Family Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 2) (3 page)

“How’re you doing, Max?” I kept asking.  If he was going to get
sick again, I wanted to be prepared. 

“Okay,” he assured me. He pronounced it “Otay.”

“You let me know if you’re going to throw up again, okay?”

“Otay,” he said pitifully.

I fished out a big bowl from the cabinet and handed it to him. 
“Throw up in here if you need to.”

He pushed it away. “Don’t like throw up!”

“No one likes throw up.  But it’s better to do it in here than
on me,” I explained.  I turned on the faucet and ran my arm under the water.  Morgan
was still crying and Felicia appeared in the doorway again with the baby in her
arms.

“I don’t think she likes me,” Felicia said.

“Don’t feel bad.  She doesn’t like me either.”

“Here,” she said, trying to hand me the baby.  “You feed her. 
I’ll clean the kitchen.” 

I dried off and reluctantly took the baby from Maddie’s
cousin.  And the strangest thing happened . . . she stopped crying.  Felicia 
looked just as surprised as I did.  “Wow.  She stopped crying,” I said
stupidly.

Felicia smiled.  “She
does
like you.”

“I think it was a fluke,” I said. “Here.  Take her back.” I
handed Morgan to Felicia to see what happened and the kid burst into tears
again.  Felicia handed her back, and
Presto!
she stopped.  I laughed out
loud.  It was so cool, I almost wanted to do it again.  Instead, I looked at
the baby. 

“Hey there,” I said in a ridiculous voice that I had sworn I’d
never use.  “You like your Daddy?”  The kid actually smiled.  I looked at the
kitchen floor and felt a twinge of guilt.  “You okay here?” I said, with a
sweeping motion of my hand that encompassed the whole ungodly mess.

“Go feed Morgan,” Felicia said, and I made a mental note that I
owed her big time.  Maybe I’d even sue the Porsche guy for her. 

So Felicia started on the vomit while I sat on the couch and
gave my daughter a bottle.  It was a whole new experience for me, feeding her
during the afternoon when we were both wide awake.  Her eyes were a dark blue
like Maddie’s and what hair she had was practically white.  Every once in a while
she’d stop slurping and just look at me, studying my face, and then she wrapped
all her tiny fingers around my finger and held on to it and smiled.  My baby
liked me.

Morgan fell asleep in my arms and as much as I would have
enjoyed to just sit there and watch her, there was still the kitchen to contend
with and Max was in dire need of a bath.  I laid Morgan down in her crib and by
some miracle she stayed asleep, then I returned to the kitchen to assist
Felicia. What would have probably taken me the rest of the afternoon to clean
up, she’d done in less than 30 minutes. There was no sign of the revolting mess
I’d left her with. Even the sink. 

“What’d you do with everything?” I asked, trying to figure out
what I would have done.

“I said
Abracadabra
,” she said, wiggling her fingers in
the air, “and it all just disappeared.  Right Max?”  She inched her fingers
over to Max and tickled his bare stomach and he curled up laughing. 

There were not many nice things I could say about Maddie’s
cousin, but I had to admit that she came through in a crisis.  Right then, I
almost liked her.

“Thank you, Felicia,” I said humbly. 

“Glad I could help.  How ‘bout I bathe my little friend here?”

Max smiled up at her, then looked over at me.  “Lecia bathe
me.”

I somehow felt like I’d be shirking my responsibility if I let
Felicia bathe Max, but it didn’t bother me enough to refuse the offer.  “Yeah,
sure.  You want a beer?”

“Afterwards.”  She turned her attention back to Max.  “Come on
toughie.”  She took him by the hand and walked back towards the kids’ wing. 
The phone rang as I heard her calling out to Oliver.  Prospects were definitely
looking grim for the Porsche guy.

“I’ve got great news for you,” the voice on the end of the line
said.  “Your cat’s doing great.”

I was about to ask what she was talking about, since the
Siamese was sitting three feet away from me licking himself, and then I
remembered.  “You’re kidding.  He looked like he was on his last leg.”

“She did look bad, but it’s mostly from neglect.  Poor thing
was terribly dehydrated and malnourished.  That’s why her coat looks so bad. 
Her leg was broken some time ago and it was never tended to, so it healed
crooked, but she seems to get around all right. What is it with you and cats
and broken legs?”

“I don’t know.  Bad luck?”  Shortly after the Siamese had
adopted me, a guy had taken his frustrations over a lawsuit out on my cat. 
“What about where I hit him?”

“I don’t find anything.  Your tire must have barely touched
her.”

I was beginning to think the lying-on-the-sidewalk routine was
all a ruse.  The damn cat knew a sucker when he saw one.  It all made sense. 
He wasn’t looking me in the eye to make sure I didn’t hit him; he was scoping
me out as a prospective owner.  I was his mark.  Seeing it in that light, my
respect for the cat went up tremendously.

“When can I pick him up?”

“Her.  Any time.  We’re here until 5:30.”

Felicia had surfaced the year before, shortly after Maddie and
I had gotten married, which also happened to be the time when Maddie had come into
a sizable fortune.  I was suspicious not only of the timing of Felicia’s
appearance, but of the circumstances surrounding her initiation into the family
circle, as well.  She called Maddie out of the blue one day, announcing that
she was a long-lost cousin; the daughter of Maddie’s mother’s first cousin once
removed, or something ridiculous like that.  She claimed to have been adopted
out at birth, and having lost the only parents she’d ever known within months
of each other, she’d sought out her biological mother.  As she had put it,
No
way in hell was she going to go through life without a family.
   When
Felicia arrived, her birth mother had been dead for four years, but there was a
senile great aunt, and of course, Maddie’s branch of the family.  Maddie was
ecstatic to have a new relation.  I smelled a rat.

I called on my investigator friend, Niki Lautrec, whom I dealt
with on a regular basis in my law practice, and I told him my suspicions about
Maddie’s so-called cousin. His agency conducted a complete background check on
Felicia, and much to my surprise, she checked out.  She was exactly who she
said she was. 

That probably should have put an end to my suspicions right
there, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that her timing was a little too
coincidental.  I kept waiting for her to  ask to borrow money, but she never
did.  To the contrary, by all appearances she was comfortably self-sufficient. 
She had moved to San Antonio within a month of discovering her family ties, and
she had started a business of refurbishing what I considered junk, then selling
it at exorbitant prices to shops that doubled the price again before they sold
it.  The crap people pay top dollar for never ceases to amaze me.

A year had passed since I’d met her and I still didn’t like
her, but Felicia was blissfully unaware of my feelings.  As much as I hated
asking favors of people I dislike, as of that day I hated car seats more, so I
headed back to the kids’ room to compound my  indebtedness to Maddie’s cousin. 
She and a clean-smelling Max met me in the hall. 

“You look clean,” I told Max.  “How do you feel?”

“He threw up again,” Felicia said.  She must have seen the
horror in my face because she quickly added, “In the toilet.  He feels like he
has fever too.”

Fever
.  Fever was definitely Maddie’s domain.  I
silently cursed myself for having relinquished so many parental duties
exclusively to Maddie.  It had left me clueless as a father. I never would have
let that happen in my law practice.  And how could I not have seen this day
coming?

I picked up Max and put my cheek against his forehead. 
Fever
. 
I looked at Felicia.  “I don’t suppose you know what to give him?” I asked
hopefully.

“Oh, I bet we can figure it out,” she said optimistically. 
“Where’s the medicine cabinet?” 

As much as I hated to admit it, discounting the hair, Felicia’s
looks were similar to Maddie’s.  They had the same facial structure but Felicia
was taller and her eyes were a pale, almost transparent shade of blue, much
lighter than my wife’s.   She was pretty enough to be taken for Maddie’s
sister, but as far as I was concerned, her good looks were negated by her high
ranking on my irritation scale.

Felicia followed me into my bedroom.  Our huge poster bed
looked like it belonged in a castle instead of a house.  It was one of the few
pieces of furniture Maddie had gone overboard on with her settlement, but after
we got it home and into our bedroom, we agreed it was worth every penny.

I held Max while he lapped up whatever it was that Felicia gave
him, then I set him back down.  Oliver came running in dressed in his Superman
costume and he and Max took off to their playroom.  Felicia agreed to watch the
kids while I fetched the cat and when I got back, everything seemed to be under
control. 

Everything except the Siamese.  Even before he could have
possibly known there was an intruder, the bastard knew there was an intruder. 
Black Cat was boxed up in a cardboard carrier with the words, “
I’m feeling
much better now, thank you,
” emblazoned on the side, and as soon as I set
him down, the Siamese was on his feet.  His fur stood up in a Mohawk all the
way down his back and his tail bristled to three times its normal size.  He
walked around the box suspiciously with his head tucked to his side, first from
a distance, then gradually closing in on the trespasser, and finally, he lifted
his front paw and batted at the box, while emitting a growl from deep in his
belly.  It was pretty much the same greeting he’d given me when we met, so I
didn’t pay much attention.  He’d gotten used to me; he’d get used to the cat. 
Eventually.  

By then, I had an audience.  Felicia and the boys were oohing
and ahhing as I took Black Cat out of his carrier and set him down on the
kitchen floor.  The Siamese crouched down, his tail whipping back and forth,
making motions like he was about to pounce.  But then he changed his mind. 
With calculated deliberation, he looked at me and hissed, then the bastard got
up and sauntered out of the room.  A good example of one of the many reasons I
don’t like cats.

Black Cat settled onto a towel I laid down for him in the
laundry room and Oliver and Max settled down next to him, stroking his fur and
scratching him behind the ears.  I opened two beers and handed one to Felicia. 
She looked preoccupied.  I’d been so relieved to have some reinforcements that
up until then, I hadn’t even wondered why she’d come over.  It wasn’t like her
to pop in unexpected, unless Maddie had put her up to it.  I leaned back
against the kitchen counter and took a draw off my longneck. 

“So what brings you around here today, anyway,” I asked.  “Did
Maddie tell you I was going to be alone with the troops?”

“Yeah.  But I’d forgotten,” she smiled. “Something came up that
I wanted to talk to her about.”

Her red hair was freaking me out. I’d just gotten used to her
being brunette. I could tell she wanted to enlighten me on whatever she was
going to tell Maddie, but I preferred not to get involved.  Felicia was always
cooking up some scheme and I didn’t want to be any part of it. 

“I have a brother,” she said out of the blue. 

“Say what?”

“I was looking through a box of my mother’s papers at Aunt May’s,
and I found out that I have a brother.”

I could only imagine what was coming.  Whether it was by her
own doing or someone else’s, nothing normal ever happened to Felicia.  I set my
beer down, waiting.

“I found a newspaper article.  He’s a quadriplegic.  A football
injury.  Broke his spinal column.” 

I’d learned that when Felicia was trying to remain detached she
spoke in short, clipped phrases.  I wholeheartedly supported the diced sentence
structure if it kept her from crying. 

“He’s younger.  Two years,” she continued.

She had yet to tell me the most relevant detail, and in spite
of myself, my curiosity was getting the best of me. “Well, where is he?” I
asked impatiently.

“I don’t know.” 

“You don’t know?” Maddie’s family had more intrigue than a
mystery novel.  “Didn’t you ask your aunt?”

“Of course I asked my aunt. What kind of question is that?”

“A stupid one,” I admitted.  Felicia was kooky, but she wasn’t
an idiot.

“Aunt May can’t remember from one minute to the next.”

“Well there has to be some sort of record as to what happened
to him,” I said.

“I’m sure there is, it’s just a matter of finding it.  The
foreman at May’s ranch said there are a bunch of boxes stored in one of the
barns.  There may be more of my mother’s things in there.”

She had this hopeful look on her face like she wanted me to
offer to help her.  I had a better idea.

“I have a friend who can find out what happened to your
brother.  Get me all the information you have and I’ll pass it on to him.”

Felicia went straight to her purse and pulled out a slip of
paper and held it out to me with a giant grin on her face.  I should have known
better.  She’d had the whole thing planned. 

“Let’s call him!” she exclaimed, and she clapped her hands
together like Oliver might.

“Now?”  I looked at my watch.  Niki Lautrec was a bad
influence, and I really didn’t feel like talking to him right then.  If he was
in town, he’d find out that Maddie wasn’t and he’d insist that we go out
drinking.  And somehow or other, he’d get me in trouble. 

“I don’t even know if he’s in town,” I said.  “If I leave a
message, he probably won’t call back until Monday.” It was a lie, but Felicia had
no way of knowing that.