Нора Робертс - Hideaway

“A couple of people asked me out, but there wasn’t any push after I said I had a boyfriend.”

“You said he often meets you on campus. So you’re seen together.”

Cate looked back at Riley. “Yes. You mean a white girl and someone who’s not white.”

Riley met Cate’s gaze steadily. “If this attack was racially motivated, it could make it a hate crime. We take that very seriously. If anyone makes a push now, we need to know about it.”

“You will.”

“And if we could have the names of the friends you had dinner with? Someone might have noticed something off,” Wasserman explained. “Someone paying too much attention to you and Noah.”

“Sure. I don’t know all their last names.”

“We’ll take care of that.” Riley set down her empty cup.

“Can I get you more coffee?”

“No, thanks. It’s good coffee.”

Cate gave them the names she remembered, rose when the detective rose. “I know you might not find them. I know things don’t always, even usually, wrap up like a movie. It’s just, Noah didn’t deserve this.”

“No, he didn’t.” Riley slipped her notebook back in her pocket. “Neither of you did. Thank you for your time. You’ve been very helpful.”

“I’ll see you out.” Lily walked them to the door, then turned back to Cate. “Doing okay?”

“Yes. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, telling them everything I can think of, it’s movement. It’s not just letting it all push me into a corner.”

“All right. I need to call your grandfather. You should call your dad. I’m going to call our director. He’ll need the understudies for Noah and me tonight.”

“Not for you, no. No.”

“I don’t want to leave you here alone tonight, sweets.”

“And I don’t want to disappoint a houseful of people coming to see Lily Morrow’s Mame . The show goes on, G-Lil. We both know it. I’m okay. I’m hoping Bekka texts to say I can go see Noah. If not, she promised to put me on the list so I can at least ask about how he’s doing. And I can send or take flowers so he knows I’m thinking of him.”

“Tell you what, you come to the theater tonight. You can watch from the wings. Unless you’re sitting with Noah, you come with me. That’s a good deal.”

“Okay. I’ll go call Dad.”

Bekka texted to come at four, to plan on a fifteen-minute visit.

She brought flowers, a cheerful summer bouquet. They kept the room dim, as before, the shades drawn. But this time his right eye slitted open, watched her come in.

She moved to him quickly, took his hand, kissed it. “Noah. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

But that right eye looked away as he said it, and his hand lay unresponsive in hers.

In that instant, that hard line between what was and what is, she knew he didn’t mean it. Knew he’d already taken the first step away from her.

Still, she went to see him every day. During his surgeries, she sat at home with her phone, waiting for Bekka to text his condition.

When he went home—to his parents’ home—to recover, she texted once a day. Only once because she knew he’d taken several more steps away from her.

Summer blurred into an autumn that held the heat like a lover. She enrolled in two adult education courses. One for conversational French, one for Italian.

Language, she thought, pulled her in. She’d take the rest of her year, explore that, explore herself. Then she’d need to decide what to do with her life, her skills.

She was prepared when Noah texted her, asked to come by and see her on a Wednesday afternoon. A matinee afternoon, she noted, when Lily would be at the theater.

October brought the gorgeous dying color to the parks, that change of light that gleamed off the river. And since the day held balmy, she brought Cokes outside, drilled them down into the ice in a bucket. Unless that had changed since summer, Noah liked his Cokes.

She trapped nerves in a locked corner when she walked to answer the buzzer. Though prepared, her heart still stumbled.

“Noah. You look great. Oh, it’s so good to see.”

He’d grown some scruff, heavier on the chin and above his lip. He looked older, had lost some weight she hoped he’d build up again soon.

Though his eyes met hers, she read what was in them.

“Let’s sit outside. It’s pretty out, and I’ve got Cokes. Lily said you went by the theater last week.”

“Yeah, I wanted to see everyone.”

“You look ready to go back.” She smiled at him as she opened the drinks. A Sullivan knew how to play a role.

“I’m not going back. Not to Mame . Carter’s had the part for three months. I’m not taking it away from him. Anyway.”

Since he didn’t take the glass she held out, she set it down as he wandered to the wall.

“I know they never caught who hurt you.”

“I didn’t see them, not that I remember. Nobody did.” He shrugged. “The cops did what they could.”

Did he hear the thread of bitterness in his own voice? she wondered.

“Bekka says you still get headaches.”

“Some. Not as bad. They’re easing off like the doctors said they should. I’m back in dance class. Taking some voice because, you know, it gets rusty. I auditioned for Heading Up . It’s a new musical. I got it. Second lead.”

“Oh, Noah.” She’d have gone to him, but felt the wall between them, as solid as the one at his back. “That’s great, just great. I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m going to be busy, with workshops, with lessons, then rehearsals. It’s my first major part, and I need to focus on that. I won’t have time for a relationship.”

Prepared, she thought, she had been prepared. And still it cut so deep. “Noah, I’m happy for you. You don’t have to use something you’ve wanted and worked so hard for as a reason. We haven’t been together since that awful night. Sometimes one awful night changes everything.”

“I know it wasn’t your fault.”

“No, you don’t.” Bitterness, yes her own thread of bitterness slipped out. She struggled to pull it in again, knot it off. “You were the one hurt, the one in the hospital, the one in pain, the one who lost a part he worked for. Part of you, at least, feels it’s my fault. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t my fault. It’s what you feel.”

“I can’t do it, Cate. I can’t handle the press—and they tried to keep it from me after, but I saw and heard the stories that came out after that night. They said your name when they were pounding on me. I don’t know how to forget that.”

“It matters to you, as much as what they did, it matters to you what they said. And the press matters to you. So you blame me.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She just shook her head. “You blame me. Your family blames me. For a while I blamed myself, but I’m not going to do that. It’s not my fault I fell in love with you. It’s not my fault you’ve stopped being in love with me.”

He looked away again. “I can’t do this. That’s what it comes down to. I can’t do this.”

“You were the first one who looked at just me, wanted just me. I’ll never forget that. You can’t feel that way about me now, so you can’t be with me. I can’t be with you, same reasons.”

She took a long breath. “The person you are came here to tell me to my face. The person I am can let you go without blaming either one of us. So.”

She lifted her glass from the table. “Break a leg, Noah.”

“I better go.”

He moved to the glass doors, paused. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she murmured when he’d gone.

Then she sat, shed a few silent tears over the sweetness faceless strangers had stolen from two lives.