life. I want you to know that. Especially since you’ll be heading to London to shoot.”
“I was going to see about you coming with me until I saw how happy you were here, how happy Dad and Lily are. Their gain, my loss. But it’s not until February, so if you change your mind . . . Either way, I’m back here for Christmas and staying until after New Year’s. I want some time with my girl.”
“She wants time with you. How about saddling up and taking a ride while you’re here?”
“Three’s a crowd.”
“No. It’s not like that. We barely know each other. I don’t think he’s involved with anyone, but we’re . . .”
“Before you say ‘friends,’ I’ll point out you talk about your friend you barely know quite a bit.”
“Do I?” Maybe she did. Maybe she thought of him quite a bit, too. “I guess it’s a fascinating lifestyle. And the work ethic? Sullivans know about work ethic and passion for the work. I think it must take an innate kindness, and innate grit, to tend animals and the land the way they do.”
She realized she was, again, talking about him.
“You know, I think Sullivans have either the best luck with relationships or the worst. So far my track record there’s not so great. I think I’ll focus on the work and making sure Grandpa behaves himself when G-Lil’s in New York.”
Shifting, she looked out the glass wall. “Moon’s up,” she murmured.
“I’m going to take that as my cue, get back up to the house.” He rose, walked over to kiss the top of her head. “I like thinking of you sitting here, looking out at the moon over the water. Content.”
She gave his hand a squeeze. “That’s just what I am.”
While he walked up the path, she sat, watching the moon. She thought she had a great deal to be thankful for. If some of her blessings had grown out of one horrible night, wasn’t it worth it?
In the week before Christmas when the high hills carried a lacing of snow and the air snapped like a crisp carrot broken in two, Cate lit candles to fill the house with the scent of pine and cranberry. She’d decorated her own little tree, had wrapped presents—poorly, but she’d wrapped them.
Her grandparents had taken a quick trip to L.A. for a holiday party—one she’d begged out of. Instead she settled into her studio to work, and didn’t give L.A. a thought.
When she finished for the night, she shut down, checked her phone. Checked a voice mail.
“Ho, ho, ho!
Naughty, naughty. Didn’t do what you were told.”
Her own dialogue from her first voice job piped up. “I know who I am, but who are you?”
“Cate, Cate, where is Cate?”
Now her mother’s voice, gleeful. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
A scream, a laugh, and a final “Ho, ho, ho.”
Weary, Cate saved the voice mail. She’d send it to Detective Wasserman for his files.
Okay, yes, her hands shook, but only a little. And she’d do what she hadn’t done since coming back to Big Sur. She’d lock her doors.
But she’d wait until morning to call her father because why give him a sleepless night. She’d keep that upset for herself and do what she always did when the past crept into the now.
She’d find an old movie on TV, one with plenty of noise, and fill the night with sound.
And she’d wait to tell her grandparents until they returned from L.A.
The evening air held balmy in L.A. Holiday lights twinkled with the temperature hovering in the midseventies as the sun dipped down toward twilight.
Charles Anthony Scarpetti, retired from the practice of law, drew a hefty fee on the lecture circuit. He often appeared as a legal expert on CNN.
At seventy-six, with three divorces under his belt, he enjoyed the single life and the smaller home that required only two day staff and a weekly grounds crew to maintain.
He had a pool man, three times a week. He credited swimming, his preferred method of exercise, for keeping him in top shape.
Swimming, and a few careful nips and tucks. After all, he remained a public figure.
He swam every morning—fifty laps. He did another fifty every evening, with a top off in his whirlpool before bed. He’d given up cigars and refined sugar—both a sacrifice.
He slept eight hours a night, ate three balanced meals a day, kept his alcohol intake to a glass of red wine nightly.
He fully expected to live, healthily, into his nineties.
He