Waking the Dead (20 page)
She gave his hand a long look before shifting her gaze to his face. “Back off, Sharper.”
“Are you incapable of listening to reason from anyone, or is there something about me that sets you off?”
“You are more than a little offsetting,” she agreed. Heat was licking up her spine. She preferred to blame that on temper. “I said I’d wait. What’s your problem?”
“My problem is you shouldn’t go there at all. Anytime. It’s just asking for trouble and there’s no need for it.”
She surveyed him more carefully, a bit of her own frustration fading. “Do you have some reason for not wanting me to talk to Deputy Gibbs?”
“I don’t give a shit whether you talk to him or not. I’m just saying . . .”
“We’re starting over, Sharper. You want in, or is that lover’s quarrel gonna take all night?” The raucous shout came from one of the men near the pool table. Looking past Zach, Cait could see all eyes in the place were on them. And she was aware for the first time how close they were standing to each other.
He dropped his hand as if he’d been burned. “Be there in a minute,” he called back. When he turned back to her his eyes had cooled. “Do what you want. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She let him take a few strides away before something possessed her to say, “If you’re that worried about the place, I guess I can let you tag along tomorrow night. Call it part of your deal with Andrews.”
The look he sent her then had steam rolling off it. But he didn’t say another word before rejoining his friends.
Oddly satisfied, she turned again to leave. But not before giving his broad back and narrow hips a last appreciative look.
Because Zach Sharper had a way of filling out a pair of Levis. Just because she now played it smart regarding men didn’t mean she was dead.
Once in the vehicle, she checked her cell phone and was chagrined to discover she’d missed a call about one of the missing persons cases. When she returned the call there was no answer, so she left a short message for the man to call her back, regardless of the hour. Playing phone tag with the various detectives assigned to the missing persons cases she’d inquired about was beginning to be a full-time job.
After driving the short distance to the motel, she parked and locked the vehicle before wondering if she’d perhaps missed Barnes’s call, too. But there was no record of it in her phone log, and she frowned a little as she unlocked the door to her room. It wasn’t like the man to be out of communication for this long. She put another call in to him, but he didn’t answer this time, either, so she left another message. Cait set the phone down on the dresser before securing the door, wondering what had kept the man busy all day. And whether it had to do with their case.
She’d changed into a camisole and shorts to sleep in and was scrubbing her face when her cell rang. The deputy still on her mind, she walked in to pick the phone up and answered, “You’re working late.”
“Well, I certainly hope you aren’t, darling. You know what it does to your skin when you don’t get your ten hours sleep.”
Cait’s eyelids slid shut in chagrin. She almost always screened her calls, for precisely this reason. There was nothing worse than being ambushed by a phone call from Lydia Fleming Smythe Regatta.
“Mother.” Because she needed the support, she turned away from the dresser so she could prop her hips against it. “How are you?” Her voice was stilted. Formal. They’d never have a close relationship, but she was
trying
, dammit. Shouldn’t she get points for that?
trying
, dammit. Shouldn’t she get points for that?
“Absolutely exhausted. Every time we fly I swear it will be the last time. When did travel become this excruciating?”
The words struck a familiar chord. Kristy had had a similar complaint upon arriving in Eugene, although she’d voiced it a bit more colorfully. Cait had never heard Lydia utter a four-letter word in her life. She didn’t need to. She was capable of using words the way a surgeon wielded a scalpel, performing tiny dissections of the ego in a perfectly modulated voice.
“So you’re on a trip?”
“Oh, heavens no. Henri and I have just gotten back to the penthouse this minute.”
Henri. Cait’s mind went totally blank. Had Lydia gotten married again? Frantically she searched her mental files, came up with the name. Not husband number four, thank God—at least not yet. Her mother’s
gentleman friend
. One Cait hadn’t met and, if her luck continued to hold, never would.
gentleman friend
. One Cait hadn’t met and, if her luck continued to hold, never would.
“Where’d you go?” The question elicited a ten-minute monologue from Lydia on the trials of Paris in the summertime, and Cait closed her eyes and let the words roll off her. The conversation would require very little of her, for which she was grateful. Ten minutes of filler meant only five more to parry the subtle digs and thrusts regarding Cait’s chosen career.
A fifteen-minute phone call was long enough for politeness and, on a good day, not long enough to shred her nerves.
“Oh, and you’ll never guess who called me. Cee Cee Walker! Of course she asked about you when we caught up over drinks at The Ritz-Carlton.”
The name had trepidation pooling in her stomach. Cait straightened, craning her neck to see the clock in the next room. Only ten and a half minutes had passed. Damn. “How is she?” she asked without enthusiasm.
“Well, she looks marvelous. Of course she’s had work done, that’s a given, but the surgeon was very discreet.” Lydia spoke from experience, having had
her
share of work done over the years, as well. Every time Cait saw her, she’d had something new tucked or lifted. In the war against gravity, Lydia was the crowned champion.
her
share of work done over the years, as well. Every time Cait saw her, she’d had something new tucked or lifted. In the war against gravity, Lydia was the crowned champion.
“She told me something I found intriguing.” Her mother’s voice lowered conspiratorially, as if someone else eavesdropping would find the conversation even slightly interesting. “Duran Cosmetics have dropped that dreadful Giselle Ham menstein as the face for their products, and they are actively looking. Cee Cee said she’d sent them several portfolios of models in her agency, but the word is that they’re going for a more mature look.”
Not tonight. Cait’s head lolled as she rubbed the headache that had suddenly taken up residence behind her temples. After a full day of trading verbal jabs with Sharper, she absolutely couldn’t have this conversation tonight.
“Of course, I thought of you. If you landed a contract this big, you wouldn’t have to work your way back up the hard way again, you’d make a splash, darling! Don’t you recall the glamour of our old life? Don’t you just miss it?”
“Like a brick to the head,” she muttered.
“What?”
“No, Mother,” Cait said clearly, striving for patience. “I don’t miss it. I’ve never missed it. I have a career, and it’s one I’ve found far more fascinating than modeling ever was. I’m not going back. I thought we were done having this argument years ago.” Thought she’d grown safer with every passing year. Modeling was a young woman’s job. And although at thirty-five Cait was hardly ready for a wheelchair, she was past the prime of most top runway models.
Of course Lydia wasn’t talking runway. A point she used another six and a half minutes to painstakingly explain. To paint a laughably surreal image of Cait’s former career that bore little resemblance to the reality.
Cait used the time to dig in her purse for some pain reliever for the headache that had taken on power-drill proportions. When that search failed, she switched to her toiletry kit. The lone two pills in the bottle were a welcome find. When she ran water for a drink to wash them down with, the sound almost,
almost
, drowned out her mother’s voice in her ear.
almost
, drowned out her mother’s voice in her ear.
“. . . and think of the travel involved! When’s the last time you’ve been to Europe, Caitlin? You can’t begin to imagine how much has changed, with the . . .”
Apparently Lydia had already forgotten the miseries of travel she’d spent the first part of the conversation regaling her with. Downing the pills, Caitlin shuffled to the other room again to eye the alarm clock on the bedside table. Seventeen minutes. More than enough time to qualify as a polite conversation. When her mother showed no signs of winding down, she mentally recalculated. Maybe a little longer. Could she endure two more minutes of this?
The mental question was abruptly answered in the next few seconds.
“. . . the life your father would have desired for you. He’d never have wanted you to end up in his grim world, Caitlin. To see the sights he saw every day. The countless hours away from his family. That job drove him to his death, Caitlin. Following in his footsteps isn’t a tribute to him, it’s a slap in the face. He’d have wanted better for you. Not to have you embroil yourself in the seamiest side of—”
“You don’t know that.” Her voice was tight. Sometimes Cait wondered if Lydia’s memory of Gregory Fleming was as fuzzy as her own. Conveniently so, since her mother invoked his name to underscore whatever argument she was currently engaged in. “And I’m not a beat cop, so I haven’t exactly followed in his footsteps.”
The sound Lydia made was suspiciously close to a sniff of disdain. “Don’t split hairs with me, we both know how you ended up where you are. If you hadn’t given up everything to run off to college, there’s no telling what you could have achieved by now. You were headed for the top.”
Her mother was wrong. Cait stared blindly at her reflection in the mirror. She knew exactly where she’d be, what she would have become if she hadn’t stood up to Lydia and left modeling for good to start college. It had been an ugly series of scenes, concluding with Cait hiring an attorney to end her mother’s control of the money she’d earned. During their estrangement, Lydia had married and divorced twice. The husbands had at least kept her focus off her daughter. Maybe if she married Henri it would divert some attention away from Cait.
“Just think about it.” Her mother’s voice took on an unfamiliar note of pleading. “Not only could this be good for you, but it re-establishes me in the business as well. I did wonderfully by you as your manager, Caitlin. There’s no reason I couldn’t take on other clients, as well. But at this point, I’ve been away from the scene for too long. Not that I want you to do this for me. What I did for you I did for love. You don’t owe me a thing, darling, and I don’t want you to think I’m saying otherwise.”
There was more, but Cait had stopped listening. Because Lydia meant just the opposite, of course. There had never been a moment when Cait hadn’t been made aware what a burden it had been for her mother to raise her alone. How much she’d sacrificed to get Cait noticed by that first agency, the first art director. What she’d given up to travel with her to shoots and hire personal trainers and acting coaches.
And above all, how much her father would have wanted this for her.
The words rolled over her in a tired litany that Cait had heard thousands of times in the past. How that “unfortunate situation”—Lydia-speak for the drawn out court case and their resulting estrangement—had destroyed whatever chances she’d had to continue her successful career as talent manager. A stretch by anyone’s definition, Cait figured, given that she’d been her mother’s only client.
“Even if you didn’t get the Duran job, we could get you noticed again. Cee Cee would have you back in a minute. You have been taking care of your skin, haven’t you? The last time I saw you, I swear you hadn’t moisturized in—”
“No, mother.” The steel in her voice came in spite of the pounding in her temples. “I left that world over fifteen years ago and I have no intention of ever going back. I’m sure Cee Cee could get you a client or two to start you out if you want to get into talent management.” A fact Cait could hardly imagine, but that wasn’t the important point here. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a long day and I’ve got an early start tomorrow. We’ll talk later.” Long practice had her disconnecting the call without anything further. A proper good-bye would entail another fifteen minutes of pleas turning to icy anger from Lydia. Better to piss her off now rather than later since the end result was the same either way.
She leaned her hands against the dresser, mentally counting to ten. On seven the phone shrilled again. Twice. Three times. Each ring was like a stake battering through Cait’s brain. After the fifth time it went to voice mail. She gave it another few minutes before she accessed the message box and deleted the message her mother would have left. There was nothing worse than stumbling across one of Lydia’s callbacks when checking for work-related messages.
Cheered slightly by the action, she checked the lock on the door and headed for bed. She knew from past experience that she hadn’t heard the last regarding the issue from her mother, but she’d be more careful in the future about screening her calls.
Snapping off the light, she yanked back the covers and slipped under them, gingerly laying her still-throbbing head against the pillow. Useless to wonder what had set her mother off on the career-resurrection pipe dream this time. Perhaps it was the phone call from Cee Cee. Or maybe Henri was proving wary about becoming husband number four and Lydia was reaching the bottom of her settlements from husbands two and three.
Whichever it was, she knew enough to lay low until her mother gave up. She wasn’t a child anymore, to be manipulated at will. Nor a teen with a fragile ego seeking her identity in all the wrong places.
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