Every Step She Takes

by Kelley Armstrong

  As I’m turning, I spot a white envelope on the floor.

  My heart thuds, and I cover the distance in two running steps, pizza box slapping onto the table as I dive for what I’m certain is yesterday’s envelope, which I’d forgotten to burn. Even as I grab it, though, I know it’s not the same one.

  This letter hasn’t been opened.

  There’s a new envelope on my floor. Under my table. I eye it and exhale with a soft laugh. Okay, a courier pushed it under the door, and it slid beneath the table. Mystery solved.

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I turn the envelope over.

  Lucy Callahan.

  The name isn’t in Isabella’s handwriting. It’s typed onto a label, cold and informal. No sender. No postage marks.

  Two days ago, I wouldn’t have opened this. At best, it would be the ravings of a crazed Colt Gordon fan, still determined to make me pay for my “sins.”

  After receiving Isabella’s letter, I know the timing of this one is not coincidental. Is there some fresh threat that she’d been trying to warn me about? Is this envelope connected to her letter? Someone found out she was contacting me and did the same?

  Colt?

  Tiana or Jamison?

  The last two make me shiver, hairs on my arms rising. I’ve spent fourteen years struggling not to consider what monstrous role I play in Tiana and Jamison’s personal mythology. I might be furious with Colt and hurt by Isabella, but if you asked me who I most dreaded seeing again, it would be their children.

  I open the envelope to find a typed letter. My gaze moves to the sender first. Isabella.

  I curse under my breath. Then I pause. Is this really from her? A typed letter after a personal handwritten note makes no sense. Someone must be impersonating . . .

  My gaze skims the first few lines, and my question is answered.

  Lucy,

  Please excuse the formality and impersonality of this letter. I know the package I sent was delivered Wednesday afternoon. It is now Thursday evening, and I haven’t received a call, which suggests I’m not going to. So I’ve prevailed upon a local acquaintance to print this letter and have it hand delivered.

  I don’t blame you for not calling. I had hoped you would, but I can understand why you didn’t. You may even have seen my handwriting and torn up the letter unread. I would understand that, too.

  I really do want to put this right. Someone in my life has helped me to understand that what I feel is no longer anger. It’s guilt. I did wrong by you, and I need to remedy that.

  I realize it’s selfish to ask you to come here. I’m still asking. Below you will find the number of a local travel agent who has been instructed to arrange for a first-class round-trip ticket to New York and a two-week stay, all expenses paid. Our meeting will not take two weeks, of course, but I thought extending your stay into a holiday might alleviate the inconvenience.

  We must talk, and it will be worth your while. I don’t mean the airfare or the hotel—that is incidental. I am going to repair the damage you suffered. I can give you back your life, Lucy. I just need to speak to you in person.

  No, Isabella, you do not need to speak to me in person. You do not need to speak to me at all. I’m sorry if you feel bad about what happened . . .

  Am I sorry?

  No, actually, I’m not. That’s the old Lucy bubbling to the surface. She’s like a childhood friend I remember with alternating spurts of affection and exasperation. The Lucy who, as Nylah rightly said, couldn’t hang up even on a telemarketer.

  I’m not pleased that Isabella is suffering. I’ll never be that cold or vindictive. Yet I won’t fly to New York to clear her conscience. She says she can give me my life back, but I already have that. There’s nothing more she can offer.

  I’m still staring at the letter when a familiar bang-ba-ba-bang sounds at the door, and I scramble to tuck the letter, envelope and all, into my bag. Then I yank open the door, throw my arms around Marco’s neck and pour all my frustration into a kiss that leaves him gasping.

  “So . . . good pizza?” he says.

  “I’ve barely started it. I was heading outside when I got distracted. E-mails.”

  He looks down at me. “Everything okay?”

  “Just messages that needed an answer.”

  “Ah.”

  His gaze bores into mine, and I squirm under it. I replay my words, my tone, and it all sounds very normal. Even the kiss at the door isn’t out of character.

  I only need to see his expression, though, to know I’ve failed to pull off the “I’m okay” charade. As usual, Marco doesn’t call me on it. I just get that searching look and a pause that I should fill with “Actually, yes, something happened.” When I don’t take the hint, he only gives me a smacking kiss on the lips, granting me my freedom and my privacy.

  “All right, then,” he says. “Let me rummage something from the fridge.”

  I hand him the plate with a quarter of the pizza. He smiles and accepts it with thanks. Then I miraculously change my water into wine—grabbing a bottle of red from the counter—as he gets glasses, and we head out onto the terrace.

  * * *

  Night two of not sleeping. This time, it’s that letter calling my name. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. How dare Isabella invade my privacy? How dare she send anything under my old name? All it would take is for someone along the mailing route to say, “Hmm, why does that name sound familiar?” and follow it to a Colt Gordon fan board and post “Hey, I found where Lucy Callahan lives. Anyone willing to pay for that information?”

  If Isabella wants to make amends, she can damn well leave me alone. That’s what I want from her. All I want from her. Does she really think I’m going to squeal in delight at a cashmere shrug and a first-class plane ticket? I’m not that girl anymore.

  And yet . . .

  I’ve said I will fight this, and fighting it does not mean ignoring Isabella and hoping she goes away. If I even think that’s possible, I’ve forgotten everything I know about the woman. To truly fight, I must go to New York. Take this meeting. Tell her I’m glad she has had this epiphany, but if she really cares about helping, she’ll leave me the hell alone.

  I could do that on my own dime. Lift my chin, buy my own ticket, reserve my own hotel room . . . and blow my meager life savings on this trip. That’ll teach her.

  If Isabella wants to throw blood money at me, let her. While I’d never be spiteful enough to rack up a bill with room-service caviar and champagne, I will enjoy the trip, and I will get what I need from it. Peace, at last. My past buried not in shame but in quiet reverence for a life I’ve left behind.

  I send a message agreeing to the trip.

  Sleep comes easily after that.

  Chapter Six

  The Hamptons 2005

  After two weeks at Colt and Isabella’s place, I’d settled in enough that I even mentally referred to them by their first names. On that day, I’d taken my own role in the exact same scene I’d walked into that first day. Jamison swam in the pool while Tiana reclined on a chair with me lounging beside her, both of us holding novels while we talked about boys.

  “You do know that’s weird, right?” she said. “You should have a boyfriend by now.” She lowered her glasses to look over them. “Do you like girls? It’s okay if you do. We’ve got friends with two dads, friends with two moms, friends with two of each, even, all living together. It’s Hollywood.”

  I chuckled. By now, I was past the point of being surprised by this ten-year-old girl. She’d been raised in a world where kids didn’t stay kids for long, no matter how much their parents tried to shelter them. Part of this was an act, too—Tiana was playing the world-weary ingenue to impress me. Or shock me. If she hoped to do that with her talk of same-sex and polyamorous couples, she was barking up the wrong tree. I was a musician.

  “I like boys, and I have dated,” I said. “I didn’t have a high-school boyfriend because I didn’t want anything keeping me in Albany after graduation.
Now that I’m at Juilliard, I don’t have time to date.”

  “Have you had sex?”

  “Your parents would love it if I answered that.”

  “Actually, they’d be fine with it. You’re a role model, and I have important life questions that require serious answers.”

  I snorted.

  She grumbled. After a moment, she said, her voice quieter, “How did you know you liked boys?”

  Resisting the urge to look over at her, I talked about my first crush—a bass player named Samson—and the telenovela stars whose posters decorated my wall, the boys I dreamed of kissing.

  “Did you have any posters of my dad?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you ever dream of kissing him?”

  Now I did look over, my nose wrinkling. “Eww, no. He’s old.”

  She giggled, a true child’s giggle, sputtering and snickering.

  “What’s so funny?” a voice asked, making me jump.

  Colt strode off the patio. I’d come to realize that Colt Gordon did not “walk” anywhere. He strolled; he ambled; he sprinted. He was an actor—every movement and expression had to be imbued with meaning.

  Today, he wore athletic shorts and nothing else. Well, I presume underwear, but trust me, I wasn’t thinking about what Colt Gordon wore under his shorts.

  I hadn’t been lying when I told Tiana her dad was too old for my girlish fantasies. He was good looking. Criminally good looking, as Nylah would say. I could appreciate that, but it came with the mental corollary of for his age.

  For his part, Colt never spared me more than a friendly smile. There’d been some initial discomfort, where he’d almost seemed to go out of his way to avoid me. I understood that. Every time he had lunch with a female co-star, the tabloids screamed that he was having a fling. People might say they love happy Hollywood marriages, but scandal is so much more delicious.

  So Colt had been careful, making sure I wouldn’t give off any flirty vibes myself. I must have passed that test with flying colors because he no longer walked out of a room if he found me alone in it. I didn’t feel obligated to look away when he was dressed like this, either, which was good because he was almost always dressed like this.

  When he repeated, “What’s so funny?” Tiana glanced at me, her dark eyes twinkling. She opened her mouth, and I fairly leapt across the space between us. She rolled off the other way, giggling so hard she was snorting.

  She looked at her dad, “Lucy said you’re—”

  I sprang at her again, half in mortification, half in jest, and she took off, grinning over her shoulder at me as she dove into the pool. I followed, and we horsed around for a few minutes before she swam to the edge and hoisted herself up in front of Colt, glancing back at me with a teasing grin.

  “Lucy said—” she began.

  “She said you’re nicer than she expected,” Jamison cut in. He’d been ignoring us, swimming laps, and I’d thought he hadn’t heard anything. “You’re scary in your movies, so she was worried. But she says you’re pretty nice.”

  “Pretty nice?” Colt’s brows shot up.

  “Better than nice and pretty,” Tiana said.

  “Mmm, I don’t know about that. I’m fine with pretty. I’ve been called worse.” He looked at me, eyes twinkling exactly like his daughter’s as he winked. A friendly wink, nothing more. Then he plunked into a chair. Tiana gave him a look, rolled her eyes at me, and we continued swimming.

  Chapter Seven

  Rome 2019

  By morning, I have a message telling me everything has been arranged. I leave later today.

  I tell Marco I’m going to New York for a few days, that something came up and a friend needs me.

  “Nylah?” he asks.

  I make a sound he can take as agreement.

  “Everything okay?” he asks.

  “Just stuff,” I say. “I know it’s very last minute . . .”

  He tugs on his shirt. “I’m just glad you can help. I’d offer to come along, but this is obviously a girl trip.”

  “It is. I hope to see Mom, too, while I’m there.”

  “Good.” He leans over to peck my cheek. “Tell her I said hi.”

  I nod, my face down as I button my shirt so he won’t see my reaction . . . the one that says it’s hard to do that when my mother doesn’t know he exists.

  “Got time for a cappuccino this morning?” he asks.

  I smile at him. “Sadly, no. I’ll just grab one on the way to my first lesson.”

  “Give me two minutes, and I’ll walk with you.”

  * * *

  As the day wears on, the deception pokes needle sharp. It’s never been a deception before. Genevieve Callahan is my legal name. Marco knows I grew up in Albany and went to Juilliard. He knows I’ve never married, have no kids or siblings, just a mother in Albany, two grandparents in Arizona and a grandmother in Mexico. He’s never pried into specifics of my past, and so I have never had to lie to him. Until now.

  That evening, we’re in a crowded airport taverna, leaning together so we can hear one another over the too-sharp laughter of tipsy businessmen. I’ve run out of time to tell Marco the truth, and this certainly isn’t the place.

  When I return.

  I’ll tell him everything when I return.

  For now, there’s something I can do, and even if he won’t understand the significance, it is a silent promise to him.

  I take out my phone and hold it up. “I want a selfie.”

  His brows rise.

  “Of us,” I say. “For my mom.”

  We put our heads together, and I snap pictures. In the last, he smacks a kiss on my cheek, and that is the best of the bunch—the unguarded delight on my face, the boyish glint in his eyes.

  This photograph means that I will finally tell Mom about Marco. I will say, yes, there is someone important in my life, and here he is.

  We finish our wine, and he walks me to the security area. Once he’s out of sight, I zip over to the priority lane.

  At the gate, I’m settling into a seat when I look up into the face of Colt Gordon, and every cell in my body freezes.

  It’s not actually Colt, of course. It’s just his face—five times life-size, staring at me from an electronic movie poster.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve been confronted by his image. Colt is a Hollywood icon, and being male, his star didn’t plummet once he hit middle age. At fifty-five, he’s still an action hero though his love interests remarkably don’t age at all.

  On this poster, though, the second figure isn’t a woman half his age. It’s a young man who could have been Colt himself thirty years ago.

  “Jamie,” I murmur.

  Chapter Eight

  The Hamptons 2005

  A month later, I was outside with the kids, giving them a music lesson. We were on the strip of land between the house and the beach, all sand and tall grasses. We’d pulled chairs out there to work in the morning sunshine, enjoying the sea breeze and ignoring the cacophonous percussion of the seagulls.

  When footfalls thumped over the sand, I didn’t even need to turn to see who it was. Sure enough, Colt appeared, dressed only in his shorts, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

  “Where’s your mom?” he asked Tiana.

  “Internet sucks this morning. She went into town to send some e-mails.”

  Irritation flashed over his face. Then he spun on me and waved the papers. “You’ve done screenwriting, right?”

  “Uh, a little, but—”

  He shoved the script at me. “It’s a fight scene, and I’m supposed to grab the guy like . . .” He finger waved at Jamison. “I need an assistant.”

  Jamison shook his head and focused on adjusting his tuning pegs. “No, thank you.”

  Colt strode over and took the violin sharply enough that I cringed. He set it down and put a hand on Jamison’s shoulder. “Come and help your old man out.”

  “I will,” Tiana said, hopping to her feet.

  “I
t’s a fight scene,” Colt said. “Jamie’s my man for this. Aren’t you, kiddo?”

  “I would rather not,” Jamison said in that quiet, formal way of his. “Tiana can.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Colt said with an eye roll.

  “I know. I just don’t like doing that.”

  “Don’t like what? Helping your old man? It’s a fight scene. It’s fun.”

  “Not to me.”

  Silence. I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could, Jamison rose and said, “I’m not feeling very good. I’m going inside.”

  He took one step, and then Colt grabbed him in a headlock. Jamison yelped, and Colt laughed, flipping his son over and mock pinning him to the ground. And I . . . I stood there feeling sick and doing nothing. Colt was goofing around, not hurting Jamison, and I couldn’t see Jamison’s face. I glanced at Tiana, who cast me an uncomfortable look, paired with a nervous laugh, and then joined in, pushing at her dad and pretending to play fight him, and somewhere in the melee, Jamison ran for the house while his dad and sister roughhoused.

  I slipped off after Jamison. I could hear him in his room, and I paced for a few minutes, hoping Isabella would return. I was just the music tutor, and I shouldn’t interfere, but Jamison was upset, and I needed to do something.

  If his bedroom door had been closed, I’d have retreated. It was cracked open, though, and from inside came the sound of crumpling paper. I tapped on the door, and it swung open, and there was Jamison, his face taut with rage as he ripped pages from a book, balling them up and whipping them at the wall.

  Then he saw me and froze, and from the look on his face, you’d think I’d walked in to find him torturing a small animal. He quickly hid the book behind his back and stammered something unintelligible.

  “May I come in?” I asked.

  When he hesitated, I began to retreat. Then he said, “Yes,” and I walked in and shut the door.