Нора Робертс - Hideaway

“I woke you up. I knew I should’ve waited until morning.”

“I told you I’d mess you up if you did. I’m awake. Tell me.”

“Some kinks we need to work out.”

She could hear the noise, the voices, the buzz, buzz, buzz in the background. “Tell me,” she repeated.

“It was awesome.” The wondering laugh came through, warmed her. “It was freaking great. Full house, standing O. Twelve curtain calls. Twelve.”

“I knew it! I knew it! I’m so happy for you.”

“We have to see what the reviews say. Jeez, Cate, you should’ve heard the house explode when Lily came onstage. Your grandfather was out front. He’s coming to the cast party. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, but I’m so happy for you. All of you.”

“Feels like the best night of my life. Go back to sleep. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

“Go celebrate. And when you have your smash opening on Broadway, I’ll be there.”

“Counting on it. Night.”

“Night.”

She put the phone on the bedside charger, hugged herself.

Smiling, she snuggled in, drifted off. When the phone signaled again, she sighed into another smile. “Noah,” she murmured when she answered.

“You didn’t do what you were told.”

The robotic voice shot her up in bed. “What? What?”

Music now. An iconic voice asking: “Are you lonesome tonight?”

Vises closing down her lungs as she fumbled for the light, wheezing as her eyes darted around the room.

Her mother’s voice, whispering: “You’re alone.” Static, a change in pitch. “You can’t hide!”

In a panic, she scrambled out of bed, fell to her knees.

Music again, the upbeat, cheerful sound turned to terror. “Hold on. I’m coming!”

A horror-movie laugh, the kind of greedy laugh that rose out of dark basements, through graveyard fog.

When the phone went dead, she burst into tears.

She didn’t just change her number, she trashed the phone, bought a new one. She struggled over whether or not to tell anyone. Opening night loomed, so the timing couldn’t have been worse. But in the end, she told Noah.

They sat in Café Café, his hands gripping hers. “It happened before?”

“Back in L.A., last winter. It was a recording. I mean, this one was different, but they’re recordings.”

“Why didn’t you tell your dad before?”

“Noah, I’ve told you how he gets, how he worries and tries to basically throw a force field around me. And I thought, really thought, it was just some jerk playing a nasty game.”

“But now it’s happened again. We’ll go to the cops.”

“I trashed the phone,” she reminded him. “Part of the panic, and stupid, but I trashed it. And what would they do anyway? It wasn’t really a threat.”

“Trying to scare somebody is a threat. Do you think it’s your mother?”

“No, not that she wouldn’t do something, but I don’t think she’d have used her own voice. In the first, I know it was from a movie she did. I’m betting this one is, too.”

“Cate, they knew you were alone.”

“Yeah.” She’d had time to think, time to calm and think. “I told you how it works with me. There have been a couple of squibs about me living in New York with G-Lil, even something about me registering for classes at NYU. The out-of-town opening got a lot of play, so…”

“You have to tell Lily. I’ll go with you.”

“What? Now?”

“Now.”

“I don’t want to upset her, and she can’t—”

Noah tossed the coffee money on the table. “If you don’t tell her, I will.”

That flipped a switch. “That’s not right. It’s my business, my decision.”

He simply rose, took her hand to pull her to her feet. “You’re going to have to deal with it.”

Furious, she argued, demanded, threatened, but didn’t budge him an inch on the fast walk to the condo. Those golden eyes she loved stayed hard, his face implacable.

Lily’s reaction didn’t make things better.

“Son of a bitch!”

Fresh from her massage, still in her robe, Lily swirled around the living room.

“The second time? And you didn’t tell me.”

“I just—”

“There’s no ‘I just.’” Her eyes narrowed as she caught the resentful look Cate tossed at Noah. “And don’t you take it out on him. Noah’s done the right thing.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Cate began.

“You have no idea what I can do when I have to do it. But I can’t do a damn thing if I don’t know. I’m responsible for you, my girl. I don’t give a single cold damn if you’re eighteen or a hundred and eight. I’m responsible. And the first thing we do is report this to the police.”

Panic wanted to rear back. “Would you wait a minute, please?” The fury flying off Lily burned so hot it took genuine effort for Cate to step to her. “What happens then? I got rid of the phone. I can admit that was stupid, but it’s done. I tell them what I remember about the calls. Then what?”

“I’m not the damn police, so I don’t know then what.”

“I can figure out part of it. I file a report, and the report gets out. That’s a little feast for the tabloids. Then it’s public, and how many other calls do you think I’ll get once it is?”

“Son of a bitch!” Robe flapping, Lily stalked to the terrace doors, threw them open. Stalked out.

“Happy now?” Cate tossed at Noah.

“It’s not about happy, don’t be an idiot. She’s pissed because she loves you. So am I. So do I.”

“That doesn’t help right now.” Though it did, more than a little. Gearing up, she walked outside.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone the first time because I knew Dad wouldn’t let me do the movie, and I wanted it. I needed it. He wouldn’t have let me.”

“Probably not,” Lily muttered.

“I didn’t say anything at first about this time because, G-Lil, you’ve got opening night.”

Lily whirled around. “Do you think a play’s more important to me than you? That anything in this world is more important to me than you?”

“No. It’s the same for me. There was press about my mother getting out, about me, about the new project when the first one happened. And there’s been a little about me going to NYU just recently, and all the interviews she’s doing about her wedding. Somebody took a shot.”

“She could have done it herself. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“She could hire better.”

The sun, as fiery as Lily’s hair, shot light over the river, bounced it off steel and glass.

“They’re recordings, G-Lil. I know a recording when I hear it. The overdubbing, the really crappy splicing. She has plenty of money now to pay for quality, and this isn’t.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“But I can’t stop living my life because of it. I hate the way it makes me feel when it’s happening, but I can’t stop living my life.”

Lily walked back into the shade, sat, drummed her fingers. “No one wants that, Catey. You have a point about the police. This time. If it happens again, we do this differently. You keep the phone, call the police, give them the phone, and let them do what they do.”

“All right.”

“For now, you’ll write down whatever you remember from both calls so we have a record, if we need it. You’re going to call your father and tell him.”

“But—”

“No.” Eyes glittering, Lily shot up a finger. “That’s absolute. What we’ll call unhealthy communications happen to people in our line of work—and you were in our line of work. But he needs to know. Then you’ll make up with your boyfriend, because he did the right thing, and he did it out of love and concern.”