“Hey,” I greeted Lucy as I stepped out of the trailer. Like me, she wore yoga pants and a T-shirt. When I told her I’d started running the beach in the morning, she jumped on the chance to join me. I wasn’t sure why she wanted to spend time with me, but I enjoyed her company so why question it?
She threw me her glamorous smile as she rounded the SUV, and I marveled at her ability to look constantly flawless. “Hey, yourself.”
We fell into companionable silence, walking down the grassy edge of the dunes and onto the beach. The sand was soft and golden, resistant to our footfalls until we neared the shore where it was compacted by the water’s continual caress.
Lucy stopped and took in a deep breath as she looked out across the sea. “There’s nothing like it here. The fresh sea air. The sound of perfect silence.” She eyed me with a soft smile. “I always thought perfect silence was nothing. But it’s not. It’s the world devoid of human noise. It’s waves lapping at the shore, gulls crying in the sky, the breeze whistling over clifftops and soaring down valleys.”
I smiled at her as I started warm-up exercises. Lucy followed suit, and I observed, “I think there’s a writer in you, Lucy Wainwright.”
“Do you? Because I’m writing a script.”
“About what?”
“It’s a character story. Rags to riches. No clichés. Kinda … autobiographical. Though that’s just between me and you. I would never sell it as that. My business is my business.”
Hearing the hard edge in her tone, I nodded in agreement. “I thought you were taking time off?”
“Oh, I am. And I’ve been offered amazing material, too, but you have to listen to your body, you know.”
I definitely understood.
Falling into silence, we jogged. It wasn’t surprising that Lucy kept up with me. I knew from our relaxed mixed martial arts lessons that she worked with the personal trainer at the estate every day. Being in shape was a prerequisite for the action roles she enjoyed between her more character-driven work.
After five miles, we turned and made our way back.
We were still about a mile from the caravan park when it started raining, and my muscles burned with the strain of running on sand. I slowed, breathing hard, hands on knees as sweat trickled down my spine.
“That was … that was great.” Lucy puffed out. “Why … why haven’t I—I been doing that … the whole time?”
“Beach running?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, right? Tougher on the muscles. And invigorating.”
“It is.” Lucy straightened to join me in cool-down exercises. “Though I’d prefer later in the morning. I need my beauty sleep.”
I shrugged unapologetically. “I’m an early bird.”
“Then I guess I’m up early for the foreseeable future. It’ll do me good.”
“If this is how you look early in the morning, I don’t think you have to worry about it affecting your beauty,” I assured her.
“You’re sweet.” Lucy beamed. “When you say stuff like that, I know you actually mean it. There’s no insincerity or jealousy behind it. It’s refreshing.”
We were silent as we finished our cool-down and then moved again. The drizzle felt great against my hot skin as we ambled down the beach. “Is that what it’s like? Envy and fakeness all the time? Hollywood, I mean?”
“Not everyone. Obviously. Lachlan isn’t like that. There’re lots of actors not like that, although there are lots of actors who are … it’s more about LA. Everyone is constantly in competition. For everything. It’s exhausting. Sometimes you don’t know who your real friends are, and when they say you look beautiful, there’s this look in their eyes like they wish you’d fall off a cliff and die.”
Shocked, I raised an eyebrow.
At my silence, she gave me a sad shrug. “I’m not exaggerating. Don’t get me wrong, I have some good friends in the industry. But I have some girlfriends in LA who started out in the business at the same time as me and hate that I’ve had success. They try very hard to hide it but can’t. I’m just one more pretty face standing in their way.”
“You’re more than a pretty face. You’re a damn good actor.”
“Thank you, Robyn. I mean it. You’re a good person. I could tell that right away about you. But it makes sense. Mac is too.”
The insinuation that I was anything like Mac caused a twist in my gut. It wasn’t that I was blind; I could see there were similarities between us. But I still didn’t know how to handle my emotions when it came to my father.
Reading my silence, Lucy admitted, “I have a shitty relationship with my father too.”
I glanced at her sharply, surprised she trusted me with personal information. “I didn’t know that.”
“No one does. I don’t talk about my personal life in interviews. Drives the journalists batshit.” She chuckled. “I’m very good at evasive maneuvering. Adds to my mystery. Anyway … my dad ran out on us when I was eight. Mom remarried a real dick, and my dad never came back. I hated him for a long time, and I know I would benefit from hashing out my issues with him. You’re brave.”
“You think I’m brave?”
“Coming all the way to Scotland to face the man you feel abandoned by? Yeah, I think that’s pretty damn brave.”
Her words were a balm; I hadn’t been feeling very brave since arriving here. “I haven’t spoken to him about anything but this case. I don’t want to upset him while he’s recovering, so everything is still up in the air between us.”
“That’s fair. Just because you don’t want to push him right now doesn’t mean you’re avoiding the issue. Right?”
“I don’t know about that. It feels like I’m putting it off. You should’ve seen me when I first arrived. I sat down in his office and honestly thought I was going to start sobbing my guts out right there and then. I couldn’t leave fast enough.”
“Robyn, I don’t know the ins and outs of what happened between you two, but give yourself some slack. Parents have this ability to cripple us emotionally. Trust me. You’re doing good. I mean, look”—she gestured up the sand dunes to my trailer as we approached—“you’ve turned what was a flying visit into an indefinite stay so you can find the person who did this to Mac. Give yourself some credit.”
I snorted. “I would if I were any closer to figuring out who’s behind the attack.”
Concern strained her features. “You don’t have any clue?”
“There are a few people who have motive, but there’s no evidence to support it’s any one of them.”
“Shit.” Lucy drew to a stop at the hood of the Range Rover, her arms crossed over her chest. “I’d hoped you were getting somewhere.” Her stunning blue eyes met mine. “At least Lachlan discovered the security system was hacked.”
Surprised moved through me. “He did?” Why didn’t I know about that? I felt a sting of emotion I didn’t want to name.
“Yeah. He just got word last night. His security guy found all kinds of evidence the system was hacked, so now he’s trying to hack the hacker to see if they can trace who it is.”