“Now,” Hunter said, then hung up the phone.
Caroline stared at the receiver in her hand. “Aye, aye, Captain.” Reluctantly she tossed off her covers and climbed out of bed. “What’s the damn urgency?” she muttered as she pulled on a pair of jeans and exchanged her nightgown for a lightweight gray sweatshirt. She was almost at the front door, car keys in hand, when she realized she didn’t know where she was going. “I don’t know your address,” she told Hunter on the phone moments later.
Mercifully, there was little traffic at that hour and Caroline soon found herself in the formerly sleazy but now trendy downtown neighborhood known as the Gaslamp Quarter, her eyes searching the rows of beautifully restored Victorian buildings for her ex-husband’s address. When they were married, Hunter wouldn’t have considered living in this part of town, filled as it was with tattoo parlors, porn shops, and tenements on the verge of collapse. But the last decade had seen such old eyesores supplanted by shiny new art galleries, boutiques, and upscale restaurants. It had become the “in” place to be and be seen, so it was only natural that Hunter had recently purchased a condo here. Caroline opened her car window and breathed in the cool night air. Even at almost two A.M., music from several of the nearby clubs could still be heard, the throb of a lone bass guitar spilling out onto the street like an errant heartbeat.
Caroline located Hunter’s address and pulled into the first available parking spot, which was almost a full block away. It was October, and a slight breeze was blowing in from the ocean. She probably should have thrown on a jacket before she left the house, she was thinking as she walked briskly down the street. But Hunter seemed in such a damn hurry. What was the rush, for God’s sake? Why was he so anxious to get Michelle out of his apartment?
They were waiting for her in the rose-colored lobby, Hunter looking attractively disheveled in a pair of tight jeans and a white T-shirt, Michelle looking vaguely green around the gills, her long, uncombed hair hiding all of her face except for her eyes, eyes that were glaring at her mother with unabashed hostility.
“Are you all right?” Caroline asked her, ignoring Hunter, whose feet she noticed were bare.
“Get her home and into bed,” Hunter said, as if Michelle’s condition was somehow Caroline’s fault.
“I don’t understand. What happened?”
“It’s late,” he said, already turning toward the elevators. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Hunter…”
“Can we just go home?” Michelle wailed.
Caroline watched Hunter step inside the waiting elevator, then led her daughter out of the lobby and down the street, Michelle shrugging her mother’s arms off her shoulders as soon as they reached the sidewalk. Glancing back at Hunter’s building as they walked toward her car, Caroline saw a shadowy figure peeking out at them from behind some curtains about five stories up. Had Michelle created such a disturbance that she’d awakened Hunter’s neighbors? Was that why he’d been so anxious to get rid of her?
“I’m not an invalid,” her daughter said when Caroline tried to help her into the car.
“No, you’re fifteen and you’re drunk,” Caroline said, unable to keep her anger at bay any longer. “What the hell happened tonight?”
Michelle hunkered down in her seat, said nothing.
“What happened?” Caroline persisted, starting the engine and pulling away from the curb. “What were you doing at your father’s? And put your seat belt on,” she added when the seat belt signal started beeping.
Michelle dragged her seat belt across the low scooped neck of her tight powder blue T-shirt.
“That’s not what you were wearing when you left the house,” Caroline said, recalling the more modest black blouse her daughter had been wearing earlier. “Start talking, Michelle. What’s going on?”
Michelle groaned.
“That’s not an answer.”
Michelle bolted upright in her seat. “You want answers? Fine, I’ll give you answers. Did you know Daddy and Diana have set a date?”
“That’s a question, not an answer,” Caroline shot back, fighting to stay in control.
“And that she’s all of twenty-one.”
“Your father’s girlfriends are none of my concern.” Dear God—twenty-one? “Nor are they the issue here.”
“Did you hear what I said? They’re engaged. They’re getting married in June.”
“Again, none of my concern.”
“So it doesn’t bother you that he’s getting married again?”
“It’s not exactly unexpected.”
“Or that they’re planning this big wedding with more than two hundred guests and at least ten bridesmaids?”
“They told you that?”
“Not exactly.”
“How exactly?”
“I heard them.”
“What? When?”
“Before they knew I was there.”
“I don’t understand. How didn’t they know you were there? You’re saying you snuck into your father’s apartment?”