by Anne Calhoun
YOU COMING IN?
He couldn’t help himself. Despite everything—his false allegations, suspension—he laughed. Maybe he was paranoid. Maybe the website thing was a coincidence, coming on the heels of the mysterious person lurking in the trees. Maybe this would all clear up.
Until then, he’d wring every last moment out of his time with Cady. He opened the door and stepped into the heat.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sunday morning Cady woke up alone and with her troubles on her mind. The alone part wasn’t a surprise, as Conn had wrapped a towel around his lean hips, gone to get dressed, and not returned before she fell asleep. She pawed back the comforter and her hair, and looked around the wreck of her bed. Her side, closest to the door, was a tumble of pillows smashed against the headboard and rumpled sheets. The other side was pristine—fluffy pillows protected by pillows in shams, little throw pillows neatly arranged in descending size.
Maud would have walked away. It was funny to think of it that way, but Maud, who had started as a way to psych herself up for a performance, had become all about doing the safe thing. Release the safe record, wear the safe clothes, appear on the safe talk shows, date the safe celebrities, all in a quest to keep her career safe. Maud would have been relieved to wake up alone.
Conn McCormick wasn’t safe. But Cady wanted Conn, so she had him.
It was a tiny rebellion, or so she thought the first time, like sneaking a second piece of chocolate when she had to fit into a red-carpet dress. But after last night, after he let down his guard and showed her the anger and fear that made him vulnerable, it wasn’t just a rebellious choice to put Cady’s desire before Maud’s career. It wasn’t just fun. Not anymore.
Nothing in her life was fun at the moment, except Christmas. She knew in her heart she didn’t want to drop that album, but she had nothing else to replace it, and the scant hours she’d spent in her studio weren’t much more useful than wandering through a furniture store’s showroom. Her career was like the house they drove past the previous night. She had to fill the space somehow if she was going to have a career, not a hobby. The songs she’d written so far weren’t a bright red leather ensemble for the family room, or an eye-catching wool rug to anchor the dining area. They weren’t songs that anchored an entire album, much less a career. Details mattered when it came to making something look effortless: design, fashion, decorating. Music. All art.
Falling for Conn.
“Let’s not go there just yet,” she said.
She sat up, tamed her hair into a ponytail, then reached for her phone, wondering where Conn was and what he was doing. It wasn’t her job to keep tabs on Conn. She was used to being the center of a whirlwind of people, Chris a near-constant presence, her stylist, her publicist, members of various bands or tour musicians coming and going as the bus trundled down highways from show to show. She moved, other people appeared, followed, disappeared. It was, she realized with a start, unusual to want to keep tabs on someone else.
Had her view of normal become that skewed? Everyone else—her mother, Eve, her friends—all texted her with little updates. But toward the end of the tour the frequency of Emily’s texts had slowed down from twenty or thirty random thoughts, pictures, and updates a day to a handful. Mostly updates on her whereabouts. Going to school. That usually came with a picture of the day’s outfit. Headed to work. At the game. All with pictures.
What was missing, she realized, was the insight into Emily’s mind. Maybe it was normal for a teenage girl to withdraw from her older sister. Maybe it meant something else was wrong. She made a mental note to get some real time alone with Emily and ask her. She’d promised her sister-time during this break in her schedule, and so far she hadn’t delivered.
It wouldn’t be easy to do that today, with church and brunch and picking out a Christmas tree, all with Conn in tow. Emily didn’t like Conn, and the ease with which he ignored her wouldn’t make her like him any more.
As if subconsciously prompted, her phone lit up with a text and a picture from Emily. SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cady scrambled out of bed and hauled open the blinds. Fluffy snow covered the driveway and the railings on the deck, and lay on the twigs and branches of the evergreen trees lining her driveway. She hurried back to her closet and grabbed her fleece robe, then shoved her feet into her monkey slippers and opened the bedroom door.
“It snowed!” she said to Conn.
“Yeah,” he said. He had his hands braced on the edge of the kitchen island and was bent over his phone. “The roads are a mess. Everyone forgets how to drive when it snows.”
An emotionless male voice crackled out of his phone. “Lights down at Ninety-First and McKinley. Female, white, driving a Chevy Tahoe, black, just drove through the intersection.”
“What are you listening to?” Cady asked.
“The police scanner,” he said as the dispatcher repeated the information.
“Aren’t the lights down there?” said a different, female voice.
“Be advised, I think she’s dragging them,” came the male voice, clearly amused.
Cady looked up at Conn and burst out laughing. “Good thing the Audi’s got four-wheel drive.”
He turned down the volume on his phone, but Cady could tell he was listening, processing the information unconsciously. “What’s the plan for today?” he asked.
“Very boring,” she said. Her phone lit up. Emily again. 11 service you’re coming right? “Church, brunch, buy a Christmas tree.”
He looked at her, then out the big windows overlooking the winter wonderland in her backyard. “You want to go out.”
“The Audi has four-wheel drive,” she repeated. “How are the roads?”
“Highways and main roads only are cleared,” he said.
“That works. Mom’s just off Decatur Street and everywhere else we want to go is on the main roads or a highway. The high is in the low forties. This won’t stick around for long.”
He looked at her, obviously thinking about arguing. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll need extra time to get there.”
“Church is casual,” she said as she ran water for tea. “The pastor wears jeans. No need to dress up.”
No time for a cup of coffee on the deck today, just her steam routine, then taming her hair and getting dressed. She tucked jeans into a pair of knee-high boots, pulled a turtleneck fisherman’s sweater over her head, then quickly plaited her hair into a loose French braid.
Conn appeared in the bedroom doorway. He’d shaved the scruff from his chin, combed his hair, and put on a button-down shirt, tucked into his jeans. His shoulders strained against the seams, which tapered nicely to his narrow waist, where his gun, cuffs, and badge were clipped to his belt. Bright sunlight streamed through the uppermost windows, burnishing his hair with a gold light.
“You ready?”
“From the kitchen you looked like you had a halo, like one of the saints in a really old painting.” She rummaged through her jewelry box, then through the top drawer of her dresser.
He snorted. “What are you looking for?”
“My grandmother’s bracelet.”
“The one you wear all the time?”
“Yes,” she said, shifting aside a tangled pile of vintage necklaces and bangle bracelets for the third time. Her heart sank. “It was here when Emily slept over. I’m pretty sure it was on top of the dresser when she left. Now it’s gone.”
“Are you sure? Maybe she took it with her.”
“Emily wouldn’t take it without telling me. She knows how much it means to me.”
Conn stepped into the room as she sank to her knees and flung open the dresser drawers, then went into the closet to ransack the shelves and drawers in the built-in storage unit. The green enamel and winking rhinestones should stand out against the white shelving units. No bracelet. She texted Eve to see if it had fallen off at Eye Candy. By the time an answer arrived, she’d looked through her purse, her coat pockets, the hallway, and the car.<
br />
No one turned it in, sweets. I’ll keep an eye out.
“Maybe someone picked it up at the club that night,” she said.
“Maybe. That’s one option.”
Cady glanced at him. His tone of voice was too even, the tone he used in cop mode when he was considering all options and had his guard way, way up. “You think someone took it from my house.”
Disbelief tinged her voice, because the possibility was incomprehensible. She’d worn that bracelet on every tour and gig since she was seventeen years old. It had been to gigs all over Lancaster, and as far away as Munich and Tokyo. Not once in eight years of touring via car, van, bus, limo, and airplane had it gone missing. And now, in her own home, the home only a few people knew she owned, it was gone. Conn held out his hand. “We need to see if anything else is missing,” he said.
She didn’t let go of his hand as they walked through the house until she had to rifle through closets and drawers. “You’re shaking,” Conn said quietly as they stood in the basement, looking at the boxes of things she hadn’t yet unpacked.
“I’m a little freaked out,” she admitted. “They don’t look like they’ve been moved or opened. There’s no point in going through them. I wouldn’t know what was or wasn’t in them.”
“Let’s go upstairs.”
Back in the kitchen Conn ran water into the electric kettle. “What are you doing?”
“I’m making you Cady juice,” he said without turning around.
“Is that standard procedure after a … home invasion? Burglary? What is this?”
“You always have some with you and it will help you feel calmer.” He added honey to her insulated mug, then quirked an eyebrow at her.
“More,” she said. “Right now you can’t add too much honey.”
A thick stream ran from the bear’s head into the mug while he added water and stirred, then brought her the mug. “Why is the honey in a bear?” she asked, hearing the brittle tremor in her voice. “Bears don’t make the honey. Bears steal the honey.”
“Because bees’ butts are too pointy to balance on the counter.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and his legs at the ankle. “A standard burglar is in and out fast. They hit the living room for electronics, the top drawers in the dresser and the closet for jewelry, and they’re out again. Usually the biggest sign of a burglary is a sneaker tread mark on your door where they kicked it open. Only one item is missing from your house, an antique piece of jewelry with no value on the market other than its meaning to you.”
“There were no signs of forced entry,” she said, thinking back to their tour of the house. He’d kept his cool and her close while looking at the doors and windows.
“I checked the locks before we left last night. Whoever got in had a key. Did you have the locks changed after you bought the house?”
“Mom said she would, but to be honest, I don’t know if she did or not.”
“We’ll ask her today. Either way, I’ll call a locksmith and get him out today to change them.”
“Quietly. I don’t want her or Emily to worry. Ugh. Speaking of worry…” She let her head drop into her hands.
“You have to tell Chris about this.”
“Yeah,” she said to the countertop. “Damn.”
“Do you have to tell him?”
“Is there any chance this is just a prank?”
“Do you have friends that would fuck with you like this?” he countered.
“No. There’s always at least one practical joker on tour. A realistic cockroach in bunks, Saran Wrap over the toilet, that kind of thing, but I don’t think that would extend to my home after we went our separate ways.”
“How many people know about your grandmother and what she meant to you?”
She squinted, trying to come up with a number. “Thousands? Tens of thousands?”
“What?” he said, obviously started.
“It’s part of my story the label likes me to play up, so I’ve talked about it on stage, during interviews. My grandmother played electric guitar in an all-girl rock band in the 1960s. They were really good; I’ve heard recordings they made. This is a pretty conservative part of the country, and women weren’t supposed to do things like that, but she told everyone to go to hell and did what she wanted. She and her friends traveled all over the Midwest in a VW van, playing in nightclubs and bars. Even after she got married she kept on doing it, until she got too pregnant to play. She’s my inspiration, musically and professionally. It’s common knowledge among my fans.”
He blew out his breath. “So, the likelihood is that someone who knew how much that meant to you and how devastating it would be to lose it got into your house and stole it.”
“Damn,” she repeated, then reached for her jacket, pulling her gloves from the pockets. “I’ll call Chris on the way to Mom’s house.”
Conn took them out of her hands. “We’re not going anywhere. I need to call in Hawthorn.”
“We are going to church, then to brunch, then to the Christmas tree farm,” she said precisely. “My sister’s choir is singing today, I have brunch with my mom every Sunday, and we always pick out our tree three weekends before Christmas.”
A muscle flexed in his cheek. “Why three weekends before Christmas?”
“It’s the routine. Three weekends before we get the tree. The next weekend we decorate it and go see Santa. Then we make cookies and wrap our presents for each other the following weekend. Then it’s Christmas. That’s how we do things.”
He stared at her.
“Christmas only comes once a year,” she said. “In a couple of months I’ll be out on the road again. I need normal. Church. Brunch. Christmas tree shopping.”
She must have looked absolutely mutinous, because he handed over her down jacket and gloves, then shrugged into his jacket and pulled his watch cap over his hair. “Ready?”
“I’m ready.” She looked at the manila folders in his left hand. “Is that my file?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to dig deeper. I need to be able to give Hawthorn some answers when he gets here.”
Conn reversed down the driveway while she buckled her seat belt and swiped through her recent calls to Chris’s number. “Hello, my dear,” Chris said expansively when he answered. “How are you?”
Cady held the phone away from her ear and looked at the contact information on the screen. Chris Wellendorf. “Chris?”
“Yes. What? Don’t you recognize me in a good mood? I just got spectacularly laid. I’m about to enjoy the Sunday paper, and some excellent coffee, and maybe round two.”
“Chris, TMI. You’re with someone and you answered my call?”
“Because I will always answer your call. What’s up? Tired of the sticks and ready to be a superstar again?”
“Someone broke into my house and stole Nana Maud’s bracelet.”
Dead silence. Then, “I can’t decide if that’s scary or hilarious.”
“Tell him I said it’s scary,” Conn growled. The Audi’s back end hitched sideways like a spooked horse. He downshifted, corrected into the skid, and the car obediently straightened out.
“I heard him,” Chris said. Cady heard a door close in the background. “What happened?”
Cady explained that they’d left the house for a while last night, purposefully vague about the circumstances, said nothing about the sex, and added that she’d noticed the bracelet was missing that morning.
“Where were you?” Chris asked absently.
“Out.”
“Where out?”
“It doesn’t matter where I was.”
“You were at the drag races. How charmingly NASCAR of you. And the weather was … mid-thirties and dry as a bone. Cady. Jesus.”
“I hate Instagram,” she muttered. “I didn’t sing. I had a scarf over my mouth the whole time.”
“If they ask you do to the National Anthem, say no. Was thi
s Conn’s idea?”
“No! I used to go all the time when I was younger. It was fun then, I thought it would be fun now, and it was!” Her voice was rising, both in volume and pitch. “I’m relaxing! You told me to relax.”
“Okay, okay,” Chris soothed. “Keep your voice down.”
“Look, I’m calling to let you know we have a situation here. Conn has it under control. Lieutenant Hawthorn’s coming over later to discuss security protocols, or whatever. That’s all. Go back to your lady love. I’ll let you know what we decide.”
“Do you want me to make an appearance?”
“No,” Cady said. Conn turned the corner to her mother’s street and was nearly sideswiped by a city plow. “Please, I’m begging you, do not come back to Lancaster. We just got twelve inches of snow and it’s a wasteland here. They’ll probably close the airport any second.”
Conn snorted. Cady heard a bed squeak and rustle, then the clatter of blinds.
“Cady. Please. You got six inches of fluffy white powder.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, suspicious.
“The weather app on my phone,” he said. “I want to be in on the conversation later today. What time?”
“It might be tomorrow. I’ll let you know. I’m going Christmas tree shopping with my mom and Emily today.”
“From NASCAR to Norman Rockwell. You cover all the cultural bases. Text me the time.”
The call disconnected in the middle of a soft exhalation. “He hung up on me,” Cady said. She scrolled through her texts. A bunch from Emily she didn’t read because the last one was!!!!!!!!!!! and a new one from Bryan. DDoS again. Working on tracking this motherfucker down and nailing his balls to a cement block.
“Great,” she muttered.
“What?”
“My site’s down again.”
“I don’t think this is coincidental,” Conn said. “Where does he live?”
“Bryan? Here. I’ve tried to stick with local businesses when I could. My personal lawyer’s here, too.”
