Hot For Him Part 17

"Papa, it's me," she said when he picked it up on the first ring. He would be sitting by the phone, she knew, waiting for news.

There was a long pause before he spoke.

"I don't want to tie up the phone. There's been no news."

She stopped him before he could hang up on her.

"When did she go? How long has she been gone?"

"This morning. I went out for a while, and when I came back she was gone. She never came home."

His tone was cold, abrupt. As though he begrudged telling her anything.

"Have you called-"

"I've called everyone. We're handling things. I only let your brother call you because she might come to you."

"Papa, I want to help," she said.

"You gave up that right when you turned your back on your mother," he said, and then he did hang up on her.

Claudia stared at the phone. Her mother was missing, no doubt on a drinking binge that could last a day, or even a week, and might well end up with her father receiving a call from the hospital. Or worse.

She'd gone missing before, but this was the first time it had happened since Claudia had distanced herself from the family. And her father wouldn't let her help.

You chose this, she reminded herself.

But it didn't make her feel any better.

8.

"THERE'S SOMEONE OVER there, near the wall," Claudia said, squinting into the darker shadows.

She quickened her step, not even bothering to see if Sadie and Grace were following her as she moved across the garbage-strewn tarmac of a downtown L. A. parking lot. Her flashlight beam cut through the murky shadows and picked out the huddled shape of a body curled up against the wall. Claudia's steps slowed as she saw the piles of collapsed cardboard boxes nearby and the shopping trolley groaning with "treasures" gleaned from the street. This person had clearly been living rough for a while. There was no way it could be her mother.

Shoulders sagging, she turned back toward the street. It was three in the morning, and the three of them had been combing the fifty-block area of downtown L. A. not-so-affectionately known as Skid Row since midnight. Claudia's feet were sore, her shoulders aching with tension.

"Where to next?" Grace asked. Like the rest of them, she was wearing jeans and running shoes and carrying a flashlight.

"I don't know. The last time she dropped out like this was eight years ago, and we found her at a soup kitchen down here," Claudia said.

She didn't explain that her mother had fought them tooth and nail as they dragged her into the car. Left to her own devices, Talia had devolved to a state where finding the next drink was the only objective. She'd been missing for four days when they found her that time, and her face had been bruised and scratched from an accident or fight she'd had on the streets. Claudia would never forget the smell of her mother's unwashed body, or the feral, desperate light in her eyes, or the way she'd twisted and writhed to get away from them, knowing that at home she would not have ready access to the drink she craved.

But Skid Row had moved on in eight years, even if her mother had not. Developers had moved in, and many of the makes.h.i.+ft shantytowns were gone, replaced by s.h.i.+ny new apartment blocks and office buildings. The numbers of homeless sleeping in doorways, camping out in parking lots and against walls were far fewer.

"She's probably still cruising the bars," Claudia said, her gaze roaming aimlessly up and down the silent, dark street.

Her mother's patterns were fairly predictable; she would stay in the bars for as long as her money lasted and as long as they'd have her. Once she'd worn out her welcome-vomiting, pa.s.sing out or picking a fight with another patron-she'd be reduced to drinking on the streets. It would take a few days for her to form friends with other drunks and vagrants, and Claudia knew that their current search was probably futile, but she wasn't ready to give up yet.

They'd already trawled through all the old bars her mother used to frequent. No one had seen her, or if they had, she hadn't made enough of an impression to be remembered. Claudia didn't know what her mother had been wearing, or how she had her hair these days. She didn't know if her father and brother had already searched the same places she was searching. She was on the outside, locked out, unable to help. Frustration welled up inside her as she tried to order her thoughts.

"The man from the shelter said a lot of the homeless have been pushed down to the river now," Sadie said. "We could go down there, take a look around."

Even though Sadie's voice was filled with determination, it was impossible for her to hide how tired she was. She was in the first trimester of her pregnancy still, and Claudia knew she'd been feeling low on energy lately. She was looking very pale, her fine-boned face fragile in the hazy street light.

"You need to go home, Sade," Claudia said. "You look exhausted."

"I'm fine. I want to do this with you," Sadie said staunchly.

"Claud's right, Sadie. You're gray. We'll drop you home and Claudia and I will keep looking," Grace said.

"I'm not leaving, so get over it. I'm pregnant, not dying," Sadie said.

"Dylan will kill us if we take you home looking like something the cat dragged in," Grace said.

Claudia tuned out of their bickering, her gaze gravitating toward the huddled figure at the rear of the parking lot. Somewhere in this big city, her mother was doing her best to drown herself in a bottle. Claudia s.h.i.+vered to think of the dangers Talia Dostis had exposed herself to. When she drank, her mother often became aggressive and confrontational, despite the fact that she was a meek, accepting woman when sober. Claudia had often wondered if the drunk Talia was the truer woman-the one who honestly shouted her feelings and thoughts to the world. Or perhaps her rages were simply the flip side to the quiet domestic martyr her mother had turned herself into, the inevitable consequence of being so good, so dutiful, so ready to please most of the time.

Last time she'd gone missing, Claudia had been the one to shepherd her mother into the shower and wash away the smell of sweat and alcohol and dirt. She was the one who saw that her mother's underwear was inside out. Drunks did many things they wouldn't do when sober, Claudia knew. s.e.x with strangers was one of them.

She closed her eyes against the images flas.h.i.+ng across her mind. If she thought about any of it too much, she'd go mad.

"Claud," Grace said, and Claudia felt an arm slide around her shoulders.

"Don't, Claud. We'll keep looking, we won't give up," Sadie said earnestly, drawing close to embrace Claudia from the other side.

It was only then that Claudia realized she was crying, great big heaving sobs that seemed to come up from the soles of her feet. Unable to staunch the flow, she rested her head on Grace's shoulder and let her friends hold her.

"Why does she have to be like this?" she said brokenly. "Why?"

It was the lament of her childhood, and she knew there was no real answer.

Her mother never talked about her childhood in Greece, but Claudia knew it had not been a happy one. There was no one left to ask, but Claudia had pieced together enough to guess that Talia's own mother had been a drinker, and it was no secret that alcoholism ran in families.

But it didn't change the fact that Talia Dostis had every reason in the world to stay sober-a husband who adored her, children who loved her-but didn't. Maybe she just couldn't. It was something Claudia had considered-that maybe her mother simply had no control over her own behavior.

It was such a bleak, despairing thought. Claudia pressed her face into Grace's neck and sobbed her heart out. She may have detached from her mother, but she hadn't given up on her, not really. Accepting that Talia was not answerable for her own actions and was therefore unable to change them would be the ultimate defeat.

"Come on, let's go," Sadie said when Claudia's sobs had quietened.

They led her back to her car, and Claudia didn't object when Grace got behind the wheel and drove them to an all-night diner. Sitting in the car for privacy, they sipped at hot chocolates and ate dry, day-old donuts while Sadie and Grace offered their comfort.

"She'll be okay, Claud," Grace said. "She'll turn up, or we'll find her, or someone will."

Claudia nodded, staring down into her paper cup.

"Your brother will keep you in the loop, right?" Sadie asked.

"Yes. He's the one who called me tonight. Dad didn't even want to talk to me," Claudia said dully.

"Come on, let's go home," Grace said.

Claudia nodded. She was bone weary. Briefly she thought of how heavenly it would be to go home and be able to curl up tight in Leandro's arms, to seek solace and comfort against his big broad chest.

But he'd gone home. And, anyway, she didn't want to rely on him for comfort. She'd always looked after herself. Always.

Grace and Mac's place was the first drop-off, and Claudia slid out of the back of the car to take the wheel when Grace pulled into the driveway.

"Try to sleep. She might turn up tomorrow, you never know," Grace said as she hugged Claudia goodbye.

"She might," Claudia agreed.

Sadie yawned hugely all the way to the house she shared with Dylan in the Hollywood Hills. As soon as they pulled up, a light switched on. Dylan had been up waiting, Claudia guessed.

"Why don't you stay the night with us?" Sadie said. "I don't like the idea of you going home alone."

"I'll be fine. Honestly. Before I was just...worn-out, I guess. I'm fine."

"What about Leandro? You could go to his place," Sadie suggested.

Claudia could see Sadie wasn't going to let this go.

"I'll give him a call if it will make you feel better," she lied.

The last thing she wanted to do was to drag Leandro into all of this. It was such a private, personal shame. She didn't want to see the distaste on his face, the condemnation. As crazy as it seemed, she didn't want him to think badly of her mother, a woman he was never likely to meet.

Sadie seemed to buy her lie, however, and she gave Claudia a fierce hug goodbye before running up the path to where Dylan waited by the open door. Claudia watched for a moment as they kissed, Dylan frowning down into Sadie's tired face with concern. Then she reversed down the driveway and back into the street and drove home to her empty house.

There were no messages on her answering machine when she got home, and she sank down onto the couch and rested her head in her hands. She was so tired, but she didn't know how she was going to sleep. What she wanted more than anything was to still the worried thoughts wearing a track in her mind. What if her mother ran into traffic? What if she screamed at the wrong person? What if she fell asleep in the wrong place, or hooked up with the wrong people?

Pus.h.i.+ng herself to her feet, she went into the bedroom and toed off her shoes. Feeling pathetic, she crossed to her en suite and rummaged in the dirty clothes hamper until she found a T-s.h.i.+rt Leandro had left behind during the week. Shucking her own clothes, she pulled it over her head.

Surrounded by his smell, she curled up in bed. Perhaps her mother really would turn up tomorrow.

But it was hard to hope after so many years of disappointment.

WORKING AS A PRODUCER, Leandro had honed his people-reading skills to a fine art. It helped to know when people were lying, or uncomfortable, or unhappy when you were negotiating with creatives all the time and dealing with big egos and lots of money.

He didn't need any of his hard-won skill to know that Claudia was troubled, however. It was as though a light had gone out inside her. She was distracted, forgetful. She only picked at her meal when they went out for dinner on Tuesday night. And in bed, she made love to him with an intensity that was almost desperate. She'd been too busy to see him Wednesday night, and now, Thursday, she was looking hollow-eyed and tired and strung out.

"You want dessert?" he asked as she toyed with the salt and pepper shakers, her gaze unfocused, her thoughts clearly someplace else.

"No. But you have some if you want," she said, offering him a small smile that made it nowhere near her eyes.

Was this because of what they'd talked about after his grandmother's party? Was she freaking out over the acknowledgment they'd both made that what was happening between them was real and worth pursuing?

He studied her, noting the fretful way she pleated and unpleated her linen napkin, and the way she kept pulling her cell phone from her bag to check that it was on. His instincts told him that this wasn't about them. But something was clearly wrong, and he wanted her to tell him what it was.

Problem was, she was stubborn. She was also proud, and smart. She was used to being the boss, the person people turned to for solutions. He knew what that was like, and he knew that it was hard for him to ask for help when he needed it. Which meant maybe he had to offer it.

"Claudia," he said, only to be interrupted by her cell phone ringing.

She pounced on it as if she were expecting a call from G.o.d, and he frowned when he saw the profound disappointment in her face when she answered and the call clearly wasn't who or what she'd been hoping for.

"Okay. Yeah, no, thanks. I appreciate the update," she said.

She took an unnecessarily long time putting her phone back in her handbag, then she glanced up at him.

"Actually, if you don't mind, I think I'd like to go. It's been a long day," she said.

He stared at her, wanting to call her on her bull. But she was tired, he could see that. Tired and very worried about something. For the first time it occurred to him that it might be a work issue, something she didn't feel able to discuss with him.

"How's the show going?" he asked while Claudia signaled to the waiter that they wanted their bill.

She shrugged a shoulder, busy fis.h.i.+ng in her handbag for her wallet.

"Fine. Good."

It was hard to wring much meaning out of two words, but she didn't look like she was covering. So, not work then. Something personal.

He waited until they were in the car on the way home before trying again.

"So, when do you think you're going to talk to me about what's going on?" he asked as they stopped at a red light.

She shot a look at him, startled.

"Sorry?"

"Come on, Claudia-you're clearly upset about something. Talk to me," he said. "You never know, I might actually be able to help."

Her lips quirked into a bitter little smile. "I doubt it."

"Try me," he said as he pulled into her driveway.

She toyed with the strap on her handbag, and after a long moment, she lifted her head.

"It's a long story," she said, then her focus s.h.i.+fted to something over his shoulder and she stiffened with shock.

Before he could react, she was scrambling out of the car and racing around the front of the car toward her front porch.