long one.” He took a hard pull of whiskey. “We’re ready to rock.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “She doesn’t want to go back.” Brian watched Emma wander around the rehearsal hall with her new camera. He’d given it to her during their tearful goodbye at Saint Catherine’s Academy for Girls in upstate New York.

  “She’d barely been there a month before this spring-break thing,” Johnno reminded him. But he felt a twinge for the little girl as she snapped a picture of Stevie’s Martin on its stand in the corner. “Give her a bit of time to adjust.”

  “It seems all we do is adjust.” It had been eight weeks since he’d walked out on Bev, and he still ached for her. The women he’d taken since were like a drug, the drugs like women. Both only eased the pain for moments at a time.

  “You could call her,” Johnno suggested, reading his partner’s thoughts with the ease of a long relationship.

  “No.” He’d considered it, more than once. But the papers had been full of their separation, and his appetite since. He doubted if he and Bev would have anything to say to each other that wouldn’t make things worse. “My concern now’s for Emma. And the tour.”

  “Both’ll be smashing.” Johnno glanced over, giving a pointed look toward Angie. “With a few exceptions.”

  Brian merely shrugged and began to noodle on the piano. “If she clinches that movie deal, she’ll be out of our hair.”

  “Smarmy little bitch. Did you see that rock she had P.M. spring for?” Johnno tilted his head and affected an upper-class accent. “Too, too tacky, dearie.”

  “Draw the claws. As long as P.M.’s bonkers over her, we’re stuck. And we’ve more to worry about than our little Angie.” He watched Stevie come back into the hall.

  He was spending more and more time in the bathroom, Brian noted. And it didn’t have anything to do with his bladder. Whatever Stevie had jabbed or swallowed or snorted this time had him flying. He stopped by Emma to give her a quick swing, then picked up his guitar. As the amp was off, his frantic riff was soundless.

  “Best to wait until he’s down to talk to him about it,” Johnno suggested. “If you can catch him when he is.” He started to add something, then decided that Brian had enough on his mind. It would hardly do any good to tell him what he’d heard before they’d left New York.

  Imagine Jane Palmer writing a book. Of course someone else would do the work, like putting sentences together. Still, he imagined Jane would get a princely sum for it. And whatever she said in her little public diary wasn’t likely to please Brian. Best to let Pete handle it, he decided, and not hit Brian with what was already going on until after the tour.

  Emma paid little attention to the rehearsal when it got back into swing. She’d heard all the songs before, dozens of times. Most of them were from the album her da and the others had made when they’d been in California before. She’d been allowed to go to the studio a few times. Once Bev had brought Darren.

  She didn’t want to think of Darren because it hurt too much. Then she was struck with a miserable wave of guilt because she tried to block him out.

  She missed Charlie, too. She’d left him behind in London in Darren’s crib. She hoped Bev would take care of him. And maybe one day, when they went back home, Bev would talk to her again, and laugh, as she once had.

  She didn’t understand very much about penance, but she thought leaving Charlie behind was only right.

  Then there was school. She was certain that having to go to that place, so far away from everyone she loved best, was her punishment for not taking care of Darren as she’d promised.

  She remembered being punished before, the slaps and shouts. It seemed easier, she thought now, because once the slaps were over, so was the punishment. There seemed no end to her current banishment.

  Da didn’t call it a punishment, she mused. He said she was going to a good school where she would learn to be smart. Where she would be safe. There were men there to watch her. Emma hated that. They were big, silent men with bored eyes. Not like Johnno and the others. She wanted to go from city to city with them, even if it meant going on airplanes. She wanted to stay in hotels and bounce on the beds and order tea from room service. But she was going back to school, back to the sisters with the kind eyes and firm hands, back to morning prayers and grammar lessons.

  She glanced back as her father peeled into “Soldier Blues.” It was another song about the war, its hard-edged lyrics set to a harder-edged beat. She didn’t know why it appealed to her. Perhaps it was P.M.’s cymbal-crashing style or Stevie’s frantic, blood-pumping guitar. But when Johnno’s voice merged with Brian’s, she lifted her camera.

  She liked to take pictures. It never occurred to her that the camera was too expensive and difficult to master for a child of her age. Just as it had never occurred to her that giving it had been a sop to Brian’s guilt for tucking her away in an obscure school.

  “Emma.”

  She turned to study a tall, dark man. He wasn’t one of the bodyguards, she realized, but there was something familiar about his face. Then she remembered. She smiled a little because he had been kind when he’d come to see her in the hospital, and he hadn’t embarrassed her when she’d cried on his shoulder.

  “Do you remember me?” Lou asked her.

  “Yes. You’re the policeman.”

  “That’s right.” He put a hand on the boy beside him, trying to draw his son’s attention away from the group rehearsing. “This is Michael. I told you about him.”

  She brightened even more, but was too shy to ask him about roller-skating off rooftops. “Hello.”

  “Hi.” He gave her a quick glance, a fleeting smile. It was all he could spare before his eyes were riveted to the four men in the center of the hall.

  “We need the horns,” Brian began when
he signaled a halt. “Can’t get the full sound without them.” His heart stopped when he spotted the man beside Emma, then slowly, thickly began beating again. “Lieutenant.”

  “Mr. McAvoy.” After a quick warning glance at his son, Lou crossed the hall. “I’m sorry to interrupt your rehearsal, but I wanted to speak to you again, and your daughter, if possible.”

  “Do you—”

  “No. I have very little to add to what you already know. But if I could have a few minutes of your time?”

  “Sure. You chaps want to go for lunch? I’ll catch up with you.”

  “I could hang around,” Johnno offered.

  “No.” Brian gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. “Thanks.”

  Emma caught the look in Michael’s eyes. She’d seen the same expression in those of the girls at school when they’d discovered who her father was. Her lips curved a little. She liked his face, the slightly crooked nose, the dear gray eyes.

  “Would you like to meet them?”

  Michael had to wipe his sweaty palms on his jeans. “Yeah. That’d be boss.”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Lou said to Brian as he noted that Emma had spared him from asking. “I brought my son along. Not strictly procedure, but—”

  “I understand.” Brian took a long, envious look at the boy as Michael beamed up at Johnno. Would Darren have been so bright, so sturdy at eleven? “Why don’t I send him an album? The new one won’t be released for a couple of weeks yet. He’ll be the hit of the schoolyard.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “It’s nothing. I’ve a strong feeling that you’ve put more time in on what happened to Darren than you’re required to.”

  “Neither one of us has nine-to-five jobs, Mr. McAvoy.”

  “Right. I always hated cops.” He gave a thin smile. “I guess you do until you really need one. I’ve hired a private-detective firm, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  It was strange, but Brian felt the easiness of his own laugh. “Yes, I suppose you do. They reported to me that you’ve covered more ground than five cops might in the last months. That’s the only thing they’ve been able to tell me that you haven’t. One would almost think you want them as much as I do.”