Нора Робертс - Hideaway

“You don’t have any say!” Charlotte hurled at him. “You can’t keep me from my own daughter.”

“That’ll be up to the courts. Charlotte Dupont, you’re under arrest for child endangerment, accessory to kidnapping a minor, accessory to child abuse, accessory to extortion.”

“Did you hear me? I was victimized, blackmailed.”

“Well, I’ve got some doubts about that. But we’ll talk more. Right now, Deputy Wilson’s going to escort you upstairs, unless you want us to take you in like you are.”

“I want my lawyer.”

“That would be my lawyer,” Aidan corrected. “You’ll have to find your own.”

“Oh, I will.” Now the loathing poured free. “And I’m not the only one who knows how to talk to the press. I’m going to ruin every one of you.”

“What you’re going to do right now is come with me.”

She jerked away when Michaela walked over, took her arm. “Don’t you touch me.”

“Do that again, we’ll be adding resisting arrest. It’s already a long list.”

Charlotte rose, tossed back her hair. “Fuck every one of you fucking Sullivans.”

Rosemary closed her eyes when Michaela escorted Charlotte upstairs. “A pathetic exit line for a pathetic human being. Aidan, I’m so very sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I loved her. I looked the other way so many times because I loved her. Because she gave me Cate. Her own child, she did this to her own child. I need some air. I just want to step outside, is that all right?”

Red gave him a nod. “Sure.”

“What happens now?” Hugh asked as Aidan went out the front door.

“Now we find Grant Sparks and Frank Denby.”

“You said you had them…” With a shake of his head, Hugh let out a short laugh. “You lied. Well done.”

“It’s going to take some time to sort all this out. I’ll probably need to talk to all of you again, and to Cate. What I’ll say, right now, is it’s not all that likely Ms. Dupont’s going to make bail anytime soon. What I expect, after she settles some, and if she hires a decent lawyer, is her to work for a deal. That she’ll probably get.”

“I should’ve told Mr. Hugh about Mr. Sparks.”

“Don’t you blame yourself for that, for any of it.” Maureen got up, walked over to hug Nina. “Come on with me. I’m going to get those scratches cleaned and treated. Rabid cat scratches are nasty.”

“Will they let me stay with Catey?” Nina asked as Maureen led her out.

“I know my nephew. You’ve got a job for life.”

It didn’t take long for Michaela to bring a stone-faced Charlotte back down.

“We want to add attempted bribery of a police officer, Sheriff. She offered me ten thousand to let her go.”

“That’s a lie!”

“Figured it was coming. I had my phone on record. She’s cuffed as she didn’t like hearing no.”

“Let’s load her up. I’ll be in touch,” he told the others. “If any of you have any questions, you know how to reach me.”

When the door closed behind them, Hugh brushed his mother’s shoulder. “I’m going to go back so Lily knows to bring Cate in.”

“Yes, do that. Aidan’s going to need Cate, Cate’s going to need Aidan. And they’re both going to need all of us.”

He bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Sullivans stick together. That includes you, Harry.”

“She was never one of us.”

A quiet man with quiet ways, he unfolded himself from the chair to go sit by his mother-in-law. She patted his hand.

“You never liked her much, did you, Harry?”

“I never liked her at all, but Aidan loved her. You can’t choose family, Rosemary my own. I just got lucky with the bulk of mine. There now.”

He put an arm around her when Rosemary turned her face to his shoulder and finally wept.

Aidan walked off the sick, walked off at least the top notes of his rage. For Cate’s sake, he reminded himself as he kept walking, kept breathing in the cool, salty air, for her sake he had to find his calm, find his steady.

But beneath it, that rage lived, a feral animal that craved blood. He feared it would live and crave forever.

And under that, even under the snarling and pacing of that beast, lay the shattered pieces of his heart.

He’d loved Charlotte with all of that heart.

How could he have not seen? How could he have not known the grasping, selfish, immoral woman beneath the facade? Even, he had to admit, when that facade had thinned and he’d gotten glimpses, he’d dismissed them.

He’d loved her, trusted her. He’d made a child with her, and she’d risked that child, used that child, betrayed that child.

He would never forgive her for it. He’d never forgive himself.

But when he went back inside, he’d coated on layers of that calm and steady. Coated them thick so they couldn’t crack—not even when he went in through the back and saw Cate burrowed against his father.

His eyes met Hugh’s over Cate’s head.

“I think Cate and I need to talk.”

“Sure you do.” Hugh drew Cate back, smiled at her. “Everything’s going to be all right. All right can take a little time, but we’ll get there.”

He gave her a last squeeze, then left them alone.

“How about we sit and talk in the library? Just you and me?”

When he held out a hand, she took it with such unquestioning trust, his heart broke just a little more.

Because he wanted privacy for both of them, he took her the long way around, through the formal dining room, past the conservatory, around what they called the music room, and into the library.

Its windows faced the hills, the gardens, gave glimpses of a little orchard. They, with the pale winter sun drifting in, offered a quieter view than the roll of sea. Under a coffered ceiling of mocha and cream, shelves of books, of bound scripts, lined the walls. The chestnut floor gleamed under an Aubusson carpet of elegantly faded greens and roses. He knew his grandmother sometimes sat at the antique library table shipped from Dublin to write actual letters and notes.

He pulled the double pocket doors shut, guided Cate to the big leather sofa. Before he sat, he lit the fire.

Then he sat beside her, took her face in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Daddy—”

“I have to say this, then I’ll listen to whatever you need to say. I’m so sorry, Catey, my Cate. I didn’t keep you safe, I didn’t protect you. You’re everything to me, and I promise you I won’t ever fail you again.”

“You didn’t. She—”

“But I did. Never again. Nothing and no one is as important to me as you. Nothing and no one ever will be.” He kissed her forehead, and found saying the words to her helped settle him.

“I knew it was her when I was in that room. She told me where to hide. She took me there and showed me, so I knew. But only inside because…”

“She’s your mother.”

“Why doesn’t she love me?”

“I don’t know. But I do, Cate.”

“Does … does she have to live with us?”

“No, and she won’t. Ever.” It carved at him again, the shaky breath of relief his little girl let out.

“Do we have to live where we did? I don’t want to go back there anymore, and live where she did. I don’t—”

“Then we won’t. I think, for now, we could live with Grandpa and G-Lil. Until we find a place for just you and me.”

Hope, sweet and bright, lit her face. “Really?”

He made himself smile. “Sullivans stick together, right?”

She didn’t smile back, and her voice trembled. “Do I have to see her? Do I have to talk to her? Do I—”

“No.” He prayed he could make that the truth.

Her eyes, so blue, and now so robbed of innocence, looked into his. “She let them scare me, and hurt me. And I know what ‘lover’ means. She scared you, too, she hurt you, too. She doesn’t love us, and I don’t ever want to see her again. She’s not really my mother, because mothers don’t do that.”