by Anne Calhoun
“Yes, really.” Cady draped the towel around her neck, boxer style. “Turn again.”
The ensemble was a brown suede short skirt laced together along one hip, paired with a moto jacket in the same fabric.
“Nice choice with the suede. It’s timeless but really on trend,” Cady said. She rubbed the suede between her thumb and forefinger. Emily had taken her time with the stitching; the fit and finish was impeccable. “I love it. What else have you got?”
They ate while Emily modeled. It didn’t escape her notice that under the attention her sister finished off six of the pancakes, snagging bites between striking poses.
“Do you need me for anything?” Conn asked. The conversation had turned to red-carpet wear. He was edging away from the kitchen, step-by-step, something she’d noticed only when the distance had accumulated.
“No,” Cady said.
“I’m going to work out.”
Emily had twenty pieces in progress and dozens of sketches: dresses, skirts, gowns, blouses, and tops. The conversation ranged over everything from the latest gala looks to social media, and included a lunch of sandwiches and fruit Cady made while Emily modeled. Cady did her best to stay engaged, but Emily could read her moods.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, tossing her sketchbook on the coffee table.
“I’m just thinking.”
“You want me to make you some Cady juice?”
“Actually, sweetie, this was really inspiring. I wouldn’t mind doing some work of my own.”
“Oh.” Emily closed her sketchbook. “Okay. I’ll head home and work on the things we’ve talked about.”
“Or take a break. Hang out with your friends and don’t think about fashion for a while.”
“I could do that. Olivia and Grace were getting a group together to go to the movies tonight. I might go with them.”
“That sounds like a great plan,” Cady said. Emily seemed to be waiting for her to say something else. Cady struggled to come up with something. “When do you want to start decorating for Christmas?”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. Will he be around?”
That was a very good question. Chris insisted on twenty-four-hour protection, but surely Conn had family to see, and things of his own to do. “He’ll have the day off, of course.”
“Okay. Good. I want it to be just the three of us, like old times. We need to pick out a tree, too.”
“Over the weekend. Gotta stick to Mom’s schedule,” Cady said.
She waited while Emily packed up her overnight bag and her suitcase of designs, and waved from the garage as she backed the little sedan down the driveway. Then she closed the door and made her way to the exercise room.
To her surprise, Conn had his sneaker-clad feet tucked into the loops of the suspension straps. His weight was balanced on his left palm, his body rotated perpendicular to the floor with his right arm extended to the ceiling. Every muscle from his throat to his hipbones stood out as he held himself there to some mental count. “What’s up?”
As she watched, a bead of sweat trickled along the first ridge of his abdominal muscles, then dripped to the floor underneath him. “I’m going into my studio,” Cady said. “There’s food in the fridge, sandwich fixings, eggs, some leftover Fat Shack.”
“Thanks.” He looked up at her, his blue-gray eyes translucent and unreadable in the winter sunlight streaming through the south-facing windows.
She watched for a moment longer as he transitioned to pushup position. Despite the potential for shifting off-balance and the tenuous resistance of the handgrips, not the floor, the suspension straps didn’t move as he counted off pushups. She’d tried that, and knew exactly how much core strength and balance was necessary to make it look that easy.
He was the one working out, but she was the one with flushed cheeks. Heat trickled through her body to pool between her thighs. As she walked into her studios, reminders of Conn, his scent, his breathing, the soft grunts he made as he pushed his body to the limits of human endurance filled her mind.
“Stop being a cliché,” she muttered, and turned on the soundboard. She settled in with her guitar and her notebook, paging through to find lines that caught her attention, images that spurred a response, searching for a subject to anchor a song, or even an album. Emily’s enthusiasm and drive had inspired her, reminding her of the girl she used to be, living only for making music, trying to tell a story with words and harmony, but the problem was that somewhere along the way, she’d become a mouthpiece for someone else’s lyrics, a tune composed in committee. Who was Cady Ward? What did she see? Believe? Hope for? Dream of? What did she want to share with the world? It was all colored by Maud’s experiences, Christmas lights seen through a snow-smeared windshield. Who would she be after another album dropped, another year of performing songs she didn’t write sung to tunes she tweaked, at best?
Two months. She had two months at home to ground herself, to try to integrate the experiences she’d had since Harry discovered her with the young woman she’d been then. She could do it.
Resolutely she picked up her guitar, opened her notebook, and adjusted Nana’s bracelet on her wrist. Positioned her tea just so. Strummed a few chords, hummed a few notes. But she couldn’t shake the sense of unease sloshing inside.
CHAPTER TEN
Conn’s phone rang the next afternoon. He felt a leap of relief that Kenny was finally calling him back. But the name displayed on the screen was Ian Hawthorn’s.
“McCormick.”
“It’s Hawthorn. I’m checking in to see how things are going with Ms. Ward.”
“Fine,” Conn said. “She sleeps a lot. Her sister spent the night last night. We ate popcorn and watched a romcom.”
“Sounds delightful,” Hawthorn said drily.
“You want the job, it’s yours,” Conn replied.
“Bored?”
“Out of my skull.” Except when Cady was awake, and not in her studio, as she was now. Just being in the same room with Cady made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt without gunfire involved.
“Anything suspicious?”
“Two things that may or may not be connected. One, someone hacked her website, which is a real problem for her right now. Two, I saw someone lurking at the end of her driveway,” Conn said.
Conn heard him typing on the other end and knew he was making notes of his own. Nothing escaped the ice cool Ian Hawthorn. “Do you think the two are connected?”
“To each other, or to that file of psychos her manager compiled?” Conn said. “I’m treating them like they’re all connected. Her website guy is working on tracing the hacker. I’ve stepped up my patrols of her perimeter. She once again refused to install security cameras. She doesn’t have any appearances scheduled for the next few days. That will help.”
“Do you need backup?”
He looked out the big windows into the bare trees climbing the slope behind the house, then crossed the floor to the smaller front windows overlooking the driveway and peered through the shades. “No,” he said, surprising himself. A few days ago he would have given anything to get a break from this kind of work, to go back to the only family he had and find out who had set him up to take the fall for a brutal crime he didn’t commit. But while he’d been assigned to protect “Maud,” Cady was slowly slipping behind his defenses. She wasn’t just a job anymore, an obstacle. She was his to protect. His.
Except nothing belonged to him, least of all Cady Ward.
“No,” he said again. “I’ve got this.”
“You know, McCormick, it’s not a crime to ask for backup,” Hawthorn said mildly. Conn could just imagine the LT leaning back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “Teamwork is considered an asset in most situations.”
“I know, LT. But I really don’t need it. She’s used to one person. Another guy coming and going means more for the neighbors to notice, and handoffs mean more chances for something to slip by unnoticed.”
“And a second set of eyes means it’s more likely something will be noticed.” More typing. “Fine. You’re it, for the moment. Best to keep you out of sight.”
“What’s going on with the investigation?”
“We’re investigating,” Hawthorn said blandly. “And you are not. You’re doing what I asked you to do and maintaining a low profile. Right?”
Calls to Kenny didn’t count as getting in anyone’s face. “Yes,” Conn said.
“Good. Just stay out of sight. We want to keep this out of the media as long as possible.”
The door to Cady’s studio opened. “Got it. I have to go,” Conn said, then disconnected.
“I’m going out of my mind,” Cady said. She brushed past him, up the stairs to the main floor. Her voice floated down to him. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Fine by me,” he said.
She’d made her way to the kitchen, filling the steamer with automatic movements that went beyond habit and into the bone. “Like, now.”
“Just say the word.”
She contemplated him, her hot gaze flicking over his body. “You didn’t have to hang up for me.” Her hair looked like one of the clumps of brush out back, tangled golden brown thicket with a life of its own. “You really don’t have any family, people you talk to on a regular basis? I don’t expect you to give up your life entirely.”
It had to be hard for someone like Cady to imagine, but the department was the only family he had. Maybe that was the other reason Hawthorn chose him for this gig. Most everyone else had a family to go home to, people who would miss them if they were assigned to a long-term close protection assignment. He had no one. “I’m good. My friends know I disappear, but I always turn up.”
“What have you been up to?”
He shrugged. “Not much. Took a shower. Watched some NASCAR.” Pored over the psychos file, then Jordy’s file. Tried to figure out who in the Demons had the kind of access to beat up a Stryker in police custody and hang it on him. Both files were on the kitchen island, but he didn’t reach for them. He’d learned that drawing attention to the scars over what you wanted to hide only made people that much more likely to poke at it.
But Cady wasn’t looking at either file, just plugging in the steamer and reaching for her towel. He didn’t understand that, either. If he was on the receiving end of a file like that, he’d track down each and every anonymous troll and make them pay. Cady seemed content to just do her thing. “Who won?”
He wrenched himself back to the moment. “Kyle Busch. He’s first in points, too.”
“I’m more of an Indy car fan myself,” she said. Her voice was muffled by the towel. “But I’ll take NASCAR when the Indy season is over.”
“Want to watch some racing?”
“I thought the race was over.”
“I meant at the airfield.”
She flipped the towel back and stared at him. “You’re still racing this late in the year?”
“As long as it’s dry, we race.”
“Yes.” She gave a delighted little laugh. “God, yes. That’s perfect. Let me get dressed.”
He called Shane while she was changing her clothes. She came out of the bedroom wearing jeans and a turtleneck sweater, with her hair caught back in a braid and covered with a hat. She stomped her feet into fur-lined boots, and pulled on her down coat, gloves, and a scarf.
“Chris won’t like this,” he said.
“What Chris doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she replied as she pulled the scarf up over her nose and mouth.
“When did you hire Chris?” he asked, thinking about the website, and the sparring he’d seen at the precinct.
“The second he offered me representation. Agents weren’t exactly beating down my door. Are you always this suspicious?”
“In this case, yes. So as long as you’re acting in his best interests, he’s got your back. What happens if you insist on taking a big risk at this stage of your career? Then your interests don’t align with his anymore.”
“Are you suggesting he’s trying to ensure I do the financially lucrative thing for his own benefit?”
She could read him so easily he wondered if a news feed scrolled across his forehead. “I’ve seen people shot dead for the price of a cheap carryout pizza,” he said. “I assume you’re talking about a lot of pizzas.”
“Many, many high-end pizzas, made with organic ingredients and the cheese from goats fed ground-up unicorn horns,” she said. “I know Chris looks like a slick snake oil salesman. He pushes me, I push him. But in the end, I trust him completely.”
He waited until they’d left her gated community and were heading south on Highway 75 before he brought up Emily. “Has your sister always been that … high strung?”
A smile flashed across her face at his diplomatic choice of words. “You really don’t know any teenage girls, do you? Patience has never been Emily’s strong point. She’s impulsive, and emotional. She’s ready to be done with high school but has to finish in order to get to college. She’s trapped here, full of dreams and ambitions, but stuck. It’s enough to make anyone irrational.”
“You know how she feels.”
Cady nodded. “Our mom wanted a house and a job and kids to look after. Our dad was the big dreamer, and when little Lancaster and our little family of little girls got too small for him, he moved on. We inherited his drive.”
She spoke lightly, not bitterly, but he knew how much that kind of equanimity cost. “She’s got plenty.”
“It used to be cool to be my little sister. Now I think she wants to be known as Emily Ward, a person in her own right.”
When they got to the airfield, he pulled up next to the guys taking admission fees in exchange for wristbands. “She’s part of Team McCool,” he said and got waved through. Inside the chain-link fence cars, trailers, and trucks were lined up in a staging area on one side of the runway. Big banks of lights illuminated the runway now serving as the drag strip. Tents covered the tire warm-up spot, while a couple of cars that just finished their run drove back along the other taxi strip. The big doors to the ancient corrugated metal hangar were open, and a steady stream of people made their way inside to get food and drinks or to warm up a little.
He parked the Audi in the grass, then got out to assess the temperature. Upper forties, he guessed, a little colder than his dad’s best run. He wouldn’t get weather like that again this year. The colder the air temperature, the better and faster the engines ran. He didn’t want to beat his dad’s time in more optimal conditions, but that wouldn’t stop him from racing anyway.
She came around the Audi’s trunk and met him in the weed-strewn gravel. “You going to be warm enough?”
“I’m wearing long underwear, and a down coat. I do live here,” she said.
The fake fur around her hood wasn’t moving. No breeze, which was a blessing and a rarity at this time of the year. Cold air could howl out of Canada at any time. He reached out and pulled her scarf up to cover her mouth and nose. “Got your Cady juice?”
She held up the thermos. “I made a fresh batch.”
“Let’s go.”
She kept up with his stride as they crossed the tarmac, headed for a trailer parked in a prime spot close to the hanger. Shane was there, only his legs visible as he worked under Conn’s car. “How’s it going?”
“Fine. Just … fucking … fine,” Shane said, between grunts as he tightened down the bolt on the fuel pump. He wormed his way out from under the car and took Conn’s hand to get to his feet, then did a hilarious double take when he saw Cady. “Oh. Hello. Sorry about the language.”
“Shane McCool, this is Cady Ward. Cady, meet Shane.”
“Welcome to pit row,” Shane said, doing an admirable job of putting the cool in McCool. “I’d shake your hand but mine’s covered in grease.”
Cady gave him a friendly little wave. “You’re a friend of Conn’s?”
“Since third grade. He wanted to race ca
rs and I wanted to fix them.”
“Sounds like a match made in heaven,” Cady said.
“Shane’s a pretty good driver,” Conn said.
Shane jerked his thumb at Conn. “And he knows his way around an engine. But I’d rather fix them than drive them.”
“I don’t have time to do the repair work.”
“She’s a high-maintenance girl,” Shane said, patting the roof of the car. “Good thing I’m patient.”
“Good thing one of us is,” Conn said.
Shane snorted. “You’re more patient than I am. I would have given up on this a long time ago.”
Conn shot Shane a look. He wasn’t ready to tell Cady about his quest to beat his dad’s time. Shane knew about it, had known almost as long as he’d known Conn. But he balked when it came to telling a stranger, an outsider, someone who might not understand.
But Cady was just smiling, looking around, then focusing on Shane. “McCool from McCool’s Garage?”
“That’s us.”
“My mom takes her car there. She says she’s found the real unicorn, an honest mechanic. She was married to a lawyer, so she knows unicorns when she meets them.”
“Your mom’s Patty Ward? She brings in cookies and cider every year at Christmas.”
“That’s my mom. “
Shane laughed. “You’re basically family, then.” He turned to Conn. “You driving, since you’re here?”
His first priority was to Cady. “Finn can make a couple of runs,” he said, nodding at Shane’s nephew rummaging in the tool chest.
“It’s all right if you want to,” Cady said. “No one knows I’m here, and I’m all masked up like a bank robber. I’ll sit on the bleachers and watch.”
“You sure?” Conn asked.
“I’m sure,” she said. Hazel eyes twinkling, she pulled her scarf up over her nose and mouth.
He got a folding chair from the trailer and set it up by the trailer’s bumper, where he could easily see her. How could she go unrecognized? She was beautiful, vibrant, famous, and apparently, perfectly happy to sit on a sagging lawn chair in a drag race pit and watch him tinker with a forty-year-old muscle car.
