Public Secrets by Nora Roberts

  “I didn’t know you felt this way. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know myself really. It’s just that I don’t feel like Brian McAvoy anymore.” How could he explain that the feeling he’d revived at Woodstock had stubbornly faded in the year following it? “I didn’t know how frustrating it would be not to be able to go out and have a drink with the lads, or sit on the beach without people swarming around, wanting a piece.”

  “You could stop. You could pull back and write.”

  “I can’t stop.” He looked down at Emma, sleeping peacefully. “I have to record, I have to perform. Every time I’m onstage or in the studio, I know, deep down, that this is what I want to do. Need to do. But the rest of it … The rest of it sucks, and I didn’t know it would. Maybe it’s Hendrix and Joplin dying the way they did. Such a waste. Then the Beatles breaking up. It’s like the end of something, and I haven’t finished.”

  “Not the end.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, automatically kneading the tense muscles. “Just a change.”

  “If we’re not moving forward, we’re moving back, don’t you see?” But he knew she couldn’t, and tried to put his feelings into more understandable words. “Maybe it’s Pete pressuring us to tour again, or talking Stevie into sitting in with other groups in studio sessions, and doing that movie score. All I know is, it’s not just the four of us getting together and playing from the heart anymore. It’s image and bloody marketing, it’s brokers and tax shelters.”

  Emma rolled over, murmuring.

  “And I guess it’s worrying about Emma going to school, and Darren going off one day. What’s it going to be like for them? Will people start picking at them, wanting pieces of them because of what I am? I don’t want them to have the filthy childhood I did, but am I doing any better by them, making them a part of something that’s gotten bigger than all of us? And hungrier-”

  “You think too much.” She turned to take his face in her hands. “That’s what I love most about you. The children are fine. You’ve only got to look at them to see. Maybe their childhood isn’t normal, but they’re happy. We’re going to keep them happy, and safe. Whatever you are, whoever you are, you’re their da. We’ll work out the rest.”

  “I love you, Bev. I must be daft, worrying about all this. We’ve got everything.” He brought her closer, to rest his head on her hair. He wished he could understand why everything had turned out to be too much.

  BRIAN’S DISCONTENT VANISHED after a couple of joints. The house was full of people Brian felt understood him, what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go. The music was loud, the drugs were plentiful and varied. Snow, grass, Turkish hash, speed, bennies. The grinding, soul-wrenching rock of Janis Joplin poured out as his guests took their pick. He wanted to listen to her, again and again, to hear her belt out “Ball and Chain.” Somehow it helped him grab onto the fact that he was alive, he still had a chance to make it matter.

  He watched Stevie dance with a redhead in a purple miniskirt. Stevie didn’t worry about being a figurehead or turning into a poster for some girl’s wall, Brian mused as he washed down pretzels with smooth Irish whiskey. Stevie gleefully jumped from woman to woman without a care in his head. Of course, he was stoned most of the time. With a half-laugh, Brian picked another joint out of the bowl and decided it was time to get stoned himself.

  From across the room, Johnno watched Brian settle back. Distancing himself, Johnno reflected as he chose a Gauloise over grass. It had been happening more and more recently. Perhaps because Johnno was closest to Brian, he had been the only one to notice. He thought now that the only time Brian seemed truly in tune was when the two of them sat down to write. Melody, countermelody, phrases, bridges.

  He knew Brian had been upset by the deaths of Hendrix and Joplin. So had he. In its way, it had been as devastating as the Kennedy assassinations. People were supposed to grow old and decrepit before they died. But though he’d been shaken, he hadn’t mourned as Brian was mourning. Then, Brian always cared more, needed more.

  Like Brian, he glanced over at Stevie. He didn’t like what he saw. It didn’t matter a damn if Stevie screwed every woman on the continent, though he felt it lacked a certain finesse. It was the drugs, and the fact that Stevie was rapidly losing control over them, that concerned Johnno. He didn’t care for the image they were beginning to project. The stoned-out rockers.

  Shifting his gaze, he looked at P.M. There was a bit of a problem there as well. Oh, not with drugs. Poor old P.M. could barely function after one toke. It was the busty blond bimbo that had attached herself to the drummer two months before. P.M. didn’t appear to be making any attempt to shake her off.

  Johnno watched her now, the long-faced, sloe-eyed blonde—all legs and tits in a tight red dress. She wasn’t as softheaded as she made out to be, Johnno mused. She was sharp as a tack, and knew how to play the tune P.M. wanted to hear. If they didn’t watch themselves, she’d get him to marry her. And she wouldn’t stay quietly in the background like Bev. No, not this one.

  The three of them, in their separate ways, were on the verge of destroying the group. And nothing mattered more to Johnno.

  WHEN EMMA WOKE, the floor was vibrating with the bass from the stereo. She lay quietly a moment listening, trying as she did from time to time to recognize the song from the beat alone.

  She’d gotten used to the parties. Her da liked to have people around. Lots of music, lots of laughing. When she was older, she would go to parties, too.

  Bev always made sure the house was very clean before the guests arrived. That was silly, really, Emma thought. In the morning, the house was a terrible mess with smelly glasses and overflowing ashtrays. More often than not a few of the guests would be sprawled over the sofas and chairs amid the clutter.

  Emma wondered what it would be like to sit up all night, talking, laughing, listening to music. When you were grown-up, no one told you when you had to go to bed, or have a bath.

  With a sigh, she rolled over on her back. The music was faster now. She could feel the driving bass pulse in the walls. And something else. Footsteps, coming down the hall. Emma thought. Miss Wallingsford. She prepared to close her eyes and feign sleep when another thought occurred to her. Perhaps it was Da or Mum passing through to check on her and Darren. If it was, she could pretend to have just woken, then she could persuade them to tell her about the party.

  But the footsteps passed by. She sat up clutching Charlie. She’d wanted company, even if only for a moment or two. She wanted to talk about the party, or the trip to New York. She wanted to know what song was playing. She sat a moment, a small, sleepy child in a pink nightgown, bathed by the cheerful glow of a Mickey Mouse night-light.

  She thought she heard Darren crying. Straightening, she strained to listen. She was certain she heard Darren’s cranky tears over the pulse of the music. Automatically she climbed out of bed, tucking Charlie under one arm. She would sit with Darren until he quieted, and leave Charlie to watch over him through the rest of the night.

  The hallway was dark, which surprised her. A light always burned there in case Emma had to use the bathroom during the night. She had a bad moment at the doorway, imagining the things that lurked in the shadowy corners. She wanted to stay in her room with the grinning Mickey.

  Then Darren let out a yowling cry.

  There was nothing in the corners, Emma told herself as she started down the dark hallway. There was nothing there at all. No monsters, no ghosts, no squishy or slithering things.

  It was the Beatles playing now.

  Emma wet her lips. Just the dark, just the dark, she told herself. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark by the time she’d reached Darren’s door. It was closed. That was wrong, too. His door was always left open so he could be heard easily when awakened.

  She reached out, then jumped as she thought she heard something move behind her. Heart pumping, she turned to scan the dark hallway. Shirting shadows towered into nameless monsters, making sweat break out on her
brow and back.

  Nothing there, nothing there, she told herself, and Darren was crying his lungs out.

  She turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  “Come together,” Lennon sang. “Over me.”

  There were two men in the room. One was holding Darren, struggling to keep him still while the baby screamed in fear and anger. The other had something in his hand, something that the light from the giraffe lamp on the dresser caused to glint.

  “What are you doing?”

  The man whirled at her voice. He wasn’t a doctor, Emma thought as she made out the needle in his hand. She recognized him, and knew he wasn’t a doctor. And Darren wasn’t sick.

  The other man swore, a short spurt of ugly words, while he fought to keep Darren from wriggling out of his arms.

  “Emma,” the man she knew said in a calm, friendly voice. He smiled. It was a false smile, an angry smile. She noted it, and that he still held the needle as he stepped toward her. She turned and ran.

  Behind her she heard Darren call out. “Ma!”

  Sobbing, she raced down the hall. There were monsters, her panicked mind taunted. There were monsters and things with snappy teeth in the shadows. They were coming after her now.

  He nearly caught the trailing edge of her nightgown. Swearing, he dove for her. His hand skimmed over her ankle, slid off. She yelped as though she’d been scalded. As she reached the top of the stairs, she screamed for her father, shrieking his name over and over again.

  Then her legs tangled. She tumbled down the flight of stairs.

  In the kitchen, someone sat on the counter and ordered fifty pizzas. Shaking her head, Bev checked the freezer for ice. No one used more ice than Americans. As an afterthought, she dropped a cube in her warming wine. When in Rome, she decided, then turned toward the door.

  She met Brian on the threshold.

  Grinning, he hooked an arm around her waist and gave her a long, lazy kiss. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Still holding the wine, she linked her hands behind his neck. “Bri.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Who are all these people?”

  He laughed, nuzzling into her neck. “You’ve got me.” The scent of her had him hardening. Moving to the sinuous beat of the Lennon/McCartney number, he brought her against him. “What do you say we take a trip upstairs and leave them the rest of the house.”

  “That’s rude.” But she moved against him. “Wicked, rude, and the best idea I’ve heard in hours.”

  “Well, then …” He made a halfhearted attempt to pick her up, sent them both teetering. Wine spilled cool down his back as Bev giggled. “Maybe you can carry me,” he said, then heard Emma scream.

  He rammed into a small table as he turned. Dizzy from drugs and booze, he stumbled, righted himself, and rushed into the foyer. There were people already gathered. Pushing through them, he saw her crumpled at the foot of the steps.

  “Emma. My God.” He was terrified to touch her. There was blood at the corner of her mouth. With one trembling finger, he wiped it away. He looked up into a sea of faces, a blur of color, all unrecognizable. His stomach clenched, then tried to heave itself into his throat.

  “Call an ambulance,” he managed, then bent over her again.

  “Don’t move her.” Bev’s face was chalk-white as she knelt beside him. “I don’t think you’re supposed to move her. We need a blanket.” Some quick-witted soul was already thrusting a daisy afghan into her hands. “She’ll be all right, Bri.” Carefully, Bev smoothed the blanket over her. “She’ll be just fine.”

  He closed his eyes, shook his head to clear it. But when he opened them again, Emma was still lying, dead-white, on the floor. There was too much noise. The music echoing off the ceilings, the voices murmuring, muttering all around. He felt a hand on his shoulder. A quick, reassuring squeeze.

  “Ambulance is on the way,” P.M. told him. “Hold on, Bri.”

  “Get them out,” he whispered. He looked up and into Johnno’s shocked, pale race. “Get them out of here.”

  With a nod, Johnno began to urge people along. The door was open, the night bright with floodlights and headlights when they heard the wail of the sirens.

  “I’m going to go up,” Bev said calmly. “Tell Alice what’s happened, check on Darren. We’ll go to the hospital with her. She’s going to be fine, Brian. I know it.”

  He could only nod and stare down at Emma’s still, pale face. He couldn’t leave her. If he had dared, he would have gone into the bathroom, stuck a finger down his throat, and tried to rid his body of some of the chemicals he’d pumped into it that night.

  It was all like a dream, he thought, a floaty, unhappy dream. Until he looked at Emma’s face. Then it was real, much too real.

  The Abbey Road album was still playing, the sly cut about murder. Maxwell’s silver hammer was coming down.

  “Bri.” Johnno put a hand on his arm. “Move back now, so they can tend to her.”

  “What?”

  “Move back.” Gently Johnno eased him to his feet. “They need to have a look at her.”

  Dazed, Brian watched the ambulance attendants move in and crouch over his daughter. “She must have fallen all the way down the stairs.”

  “She’ll be all right.” Johnno sent a helpless look toward P.M. as they flanked Brian. “Little girls are tougher than they look.”

  “That’s right.” A bit unsteady on his feet, Stevie stood behind Brian with both hands on his shoulders. “Our Emma won’t let a tumble down the stairs hold her up for long.”

  “We’ll go to the hospital with you.” Pete moved over to join them. Together they watched as Emma was carefully lifted onto a stretcher.

  Upstairs, Bev screamed … and screamed and screamed, until the sound filled every corner of the house.

  Chapter Nine

  LOU KESSELRING SNORED like a wounded elephant. If he indulged in a beer before bed, he snored like two wounded elephants. His wife of seventeen years coped with the nightly event by wearing earplugs. Lou knew Marge loved him in her own steady, no-nonsense way, and he considered himself fortunate and smart for not sleeping with her before marriage. He was honest, but had kept this one little secret. By the time she’d discovered it, he’d had his ring on her finger.

  He was really rattling the shingles tonight. It had been nearly thirty-six hours since he’d slept in his own bed. Now that the Calarmi case was closed, he was going to enjoy not only a good night’s sleep but a whole weekend of sloth.

  He actually dreamed about puttering around the yard, pruning roses, playing a bit of catch with his son. They’d barbecue some burgers on the grill and Marge would make her potato salad.

  He’d had to kill a man twelve hours before. It wasn’t the first time, though, thank God, it was still a rare occurrence. Whenever his work took him that far, he needed, badly, the ordinary, the everyday. Potato salad and charred burgers, the feel of his wife’s firm body against his during the night. His son’s laughter.

  He was a cop. A good one. In the six years he’d been with Homicide, this was only the second time he’d had to discharge his weapon. Like most of his colleagues he knew that law enforcement consisted of days of monotony—legwork, paperwork, phone calls. And moments, split seconds, of terror.

  He also knew, as a cop, that he would see things, touch things, experience things that most of the world was unaware of —murder, ghetto wars, back-alley knifings, blood, gore, waste.

  Lou was aware, but he didn’t dream of his work. He was forty, and had never, since picking up his badge at the age of twenty-four, brought his work home.

  But sometimes it followed him.

  He rolled over, breaking off in mid-snore as the phone rang. Instinctively he reached out, and with his eyes still closed, rattled the receiver off the hook.

  “Yeah. Kesselring.”

  “Lieutenant. It’s Bester.”

  “What the fuck do you want?” He knew he was safe using what Marge called the F word since his wife had her e
arplugs in.

  “Sorry to wake you up, but we’ve got an incident. You know McAvoy, Brian McAvoy, the singer?”

  “McAvoy?” He scrubbed his hand over his face, fighting to wake up.

  “Devastation. The rock group.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Right.” He wasn’t much on rock himself—unless it was Presley or the Everly Brothers. “What happened? Some kids turn up the music too loud and cook their brains?”

  “Somebody killed his little boy. Looks like it might have been a bungled kidnapping.”

  “Ah, shit.” Awake now, Lou switched on the light. “Give me the address.”

  The light woke Marge. She glanced over, saw Lou sitting naked on the side of the bed and scrawling on a pad. Without complaint, she got up, tucked her arms into her cotton robe, and went down to make him coffee.