Red Dawn Rising (Red Returning Trilogy) by Sue Duffy Read Free Book Online

mother. The tragically flawed daughter. And the clueless stepfather whose innocent life she’d so shamelessly meddled in. What Broadway producer would resist such a scenario?
    As if receiving her subliminal prompt, Jordan finally turned from a quick scan of the view and asked, “Think we’d better be going?”
    “Oh, so soon?” Jillian moaned.
    “How about dinner next weekend?” Hans offered brightly. “Our treat.” He smiled graciously at them. “We’ve discovered a new French bistro I think you’d like.”
    “Thanks, Hans,” said Cass. “But we’re going with some friends to Washington and staying over until Monday. We’ve got tickets for the inauguration.”
    It was almost imperceptible, but Cass didn’t miss the shadow that flickered across her stepfather’s face.

Chapter 8
    C ass spent the following afternoon repairing a staircase to nowhere at the Gershwin Theatre. She welcomed the mindless task that allowed her thoughts to stray. As she sawed and nailed, distressing new boards to appear old and rickety, she caught a mental glimpse of herself in her workshop behind the beach house. It was a prefab structure her father begrudgingly purchased for her twelfth birthday, the only thing she’d asked for.
    “What’s wrong with you?” he’d scolded. “Why can’t you be like other girls and play dress-up instead of acting like a boy? Get out of those overalls and go find some girlfriends.”
    But inside the metal workshop, she’d started building her own world, free of her parents’ fractious marriage and her father’s relentless disapproval of most everything she did. Her mother had created her own escape—Broadway. She never missed a show and nearly always took her young daughter with her. Together, they’d sit in the dark of one theater or another and slip around the jagged edge of reality into merciful illusion. By the stage lights, Cass would watch her mother’s face glow as it rarely did at home. It was the same face Cass was used to seeing on glossy pages and on the occasional billboard, though its luster was paper thin and pasted on. It was her mother’s job to coax a convincing glow from cosmetic bottles and jars, from plastic posing. But the face next to Cass in the theater radiated from unspoiled depths.
    It was the stage sets that most captivated young Cass’s imagination. She would sketch them during a performance, trying to figure out how they were built. Later, in her sprawling bedroom atop the three-story beach house, Cass drafted intricate plans for building her own sets. She began with a playhouse that took even her father by surprise, a cottage design with lots of gables, much like the grown-up, cedar-shake house behind it.
    “Hey, Cass!” Arnie, her boss, broke into her thoughts. “It’s gonna look real funny when the curtain goes up tonight and you’re still nailing on those steps. Get a move on!”
    “If I rush this job, Arnie, you know what’s going to be even funnier? The wicked witch falling through these steps and landing on her pointy hat.”
    “Yeah, yeah. Just hurry up.”
    Pushing childhood memories aside, Cass refocused on the job at hand. She was about to open a can of quick-dry black paint when her phone rang.
    Hans? She answered with a thin hello.
    “Cass, would you be able to meet me sometime this afternoon? Maybe for coffee. There’s something I need to discuss with you.”
    He’d never made such a request before. Could he possibly know she’d tailed him? There’d been no hint of it last night. Maybe something was wrong with her mother. Jillian was all she had. Of course she’d meet him.
    Later, Cass entered an elegant little diner off Broadway. Hans waved to her from a tufted-leather booth near the back. He stood as she approached and took her jacket, hanging it with fastidious care on a nearby hook, then sat opposite her. A bitter unease rose inside her, and she tried to shake it off, affecting a casual air.
    “This is a treat,” she said.