knew him would never forgive him. Probably because he couldn’t forgive himself.
Mike knew it all. Understood it all. He just wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to hold it all together for the kid.
“Just let me get you through high school,” he said aloud after hanging up from his mother. Once the boy graduated, he could leave town, and everyone who knew him, behind. Maybe in college, surrounded by strangers, he’d be able to find the sensitive, decent self that lurked somewhere inside him.
Maybe. If he’d let himself.
* * *
KACEY WAS ON edge all afternoon as she awaited Michael’s call. He’d said he was going to check out the address that morning. He’d already accessed whatever he needed from Lacey’s computer. And while he wasn’t meeting her sister at work until five, surely he had something to tell her. He was a nationally known forensic whiz when it came to computers. Something as small as a hacked email account wouldn’t stand a chance against him.
Someone was out to hurt her. She just needed to know who it was so she could figure out why and what she was going to do about it.
Luckily the set that afternoon was a diner that many of the show’s regulars frequented and she only had a couple of scenes there and just one line. Little more than a walk-on. Even better, Tom wasn’t in either of them, so no more chances for Simon and Michael to merge.
Unluckily, Michael didn’t call, text or email, in spite of the number of times she checked.
AS LUCK WOULD have it, Kacey was in her car, battling downtown Hollywood traffic just after six when her phone rang. Michael’s name showed up on the dash screen. Pushing the button on her steering wheel, she answered.
“Did everything go okay with Lacey?” she asked first. Her sister hadn’t texted or called to tell her Michael had been there. Not that she’d had to, but Kacey had just expected to hear.
Then again, Lacey had no idea how close Kacey and Michael had grown over the past few months. With a twinge of guilt—she and Lacey had vowed not to keep secrets from each other ever again—she listened as Michael told her he’d been in and out of her sister’s office in a matter of minutes.
“Did you get what you needed?” Looking in her rearview mirror, she switched lanes and then, when the road was clear, pulled over to a just-vacated parking spot in front of a tourist shop.
She wasn’t all that far from her Beverly Hills condo but didn’t want to have to concentrate on Michael and LA’s rush hour traffic at the same time.
“I did.”
She tried to read his tone, to know if he was being so serious because this was business or because he had bad news for her.
“Did you get the email I sent last night with the names you asked for?” She’d turned Bo down for an after-show drink and come straight home to go through emails that were well over a decade old. Reading them had made her smile. And cry a bit, too.
She and Lacey had been so incredibly close. She’d taken it all for granted. Had thought she’d never be lonely one minute in her life.
It had never even entered her mind that they’d ever be anything but famous, rich and happy.
“I saw it this morning. I haven’t been home yet to go through them.”
Because he’d been in LA. She’d been aware all morning and had purposely kept herself open for lunch in case he’d texted with news.
“Where are you now?”
It might be a nosy question, but it was one she asked often enough in the random text messages they sent back and forth.
“Just stopped home to change. I’m on my way over to my folks’ house.”
She was beginning to wonder if she would ever meet them. For some reason Michael didn’t seem keen on introducing her to his family.
“For dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound too sure about that.”
“My kid brother got into a spot of trouble today. I promised him and Mom I’d be there to referee when Dad got home from work.”
It was more than he usually told her. She knew he had a kid brother. And that he’d gotten a tattoo on his back that Michael didn’t approve of. She didn’t know why, or even what type of tattoo it was.
“You do that often?” she asked now, picturing him as the big brother, trying to instill calm in the midst of family drama.
He’d be good at it. Lacey was, too. The best.
Kacey seemed to create the drama. Not that she meant to. Or wanted to.
“On occasion,” he said. “This time it’s for a good cause. The kid didn’t do what he’s being blamed for. Tomorrow I intend to help him prove it. I just need the old man to have faith for one night.”
Have faith. That hit home. She knew what it was like to need a family member to have faith in her when her actions hadn’t done much to inspire it.
Lacey had had faith, though. “I’m glad you’re there for him,” she said now. “He’s lucky to have you.”
Michael’s harrumph was about what she’d expected.
“I just wanted to let you know, before I go, that I don’t have good news for you, Kace.”
Her heart dropped as she watched a purple-haired, multipierced couple walk by her car, looking at her to see if she was, you know, someone.
She never left the studio in makeup or wig, and without them, could usually move around without recognition.
“What did you find out?” she asked slowly. “Who did it?”
“That’s just it. I didn’t find out who did it. I don’t know. I’ve got a couple of things yet to check, but it seems whoever posted that picture didn’t hack your email account.”
“That’s good, then, right? But I thought you said they used it to open that account...”
“It looks like they know your password, Kacey. It seems they went on the server and deleted the confirmation email that was sent to your address, which is why neither you nor Lacey ever received that email. They’d have to know your password to log on to the server.”
“But...I’ve never given that password to anyone, and I’m positive Lacey hasn’t either.”
“She said the same.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“I’ve got a couple more things I can check. Your password was so personal it’s pretty hard to believe that anyone could have
