Every Wild Heart Read online

  “Oh,” Nic said. A lump had risen in her throat, making even this small response difficult. She thought of Lucas asking if her mother was a diplomat, when all the while he’d known that she was Gail Gideon.

  She and Dr. Clay both looked again in the direction that Lucas had walked, but he was already gone.

  Chapter 19

  In my office, I played Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation. All week, I’d been having trouble thinking about anything other than those dead roses in our kitchen. Nothing in the house felt as it had before; that asshole’s presence was perceptible everywhere, like a layer of dust coating things once clean. The only times I didn’t think about those roses were when I had breakfast with Nic, when I thought about how I was days from seeing Patti Smith with Denny, and when I listened to music. By the time Martin appeared in my office, I’d turned Sonic Youth up so loud that the floor vibrated with each guitar riff.

  “I KNOCKED,” he yelled, dropping down into one of the chairs on the far side of my desk.

  I nodded. “WHAT’S UP?”

  Martin raised his eyebrows toward the speakers behind my desk. Without breaking eye contact with him, I pointed the remote over my shoulder and turned down the volume.

  “How are you doing?” he asked. Adam from security must have told him about the incident with the roses.

  I could tell he was really concerned, and it only made me feel worse. If Martin Jansen was at long last actually worried about one of my stalkers, then I was in even more trouble than I’d realized.

  “Shitty,” I said. “But the show must go on.”

  He wasn’t about to argue. “You know that I doubled studio security. You’re safe here.”

  “Here, maybe. But this happened in my own home . . .”

  “We should have given you a security team years ago.”

  “You did. I refused it. I didn’t want my daughter to have to live like an inmate. Anyway, I have security outside my house now, and someone still managed to get in.”

  Martin drummed his fingers against his thighs. “Gail, I just want you to know that nobody at Talk960—nobody in all of Hawke Media—is going to be able to sleep at night unless you feel safe.”

  I nodded, thinking about those renewal contracts that Martin was eager for me to sign. Sooner or later I was going to have to break the news to him that The Gail Gideon Show’s days were numbered. I just wished I could figure out what I would do instead.

  He shifted in his seat, glancing toward the stereo. “Is this Sonic Youth?”

  I was surprised. “I didn’t peg you as a Kim Gordon fan, Martin.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “Oh, I’m not. My daughter plays this stuff. It makes my teeth hurt.”

  I laughed. “I think my listeners would love ‘this stuff.’”

  Martin gave a wry smile. “Gail, they’d love anything you told them to love. You hold them captive in the palm of your hand for fifteen hours every week. If you told them that eating an otter’s tail would help them live happier lives, we’d be a nation of otter hunters by morning. Well, half a nation,” he added, meaning, of course, the female half.

  “Maybe I’ll test your theory. Play a little Sonic Youth during tonight’s show.”

  The smile fell from Martin’s face. “Very funny.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Gail,” he said. “This is a talk radio station. You host a talk show.”

  Simone opened my door and poked her head in. “Forty minutes ’til air,” she said, glancing back and forth between us. Martin kept his eyes on me.

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  “Gail,” Martin said.

  I waved him away. “I know. No music.”

  He held my gaze for a beat longer than necessary and then finally nodded, satisfied, and stood. “Have a great show, ladies.”

  The door hadn’t even clicked shut behind him before Simone began to laugh. “What was that little battle about?” She dropped down into the same chair that Martin had just left.

  I shrugged, irritated and feeling chafed by the station’s rules. I pointed the stereo remote over my shoulder and turned up Sonic Youth, loud. Really loud. Simone grinned. She pumped her fist in the air a few times and bobbed her head. I pounded my boots against the floor. We sang along with kick-ass Kim Gordon, gleefully ignoring the pained looks of Hawke Media employees scurrying by in the hall.

  “HOW WAS NIC?” I asked Roy as I slid into the car after the show that night. As usual, the backseat held the subtle, lingering smells of Corcoran Stables.

  “Great,” he answered. I could tell he was relieved and pleased to be able to provide such an upbeat answer. “She’s been keeping me entertained. Very talkative this week. I think it’s good for her to be riding again. That kid’s smile gets me right here every time.” Roy patted the area of tweed blazer that covered his heart. “Like an arrow.”

  “What has she been talking about? Riding Tru?” I asked hopefully.

  Roy’s lips screwed into an apologetic grimace. “No. Mostly she’s been talking about Peach.”

  Roy knew the whole story of Peach and Nic; I’d filled him in on the weekend’s surprises when he’d picked me up on Monday. He’d grown pale as I’d told him that Nic had made the dangerous horse her pet project, driving more and more slowly until I’d managed to reassure him that Nic was okay.

  “She’s proud of what she accomplished with that horse,” Roy ventured now, surprising me. “She feels really good about herself. She doesn’t say it, but I can see it. She’s carrying herself differently.”

  I nodded, watching his face in the mirror. This was more than he usually spoke on our rides home from the station, knowing that I preferred to quietly listen to music after talking so much during the show. I didn’t mind, though. I never minded talking about Nic.

  “And it is really something, isn’t it?” he said softly. “She’s fourteen years old and she saved that huge animal’s life. What an amazing feat. Can you imagine being so brave?” He shook his head in wonder. “Some people go their whole lives without worrying about saving anyone but themselves. But not our Nic.” He smiled. “I guess a certain someone cut a pretty good path for her to follow.” He glanced at me in the mirror and winked, and my eyes, right on cue, swam with sudden tears.

  I swallowed. “Are you saying that you think I should let her ride Peach?”

  Roy looked aghast. “Of course not! It’s much too dangerous. Let someone else take the risks now. Nic’s done her part,” he said, just as any grandfather worth his salt would.

  Chapter 20

  On Saturday night, Nic was watching a movie with her brothers when Lucas texted her. Her heart sped up when his name appeared on her cell phone.

  Can you come out tonight? There’s something I want to show you.

  Nic studied his words. I’m at my dad’s house in Mill Valley, she replied.

  There was a brief pause and then Lucas typed, Text me the address. I can be there in thirty minutes.

  She thought of the feel of Lucas’s lips against hers, and the way that sometimes, when he looked at her, the storm clouds in his eyes evaporated and sweetness and affection took their place, softening his features. Why had he pretended to not know who her mother was? She thought back to the moment on his first day at Kirke when their eyes had met in the cafeteria. Had he searched her out? Was he one of those people her father had once warned her about, the people who might want to be close with her only because she was the daughter of a celebrity? Had everything between them been a lie?

  Her trust in Lucas, so tenuously built, was now shaken, and she longed to right it.

  Okay, she wrote, and sent him her father’s address.

  Then she went upstairs to her bedroom, flipped through her school directory, and uploaded two new posts to KirkeKudos.

  Chapter 21

  You got a haircut,” I said, sliding into Denny’s truck on Saturday night. He wore dark jeans and a wool peacoat and looked as clean as I’d ever seen him. I was glad that he stil
l had a shadow of scruff around his jawline.

  He ran his hand through his hair. “More than one,” he answered and grinned. He leaned over and kissed me, holding the side of my face in his hand. The move felt bold, the sensation of kissing him still new and surprising. Patti Smith might have been the only person in the world who could have made me do anything but sit in that car all night, kissing Denny Corcoran.

  As we drove to the Fillmore, he asked if there had been any developments on the stalker situation. Earlier that week, I’d told him about the dead roses in the kitchen and the whole history with Jenny Long, and he had seemed preoccupied with the subject ever since.

  I told him that I hadn’t received any threats since the roses had appeared. “It’s been quiet—a little too quiet,” I said dramatically, and then laughed. I was happy to be riding with Denny in his truck and didn’t feel like lingering on the topic of Jenny Long.

  But Denny wasn’t ready to move on. “I worry about you, G.G.”

  I reminded myself that I’d had years to get used to the downsides of fame; this was all new to Denny, and probably overwhelming. “I know,” I told him. “I worry, too. But this stuff comes hand-in-hand with my job. I have to make peace with that or I’ll go crazy. I have to be able to laugh about it every once in a while. But all jobs have drawbacks, right? I bet you have to deal with overinvolved, overprotective parents all the time, don’t you? That can’t be fun.”

  “When the parent is hot and single,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “it can actually be a lot of fun.” His smile disappeared quickly. “Seriously though, if you and Nic ever want to get away from everything for a bit, you can always come stay with me. I mean that—regardless of whatever happens with us. I have lots of room.”

  I put my hand on the back of Denny’s neck. “I appreciate that. I really do. But I’m not going to run away. Besides, if we stayed with you, Nic would never want to leave. We’d probably find her sleeping in Peach’s stall.”

  Denny cleared his throat. “Well, yeah. About that. You know Nic wants to buy Peach, right?”

  “What?” I said. “Now she wants to buy her?” I still didn’t understand how Nic had gone from lobbying to get back in the saddle of her own horse, Tru, to being obsessed with this troubled horse, Peach. But obsessed she was. She talked about the horse every chance she had, and now even Denny was making a case for letting Nic ride Peach again.

  “Nic isn’t making the greatest decisions right now,” I said. “What if she wakes up one day and completely regrets having sold Tru? And how can we possibly trust her to ride a horse like Peach?”

  “I’ll train them myself. Nic won’t get on that horse unless I’m in the ring with them.” Denny paused. “Listen, you take a small risk when you get on any horse, and a bigger risk when you get on a horse like Peach. Nic’s decided the rewards—for both that horse and for her—outweigh the risks, but she’s fourteen years old. She doesn’t get to make that decision on her own.”

  I couldn’t deny that I’d seen something special between Nic and that horse, something that it felt wrong to forbid.

  “Fine,” I said. “If you’ll train them, Nic can ride Peach. But let’s hold off on selling Tru for now. Maybe she’ll come to her senses.”

  THERE IS JUST something about live music—the primal call-and-response echo of the beat and your own pulse, the roiling energy of the crowd, the excitement of seeing your idols in person. I watched Patti Smith own the stage, her long hair swinging as she sang and growled and moved. She was unpredictable and magnetic. A sense of hunger electrified the room like a challenge. The tone of her voice said that she was still searching, she still had so much more to do and say and create. She was passionate and singular and a beast of an artist—in other words, at sixty-something years old, Patti Smith was a fucking rock god. Her voice spoke right to me, maybe in that moment more than ever before.

  I knew what I would do with my show. I literally had goose bumps. Patti Smith, personal hero, poet laureate of punk, gave me that final, loving shove of inspiration, as she always had.

  When she played “Because the Night,” Denny and I grinned at each other. I’d heard the song so many times before, but the idea of feeding on a banquet of love had never felt as true as it did in that moment, standing beside Denny, hearing Patti’s voice and feeling so gloriously full of joy that I could only dance and dance and dance.

  In my pocket, my phone buzzed. I felt Denny glance at me as I pulled it out. Tyler’s name appeared on the caller ID I slid the phone back in my pocket. A few moments later, it buzzed again. And then again. Irritated, I yanked it from my pocket and read the text that Tyler had sent in lieu of leaving a voicemail.

  Nic is missing. Call me.

  AS DENNY AND I jogged toward his car, I called Tyler. Nic had had dinner, watched part of a movie, and then told her brothers that she was going to read in her room. When Tyler went upstairs to wish her goodnight, her room was empty, and her cell phone lay on her bed. “Do you think she went to the barn again?” he asked.

  I told him that Denny had already sent one of his employees who lived near the stable to check if she was there. “I’ll call her friend Lila. Maybe she knows something.” I still had Lila’s number programmed into my phone from when Nic had had a sleepover at her house during the first couple of weeks of school.

  Lila claimed to not know where Nic was. When I asked if they’d spoken that day, she said they hadn’t, but there was something in her voice that made me question whether she was telling the truth.

  “What about this boy she’s been seeing?” I asked. “Lucas. Do you have his phone number?”

  “Lucas Holt,” she said quickly. “Yeah, hang on, let me check the school directory.” The line was silent for a few moments. “There’s no phone number . . . maybe because he just moved here? There’s an address, though. Do you want that?”

  I told Lila that I did, and then repeated it so that Denny could begin driving in the direction of Lucas’s house.

  “Will you let me know when you find her?” Lila asked. “There’s something I really need to tell her.”

  The caginess had edged its way back into her voice. “Lila,” I said, summoning my most stern, adult tone. “Is there anything else I should know? Are you sure you didn’t speak with her at all today?”

  “No, I—I didn’t speak with her. But she posted something online earlier tonight . . . maybe forty minutes ago?”

  I felt my chest constrict. “What do you mean ‘she posted something online’?” On top of everything else, had Nic broken my rule about avoiding social media? She’d been with me when we’d discovered those dead roses in the kitchen . . . surely she wouldn’t think it was safe to put her life on display for a bunch of strangers?

  “Well, I’m not positive that it was her.” Lila told me about an account called KirkeKudos that had been posting on Instagram lately. “No one knows who’s running it. Whoever it is posts nice things about our classmates at Kirke. New ones have been showing up on the account every day.” I had the sense that Lila was trying not to cry. “There were two posts tonight. One was about Lucas Holt. The other was about me.”

  “And you think Nic wrote them?”

  “She said some really nice things. I think she might be the only one who knows me well enough to write that stuff.” Now she did begin to cry.

  “And Lucas?” I asked. “What did she write about him?”

  “That one was sort of strange, actually. It wasn’t the usual KirkeKudos thing. Hang on. Let me read it to you.” There was a stretch of silence.

  “‘Lucas Holt: Your anger is a flame that will never rage as boldly as your heart. We see you living valiantly, saying yes when all others would say no. You are an artist, and your fire is a mystery that pulls us close even as it burns.’”

  Even as it burns? My throat grew dry. What the hell was going on?

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, we pulled up to a small but neat house in San Bruno. I stared at the silver Mercedes with a New Yor
k license plate that was parked in the driveway, then hurried toward the house. A woman around my own age answered the door, her eyes widening in surprise and excitement as she saw me. Her hand flew to her mouth, her dark, Jenny Long–like hair swinging against her shoulders. The woman that I’d seen in front of Kirke had not been Jenny Long—it had been Lucas Holt’s mother.

  “Oh my God! G.G!” she cried. “What are you . . . ? What is going on?” Her eyes darted beyond me, taking in Denny’s presence. Her expression toggled frantically between delight and confusion.

  I was sure that I had never met this woman in my life; this was the reaction of someone who had opened her door at ten o’clock on a Saturday night to find a famous person—her idol, perhaps—on her doorstep.

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late,” I said. “I’m trying to get in touch with Lucas Holt. He goes to school with my daughter, Nic, and she’s missing.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “I’m Lucas’s mom, but he isn’t home. He went to the movies with some friends. Maybe Nic is with them? Do you want me to call him?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Come in. Let me just get my phone.” The woman stepped back from the door so we could pass inside.

  “I’m Gail Gideon,” I said, because it felt strange to walk into her home without a proper introduction. “And this is Denny Corcoran.”

  She barely glanced in Denny’s direction. “I know who you are, G.G. I’m one of your biggest fans!” The woman’s cheeks flamed red. “Oh, I didn’t introduce myself! I’m Evie. Evie Holt.” Her hand fluttered to her forehead. “No, Giambalvo. Evie Giambalvo. I’m getting a divorce. I never guessed it would turn out so hard to remember my own last name—and I had it a lot longer than I had my husband’s!”