Нора Робертс - Hideaway

“No, I don’t believe that. But the connection’s there. Whoever killed Denby was most likely another inmate, or someone in the prison system who had access to him. The LAPD has eliminated robbery as a motive for Scarpetti’s murder. They’re pursuing the theory of revenge killing. Someone he represented who got sent over, a victim of someone he got off. That’s not panning out. With Red added, we’re looking into the possibility all three were hired out.”

Connecting dots wasn’t hard when they stared back at you. “Someone who’d pay to have people connected to my kidnapping killed. But why?”

“Revenge still works.”

Unable to sit, Cate pushed up, walked to the glass to look out blindly at the sea. “You think my mother may have done this.”

“Has she attempted to contact you since you came back to Big Sur?”

“No. She knows better by now. She gets in little digs now and again, through the press. That’s her way. I can’t see her doing this.” On a hiss of breath, Cate pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Then again, who would have seen her doing what she did to start all this? But…”

She turned back, looked at her grandfather. Hated to see the stricken look in his eyes. “She has all the money in the world now. It may sound dramatic, but if she wanted someone dead, she could hire a professional. She wouldn’t need a thug from a gang in L.A. How would she know how to hire someone like that? And what does it gain her? She’s about what it gains her, personally.”

“There’s a cruelty in her,” Hugh said. “A calculated cruelty. But like Cate, I can’t see her doing this, only because it offers her nothing. And if she wanted revenge? She wouldn’t have waited so long.”

“You’re connected.” Cate swung around to Michaela. “You, the Coopers. Gram. My God.”

“I’m a trained police officer, like Red. And like Red, I can take care of myself. As to the Coopers, I’m going over to speak with them, with Red. But if Charlotte Dupont isn’t involved, I’d look to her as the next target. You found the Coopers that night, Cate, they didn’t find you. I’m not saying they shouldn’t take precautions, be careful.”

“Dad. G-Lil.”

“Again, if Dupont’s not involved, they didn’t have a part in it. They’ll be informed, this morning, but they weren’t part of the kidnapping, they weren’t investigators, lawyers. It’s a theory,” Michaela stressed.

“Grant Sparks.”

“I intend to make a trip to San Quentin, speak with him. Get a sense. He has a record of being a model prisoner. I don’t fully subscribe to model prisoners.”

“But how could he arrange this from prison?” Cate demanded. “He couldn’t even competently kidnap and hold a ten-year-old.”

“What better place to hire killers than a facility that holds them? Again, it’s a theory.” Michaela set down her coffee. “And I know it’s upsetting. If these were random, unconnected acts—”

“You don’t think they are,” Cate interrupted.

“I don’t. I’ll do my best to find and stop the source. Let me know if anyone contacts you, or attempts to, that feels out of line, if you feel uneasy about anything.”

“The calls, Catey.”

Michaela’s eyes narrowed, flattened. “What calls?”

“They’ve been going on for years.” Because she wanted to dismiss them, Cate reached for her coffee again. Calm and steady. “Recordings, various voices—my mother’s is often in there, from movie dialogue—music, sounds.”

“Threats?”

“They’re meant to be threatening, meant to scare and upset me.”

“When did they start?” The notebook came out.

“When I was seventeen, still in Beverly Hills. They come intermittently, months pass, sometimes more than a year. The last one came right before Christmas.”

“Why didn’t you report it?”

“I did. Detective Wasserman, in New York. I— Most of the calls happened when I lived in New York. I sent him the voice mail. The calls aren’t long enough to trace, and they say it’s a prepaid cell.”

“I’d like Detective Wasserman’s contact information.”

“I— All right.” Taking out her phone, Cate called up the number, gave it to Michaela.

“If you get another, I need you to inform me.”

“I will. I’m sorry. I’m used to telling Detective Wasserman. I didn’t think past that.”

“No problem. You said your mother’s voice is on some of them?”

“All, actually. Sometimes my voice—from a movie or my voice work.” When her fingers wanted to twist together, Cate stopped them, ordered them to still. “I can tell you it’s amateur work, poor overdubbing, a lot of noise, lousy splicing and editing. Still, they’re effective.”

“Other than these calls, have there been any threats, any attempts to harm you?”

“No, not me. The first year I lived in New York, two men attacked and beat up a boy I was seeing. They used racial slurs, they used my name when they hurt him. Detective Wasserman and—she’s now Lieutenant Riley—investigated the attack, and I told them about the calls. They did what they could.”

“Did they identify and apprehend the assailants?”

“No. Noah, the boy, couldn’t remember what they looked like, wasn’t sure he’d even seen them before they jumped him.”

“All right.” She’d get details from Wasserman. Michaela rose. “I appreciate the time, and the information. I need to follow up with Red.”

“You tell him I’ll be over to see him for myself, see if he’s faking to get a bigger share of pie.”

With a grin for Hugh, Michaela nodded. “He does love his pie.”

“I’ll walk you out.” Cate got up, squeezed her grandfather’s shoulder, then walked with Michaela outside.

“My grandfather’s going to New York in a couple days, to visit Lily, take some meetings. My father’s in London. I think they’re all safer away from here.”

“Do you feel safe here?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’d stopped thinking about it. But this is home now, and I need to stay.”

“Whether I’m right or wrong, I’ll keep you updated.”

“Tell Red … tell him we’re thinking about him.”

As Michaela drove away, Cate looked toward the garage, toward the old California bay. One day, she thought, one moment, one innocent game.

How was it that day, that moment, that game never seemed to end?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

She took the walk with Hugh through gardens so happy in spring they seemed to dance, but walked the beach alone to give herself time to think. To let the salty breeze off the Pacific clear her head.

Hide-and-seek, she thought again. Just a game. But then again, she’d done just that ever since. She’d hidden—or been hidden in Ireland. She’d hidden behind the walls of her grandparents’ estate, behind studio security. She’d sought, yes, she had sought, but she’d hidden in the crowds and anonymity of New York.

She’d keep seeking—that was life. But she was done hiding.

She’d told Michaela this was home. She’d meant it.

L.A. would never be home, for so many reasons. New York had been a needed transition, an education, a place to come into her own.

Ireland was, and would always be, a comfort.

But if she stuck a pin on a map to choose a place to plant herself, to be herself, know herself? It would stick right here, here with the sea thrashing on the rocks, rolling green to blue. Here, with the kelp forest of her own pretty beach waving, the magic of seeing a whale sound or a sea otter sleek under the waves.

Here, with the cliffs and the hills, the chaparral and redwoods, the sight of a California condor winging across the wide, wide bowl of the sky, or a peregrine dive out of it.