“I was ready for it. What they did, with this house, with the studio? It’s such a pleasure to live here, to work here.”
“You’re busy.”
“Right now? Just the right amount.” Thoroughly content, Cate curled up her legs.
Outside, the surf whooshed, and wind shivered through the trees. Inside, the fire crackled, and the whiskey went down warm.
“I’m starting an audiobook next week, and that’ll be the biggest project I’ve taken since moving from New York. It still leaves me time to spend with Grandpa and G-Lil, and get out some. I went riding a couple of Sundays ago at Horizon Ranch. That felt good—until the next day when my muscles reminded me I hadn’t been riding in a long time.”
“And how are things with the Coopers?”
“Talk about busy. They’ve expanded—a whole dairy business. Dillon says they’ll have some students come in over winter break. They train and work—and there’s a lot of work. Same in the spring and summer. And they hire help during those busier seasons. Sheriff—just Red,” she corrected. “Red’s there a lot since he retired, and pitches in. Did you know Deputy Wilson is Sheriff Wilson now?”
“Dad mentioned it.”
She studied her whiskey. Then her father. The years, she thought, just seemed to pile on more appeal when it came to Sullivan men.
“Since it’s just you and me, should we deal with the elephant in the room?”
“Which one?”
“She does seem to have an endless supply. The one where I’m hiding out here because I’ve had a nervous breakdown. One partially brought on by being dumped by Justin Harlowe.”
Her breath hissed out. Her own fault there, she reminded herself. And still. “I expect he’s having a hell of a good time feeding that one.”
“He’s getting some play trying to boost his series and its sagging third season.”
Irritated all over again, Cate shrugged. “He can get all the play he wants, and so can she. It doesn’t bother me the way it used to.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“It bothers me,” she admitted. “But not like it used to. I’m only bringing it up so it’s, well, dumped. Like I dumped Justin months ago. I agreed to keep the breakup quiet because he was going into the new season, and he asked me to. I’m sorry I did, but it doesn’t matter.”
Aidan studied her face. “Does he?”
“No. He doesn’t matter, and she doesn’t matter either.”
“Good. The rest will fade off, as it does. What about the calls?”
All right, she thought, get it all out of the way. “I haven’t had one in nearly a year. As promised, I’ve told you about them, about all of them since I promised. And I reported all of them to Detective Wasserman.”
“And no progress there?”
“What can they do, Dad? It’s a prepaid cell, it’s a recording. Months, even years apart. They’re not going to matter either. I’ve got my family, my work, my life. I want you to know that. Especially since you’ll be heading to London to shoot.”
“I was going to see about you coming with me until I saw how happy you were here, how happy Dad and Lily are. Their gain, my loss. But it’s not until February, so if you change your mind . . . Either way, I’m back here for Christmas and staying until after New Year’s. I want some time with my girl.”
“She wants time with you. How about saddling up and taking a ride while you’re here?”
“Three’s a crowd.”
“No. It’s not like that. We barely know each other. I don’t think he’s involved with anyone, but we’re . . .”
“Before you say ‘friends,’ I’ll point out you talk about your friend you barely know quite a bit.”
“Do I?” Maybe she did. Maybe she thought of him quite a bit, too. “I guess it’s a fascinating lifestyle. And the work ethic? Sullivans know about work ethic and passion for the work. I think it must take an innate kindness, and innate grit, to tend animals and the land the way they do.”
She realized she was, again, talking about him.
“You know, I think Sullivans have either the best luck with relationships or the worst. So far my track record there’s not so great. I think I’ll focus on the work and making sure Grandpa behaves himself when G-Lil’s in New York.”
Shifting, she looked out the glass wall. “Moon’s up,” she murmured.
“I’m going to take that as my cue, get back up to the house.” He rose, walked over to kiss the top of her head. “I like thinking of you sitting here, looking out at the moon over the water. Content.”
She gave his hand a squeeze. “That’s just what I am.”
While he walked up the path, she sat, watching the moon. She thought she had a great deal to be thankful for. If some of her blessings had grown out of one horrible night, wasn’t it worth it?
In the week before Christmas when the high hills carried a lacing of snow and the air snapped like a crisp carrot broken in two, Cate lit candles to fill the house with the scent of pine and cranberry. She’d decorated her own little tree, had wrapped presents—poorly, but she’d wrapped them.
Her grandparents had taken a quick trip to L.A. for a holiday party—one she’d begged out of. Instead she settled into her studio to work, and didn’t give L.A. a thought.
When she finished for the night, she shut down, checked her phone. Checked a voice mail.
“Ho, ho, ho!
Naughty, naughty. Didn’t do what you were told.”
Her own dialogue from her first voice job piped up. “I know who I am, but who are you?”
“Cate, Cate, where is Cate?”
Now her mother’s voice, gleeful. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
A scream, a laugh, and a final “Ho, ho, ho.”
Weary, Cate saved the voice mail. She’d send it to Detective Wasserman for his files.
Okay, yes, her hands shook, but only a little. And she’d do what she hadn’t done since coming back to Big Sur. She’d lock her doors.
But she’d wait until morning to call her father because why give him a sleepless night. She’d keep that upset for herself and do what she always did when the past crept into the now.
She’d find an old movie on TV, one with plenty of noise, and fill the night with sound.
And she’d wait to tell her grandparents until they returned from L.A.
The evening air held balmy in L.A. Holiday lights twinkled with the temperature hovering in the midseventies as the sun dipped down toward twilight.
Charles Anthony Scarpetti, retired from the practice of law, drew a hefty fee on the lecture circuit. He often appeared as a legal expert on CNN.
At seventy-six, with three divorces under his belt, he enjoyed the single life and the smaller home that required only two day staff and a weekly grounds crew to maintain.
He had a pool man, three times a week. He credited swimming, his preferred method of exercise, for keeping him in top shape.
Swimming, and a few careful nips and tucks. After all, he remained a public figure.
He swam every morning—fifty laps. He did another fifty every evening, with a top off in his whirlpool before bed. He’d given up cigars and refined sugar—both a sacrifice.
He slept eight hours a night, ate three balanced meals a day, kept his alcohol intake to a glass of red wine nightly.
He fully expected to live, healthily, into his nineties.
He was about to be disappointed.
At precisely ten o’clock, he stepped out of his house to cross to the pool. The underwater lights shined on the tropical blue water heated to a precise eighty-two degrees. He removed his robe, draped both it and his towel over the bright chrome curve of the ladder of the bubbling whirlpool area where he would end his last lap.
He walked the forty feet to the deep end, dived.
He counted off the laps, nothing but the water, the strokes, the count in his mind. He moved smoothly, steadily, as always in a strong freestyle.
As he counted off
ten, fingers brushing the side, something exploded in his head. He feared a stroke—his housekeeper worried him constantly about swimming alone at night.
He tried to push up, push out, his eyes opening wide. He saw blood in the water, spinning like red spiderwebs in the pristine blue.
Hit his head, something had hit the side of his head. Confused, he struggled to surface, groping for the lip of the pool.
Something held him under, pushed him down.
Flailing, fighting, he gulped water. He clawed, pawed, felt his fingers break the surface. Hope cut through panic, but he couldn’t find the side, couldn’t pull himself up to the air.
When he tried to scream, water flooded his lungs.
Then the panic, the hope, the pain slid away as he sank.
Over her first cup of coffee, Cate tried to wake up her brain by going over her mental list for the day.
She’d voiced and sent the second set of five chapters on her audio-book job to the engineer and producer. Maybe she’d start on the next five. If she needed to do any fixes to the second set, she could just stop, fix, move on.
Or she could work on the couple of smaller jobs she had pending, wait to hear from the engineer.
The poor night’s sleep nudged her toward the smaller jobs.
She should work out—it might get her moving. She really should walk up to the house—that was kind of a workout—then put in an hour . . . okay, forty-five minutes in the gym.
Maybe she should do that first and avoid her typical afternoon not-enough-time excuse.
Maybe she should have a bagel.
Obviously, she just needed more coffee. Her brain would wake up, and all would be revealed.
And when she felt fully awake and steady, she’d call her father in London. Keep her promise.
She started to shuffle back to the coffee maker, and through the wall of glass saw Dillon coming down the path.
She ducked back, even knowing that he couldn’t see her through the treated glass. And looked down at herself.
Old woolly socks, old flannel pajama pants—the ones with frogs all over them—the sweatshirt she’d pulled over the T-shirt she’d slept in—tried to sleep in. The faded pink one with a hole under the left armpit and a coffee stain that resembled Italy’s boot down the center front.
She kept meaning to toss it, but it was so damn soft.
“Really?” she murmured. “Just really?”
She swiped a hand over her hair. How bad was it?
Bad.
Merde!
No makeup either—and she probably had sleep crust in her eyes.
Mierda!
She rubbed at them as she crossed over to answer his knock. Ran her tongue over the teeth she’d yet to brush.
What sort of human being came knocking on a woman’s door at eight-thirty-five in the morning?
She pulled out her most casual smile as she opened the door. And hated him, sincerely hated him in that single moment for looking just amazing.
“Hi. You’re out and about early. Where are the dogs?”
“Back home. Sorry, did I get you up?”
“No, in fact, I was just going for my second cup of coffee.” She walked back toward the kitchen, slapping herself for not putting on workout gear. Then she’d look athletic instead of lazy and sloppy. “You take it black, right? I could never manage that.”
Wishing she could at least grab a mint, she reached for another mug.
“I need to talk to you.”
“All right.” She glanced back, mug in hand. Slowly turned all the way around as she saw what her obsession with her own appearance had blocked out.
The worry, the concern in the way his eyes scanned her face.
He didn’t know about the call, did he? She hadn’t told anyone about the call yet.
Then her brain cleared enough to remind her it wasn’t always about her.
“God, did something happen? Gram, Julia?”
“No, no they’re fine. It’s nothing like that. It’s Charles Scarpetti. The lawyer,” he added when she only stared. “Your mother’s lawyer from back then.”
“I know who he is. He plays a legal expert on TV now. I know he wrote a book about some of his high-profile cases, and my kidnapping was one of them. I didn’t read it. Why would I?”
“He’s dead. They—the pool guy—found his body floating in his pool a couple of hours ago. It’s going to hit the news if it hasn’t already. I didn’t want you to hear about it that way.”
“All right.” She set the mug down, then rubbed her hand over the bracelet she wore. Darlie’s hematite for anxiety. “All right. He drowned?”
“The LAPD’s investigating. Red has some connections there, and he got word. He—you should know he’s still looking out for you.”
“All right. Sorry.” She dropped her hands to her sides. “I don’t know what I feel. Are you saying he might’ve been killed?”
“I can only tell you what Red told me. His contact in L.A. says it smells—that’s a quote. I just didn’t want you to switch on the news and get hit with it.”
“Because they’ll bring up the kidnapping.” Nodding, she picked up the mug again, went to the coffee maker. “And we’ll start a round of poor, brave Caitlyn. Charlotte will do some interviews, weep Hollywood tears over the daughter lost to her. We’ll have some speculation why I quit the business—or the on-screen aspect of it. And since the guy I made the mistake of getting involved with last freaking year is already using the breakup, months ago, to pump up some publicity, we’ll toss that in.”
Muttering curses in French, she paced a moment.
“Are those bad words in French?”
“What? Oh, yes. More impact.”
After setting the black coffee on the counter, she opted for water. Her brain was definitely awake now, no more coffee needed.
“Okay. A man’s dead, and I don’t know how to feel about that. He was doing a job—that’s all it was to him. Why should it have been anything else? It wasn’t personal, I know that. In any case, she went to prison.”
Since she didn’t want the water either, she set the bottle down. “Did he have a family, I wonder? Children, grandchildren?”
“I don’t know. The only thing Red got was he lived alone.”
“Do you want a bagel? I was going to have a bagel.”
“Cate.”
“Sorry, I don’t know how to feel. Somebody I never even met is dead, and you came over here to tell me because you know I’d have trouble with it. You know because you were part of it, the saving part of it. Like Scarpetti was part of it. And Sparks and my mother and Denby.”
It struck her, drained the color from her face. “Denby. He was killed weeks ago, murdered in prison. Now the lawyer.”
He’d been careful not to really touch her since she’d come back. And could admit the careful equaled self-defense mechanism. But he knew when touch was needed, for a person, for an animal.
He put his hands on her shoulders first, a kind of steadying gesture. “They’ll probably go there, the press, maybe the cops. But Denby was in prison, Scarpetti in L.A. Both of them, considering career paths, had to have a list of enemies—different varieties.”
“Professional criminal, defense attorney.”
“I get they both connect to you, but—”
“To you, too.” Struck by that, she gripped his wrists. “To you, your family. Have you thought of that?”
“We’re fine. Our names don’t sell papers or TV spots. Yours does, and I’m sorry about that. It blows.”
“It blows,” she repeated.
Responding to simple kindness, she moved into him, laid her head on his shoulder. When his arms came around her, the stress simply spilled out of her.
“It blows,” she said again. “But I know how to handle it. Didn’t always, but I know how to handle it. Oh crap.” She sighed, stayed as she was because he smelled comfortingly of horses and man. “My grandparents. They were in L.A. yesterday, a party. They’re du
e home this afternoon. I need to warn them. My father, too.”
“I bet they know how to handle it.”
“Yes, they do.” Briefly, she tightened her grip, then released and stepped back. “We’ll have family here starting tomorrow. Not everyone at once this year—too many scheduling conflicts—but most off and on until New Year’s. That’ll help.”
He couldn’t quite resist brushing tousled hair away from her face. “United front.”
“We are that.”
“Yeah, mine’s the same.”
“I want to stop by sometime tomorrow, drop off some gifts.”
“Baking day,” he warned her.
“Is it? Lucky me. You haven’t had your coffee. Let me make you a fresh cup.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got to—”
“Get back,” she finished. “I bet you’ve already put in a half day’s work—what most would consider a half day’s work. I haven’t even brushed my teeth.”
“That’s the life.”
“And you took time out of that to come here, get me over the first bump. I’m grateful. There are a handful of people outside of family I trust absolutely. You and your family take up most of the handful.”
“You’ve got to get out more.” He smiled when he said it. “I’ll see you tomorrow if you get by.”
“Baking day? Count on it.”
As he walked back up the path, he wondered what the hell he was supposed to do when she said stuff like that about trust. She needed a friend, not some guy who wanted to get her naked. Even some guy, like for instance himself, who was willing to take his time, give her time, ease it all in by stages.
Maybe he wished he didn’t have so many clear pictures of her in his head. The little girl trying to hide in the dark, the long-legged teenager holding red flowers, the woman in an apron ridiculously excited about making butter, the woman on horseback, laughing as she stretched a trot to a gallop.
Now add the sexily rumpled one opening the door to hard news.
Smarter, he thought when he reached his truck, to put those pictures away, at least for now.
She thought of him as a friend, and a woman didn’t want a friend making moves on her. In the long list of ways to screw up a friendship, that had to be number one.
Thinking of friends, he decided he’d text two of his oldest, see if they wanted to hang out later, have a couple beers, play some video games. Might be tougher for Leo, since he had a wife, and a baby on the way.
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