The Bad Daughter(38)

Had it ever?

Yes, she decided, thinking of Blake. When she was with Blake, her life had made sense. At least in the beginning.

She’d been working as an assistant to a social worker at a vocational school in the Silver Lake district of L.A., her first job since graduating from Berkeley, when her boss had invited her to a party a neighbor of hers was throwing that night. She’d spotted Blake the minute she’d walked through the door. Tall and movie-star handsome, he was surrounded by a coterie of adoring females. Stay away from that one, Robin told herself, making a beeline for the other side of the room and engaging in small talk with whoever was nearby, trying not to look in his direction.

Until suddenly he was standing right beside her. “Hello,” he said, depositing a glass of white wine in her hand. “I’m Blake Upton.”

Run, she thought.

“And you are…?”

Her answer came from out of nowhere. “I’m the one who got away,” she said, handing the glass back.

And then she ran.

Out the door and into the night.

She kept running until she found a cab, until she was safely in her own apartment, in her own bed, far away from Blake Upton’s warm brown eyes and sensuous mouth, out of reach of the mischievous dimple in his chin, his thick brown hair, the soft command of his voice, all of which spelled trouble.

More than trouble.

Danger.

She spent the balance of the night alternating between congratulating herself for her resolve and berating herself for her stupidity. “The last thing you need is a man like that,” she lectured herself out loud. A man who can have any woman he wants. A man who will never be faithful.

A man like your father.

“So what? At least you could have gotten laid,” she told herself with her next breath. Then, as the sun was coming up on what had been a frustrating and sleepless night, “Oh, well. Too late. What’s done is done.”

Except it wasn’t done.

Blake found out who she was, and he called her the next night.

And the one who got away quickly morphed into the one who wasn’t going anywhere.

Which was precisely the problem, Robin realized now. The woman Blake Upton thought he was getting, the girl with the quick retort and the confidence to walk away, was nothing like the needy bundle of anxieties he ultimately found himself saddled with.

Which probably explained why he hadn’t returned any of the messages she’d left on his voice mail earlier tonight. Perhaps he assumed that was message enough.

Robin felt a tug on her bladder and climbed out of bed to use the washroom. She was opening her door when she heard the door to Landon’s room also open, and she quickly ducked back inside. Seconds later, she heard Landon’s door close and his footsteps recede down the hall. Only then did she crack open her door and see him disappearing down the stairs.

She stepped into the hall, tiptoeing toward the top of the stairs, the hardwood floor creaking beneath her bare feet. She heard the front door open and close.

She thought of waking up her sister, but didn’t want to risk Melanie’s wrath. Instead, Robin headed down the stairs after her nephew. “This is not a good idea,” she whispered as she opened the front door.

At first she saw nothing but the blackness of the night. Gradually, a curving sliver of moon appeared overhead, followed by a sprinkling of stars. A smattering of roadside trees swayed in the tepid midnight breeze.

And then she saw him.

He was standing at the end of the walkway at the side of the road, his body mimicking the swaying of the trees. “What are you up to?” she asked softly, watching her nephew take several steps toward her father’s house, then stop, turn back, resume his swaying.

Stop, go, sway, repeat.

Then Robin heard a sound come from the distance—a low rumble that grew louder as it drew nearer. A motorcycle, Robin realized, watching as the large bike materialized, its unmistakable form piercing the darkness as it slowed, then stopped to allow Landon to climb on.

A second later, the motorcycle sped down the road and was swallowed up by the warm night.

Robin stood in the doorway, trying to process the scene she had witnessed. “What just happened?”

Again she thought of waking up her sister. Again she thought better of it. If Melanie knew of Landon’s nocturnal wanderings, she was unlikely to explain them to her sister.

Robin closed the front door and hurried back up the steps, glancing repeatedly over her shoulder as she tiptoed past Landon’s room, then stopped and turned around. What the hell are you doing now?

Throwing caution to the wind, she opened Landon’s door and stepped inside his room, closing the door after her.

It was even darker inside the room than it had been outside, the tiny sliver of moon not strong enough to penetrate the sheer curtains. Robin debated turning on a light, then decided it was too risky.

“So what now?” she whispered, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. “What are you doing here? What do you think you’re going to find?”

After several seconds, objects began to take shape in the darkness: the double bed in the center of the room, the night tables on either side of it, a dresser next to a small closet on the opposite wall; the rocking chair in front of the window.

Robin moved to the bed, falling to her knees in front of it and quickly running her hands underneath it. Nothing but dust. She ran around to the other side and repeated the process. More dust. Wiping her hands on the front of her nightgown, she opened the top drawer of the closest night table, her fingers brushing over an assortment of pencils and paper clips before closing around a large ball of something soft and wriggly. Worms, she thought, dropping the ball to the floor and feeling it bounce against her toes. “Not worms, you idiot,” she said as she bent to retrieve it. Elastic bands. “Way to go, Nancy Drew.” She returned the ball of elastic bands to the drawer, then opened the drawer beneath it. It was filled with comic books: Archie, The Green Hornet, Superman.