FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (24 page)

S
kip not only tried to
have a good Christmas, he succeeded. He knew Kate was disappointed that she
couldn’t be with her parents and siblings, but he was secretly pleased to have
his new little family all to himself.

And Kate’s
disappointment was short-lived. They had a lovely time. Edie had no concept of
what was going on, but she was all for new toys–one of which was her first
little rocking horse. Skip had a baby-sized cowboy hat to go with it that he
had bought in Texas. They joked that it was a half-gallon hat rather than a
ten-gallon one.

There were also wrapped
presents from the grandparents and aunts and uncles. Skip helped the little
girl rip the paper off the boxes. She was then much more interested in playing
with the colorful scraps of wrapping paper than with whatever was inside the
boxes.

Maria was spending
Christmas with Rose’s family but she had cooked a turkey breast with the
trimmings for them to heat up, along with several Guatemalan Christmas treats—
tamales
stuffed with cheese and fruit and
buñuelos
, little balls of fried dough
sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.

After they had finished
the feast, and had washed the cranberry sauce out of the baby’s hair, Kate took
her in the nursery to put her new Santa’s elf pajamas on, sent by her
grandparents.

They had decided to
wait until Edie was asleep to exchange their own gifts. While Kate was putting
the baby to bed, Skip was making a nest of blankets and pillows in the middle
of the living room floor. He would let her believe that he was just being
romantic. But he was also guaranteeing that no one could get to Edie without
coming through him.

When she came out of
the nursery, he was sitting in the nest. He patted the bedding in front of him.
She smiled at him and sank down to lean back against his chest. His arms
encircled her from behind.

They sat like that for
awhile, watching the lights sparkling on the tree, their first Christmas tree.
The bottom two layers of branches were looking a little ragged where Edie had
pulled off clumps of needles and had then tried to eat them. Fortunately, they
had been able to thwart these attempts to add extra fiber to her diet. Most of
the unbreakable ornaments Kate had put on the lower branches were now on the
floor.

“Next year maybe we
should get an artificial tree,” Kate said.

“Hopefully by next year
she’ll have a little better concept of what’s edible and what’s not.”

“Don’t count on it.”

He chuckled and
tightened his arms a bit around her, sighing with contentment. Nudging a
brightly wrapped box with his toe, he said, “That’s from my mom.”

Kate pushed his arms
apart so she could scoot over and pick up the box to unwrap it. Inside was an
incredibly soft wool sweater, the same shade of blue as her eyes. “Oh, it’s
beautiful!” She pulled it out of the box and held it up.

“Looks like it should
fit,” Skip said. “She asked me a bunch of questions and then I e-mailed her a
picture of you.” That palm-sized camera was definitely a handy little gadget.

“This looks handmade.”

“Yup.”

“She made this in three
weeks!”

Skip nodded. “She can
make those knittin’ needles fly.”

“I think I’m gonna like
my new mother-in-law.”

She pulled the black
top she was wearing off over her head. Skip sucked in his breath and started to
reach for her. She slapped his hands away. “I want to try it on,” she said. The
blue sweater was on in less than a second.

“Damn! You’re too quick
for me. You keep flashing flesh at me like that and we’ll never get to my
present for you.” He grinned at her as she rubbed her hands up and down her
arms.

“It’s so soft! Feel
it.” She held an arm out toward him.

“I’d better not or
we’ll be exchanging Christmas gifts on New Year’s Day.”

Kate laughed as she
picked up a shirt box, wrapped in gold paper, and moved around to sit
cross-legged facing him. She handed him the box, then bit her lower lip and
prayed that this was the right thing to do.

Skip hefted the box. It
felt empty. He looked at her quizzically.

She gave him a small
smile. “Open it.”

Inside, under a thick
layer of tissue paper, was a sheet of stationary. He pulled it out and read,
“Dear Mrs. Huntington, As per your request, we have added the name of Reginald
William Canfield, III, as co-owner of your brokerage account. As soon as you
are married, we can change your name on the account as well. We will require a
photocopy of the executed marriage license. Enclosed is the most recent account
statement showing the current balance, as you requested. Congratulations on
your upcoming wedding...”

“I’ve been looking for
a good opening to tell you,” Kate said. “That life insurance policy Eddie
had...”

Skip had picked up the
second sheet of paper from the box. His eyes went wide when he saw the
figure–$998,354.

“Eddie’s old partner’s
been advising me on investments.” Kate was talking fast now. “He says it’ll be
back up over a million fairly quickly, unless I have to hire guards again to
discourage picketers.” She tried to laugh but it came out sounding more like a
strangled cough.

“What the hell,” Skip
said under his breath. His face was blank as he tried to process what all this
meant.

Kate bit down so hard
on her lip, she tasted blood. This had been a big mistake. She hoped she hadn’t
ruined their first Christmas together. “Please don’t be mad. This is the last
of the things in that cart, you know, the one we got before the horse.”

His expression was
still stunned but he reached out and touched her lips with his fingertips. She
relaxed them under his touch. “Why would I be mad, darlin’?” he said softly.

“Because I didn’t tell
you sooner. And you seemed to be a little sensitive on the subject of money,
you know, when I tried to pay for things, or help you out with the start up of
the agency.”

“Darlin’, that was when
I thought you were trying to support yourself and Edie with a part-time job and
whatever you were getting from Ed’s half of the accounting firm’s profits... I
never dreamed you had this...”

Her eyes were still
anxious. “I’ll put it in a trust fund for Edie, if it bothers you.”

“Kate, I’m okay with
this. What were you so worried about?”

“I... I was afraid this
might change things, somehow come between us. I kept putting off telling you
about it... And the longer I put it off, the harder it got to tell you. I
wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to lose you, so I made it
our
money. But–”

“Kate,” he interrupted,
putting his fingers on her lips again. “I’m honored that you trust me this
much, to put my name on this account before we’re even married. And you will
never,
ever
lose me.”

“I’ve already trusted
you with my heart and my child.” Her voice was just barely above a whisper.
“The money seemed pretty unimportant next to those two things.”

Skip pulled her onto
his lap. Indeed, the sweater was incredibly soft. He tenderly kissed her bottom
lip, a bit swollen now from being chewed on. Her lips parted, inviting him in,
and he lost himself in the kiss for awhile. Then he gently laid her back in the
nest he had made for her, and made love to her.

It was a long time
before they got around to his gift.

~~~~~~~~

W
hen Skip woke the next
morning, he extracted himself carefully from their nest so as not to wake Kate.
It took him a moment to find his jeans in the jumble of bedding and clothes.
Finally he spotted the darker, duller blue hiding under his mother’s gift to
her future daughter-in-law. He paused for a moment to recall the sensation of
slipping that soft fabric slowly up and off Kate’s lovely body, as he’d trailed
kisses up her torso and breasts.

He sucked in his
breath, then felt a little strange. Should he be thinking about his
mother
’s
gift in such sexual terms?

He silently laughed at
himself. He might not like to think of his mother as a sexual being, but she had
been married to his father for thirty-nine years–the man who had advised his
son to love his woman on a regular basis, until her eyes rolled back in her
head.

He was pretty sure he
had accomplished that at least twice last night.

The beginnings of baby-waking-up
noises were coming from the nursery. That brought him back to the here and now,
and the reality of a sopping wet diaper. If he was lucky it would
only
be sopping wet. He grinned as he headed for the nursery to take care of the
child before her fussing got any louder.

Ten minutes later he
placed a freshly diapered and now only slightly cranky baby on the floor near
her mother, who was still asleep under the blanket Skip had tucked around her.

It had made a major
dent in his savings account to buy the necklace that was currently the only
thing she was wearing under that blanket. The diamond sparkled from the hollow
at the base of her throat. It had been worth every penny! His mother’s ring,
with all its family history, belonged on her finger. But he had wanted to give
her a diamond that was just from him.

Of course it was a bit
easier to contemplate his depleted savings now. All the money in that brokerage
account only meant one thing to him though.
Security, for my family.

His reverie was interrupted
when Edie crawled over to her mother and patted her cheek. “Ma, muh.”

Kate’s eyelids
flickered as Skip scooped up the baby. “Shh, little one,” he whispered. “Let’s
let your mama sleep a little bit longer.”

It was Skip’s turn to
get his cheek patted. “Uh Ski.”

“No, Edie,” came a
sleepy voice from the floor. “Da, da.”

~~~~~~~~

O
n Monday afternoon,
Detective Randolph called Canfield’s cell phone to report that the plan had
worked like a charm. He had gotten a good handwriting sample, as well as prints
of the thumb and first two fingers of each hand, as Tammy Wingate held his pen
in one hand and the paper steady with the other while she wrote.

Unfortunately the week
between Christmas and New Year’s was not a good time to get results from a
police lab. Between personnel taking time off to be with their families, and an
increase in certain crimes, the detective had been told he’d be lucky if they
got to it by the first of the year. Randolph reminded the young man to stick
close to his fiancée and the baby until they got the results back.

“Still not hardship
duty, sir,” Skip said, with a small chuckle. But after he disconnected, his
mood sobered. Recalling Rob’s words, and Rose’s silence, he debated whether he
should tell Kate about the latest note at this point. Several more days of
keeping her in the dark did not bode well for her reaction when he finally did
tell her.

He definitely couldn’t
tell her about his conversations with Randolph until they got the results back
from the lab. If there was no match, he might never have to tell her. And if
there was a match, he was fairly sure she would forgive him. She would be too
busy being relieved that they now knew who was sending the notes and could do
something about it.

But keeping the note
itself from her, that would be perceived as protecting her, and he knew she
hated that. Could he tell her about the note without blurting out the rest of
it? Probably not. He could lie when he had to in order to do his work, but he
was a lousy liar when it came to dealings with the people he cared about.

And if he told her
about the note without the more optimistic news that Randolph might soon know
the identity of the sender, Kate would be terrified. How long would he be able
to watch her worried face, feel her tossing and turning beside him at night,
before he’d blurt out what he had done? Okay, now he
was
trying to
protect her.

Or was he mostly trying
to protect himself? He snorted.
Face it, Skippy, you’re a coward!
He’d
rather fight off several two-hundred-fifty pound men at one time than deal with
one hundred-thirty pound Irishwoman in a full-blown state of royally pissed.

I’d better tell her,
at least about the note.
He headed for the living room where she had been
playing with Edie a little while ago. But the room was now empty. He heard her
voice, full of excitement, coming from the kitchen.

Standing in the kitchen
doorway, he watched her as she jiggled Edie on one hip and talked into the
phone. “Okay, see you soon then.” She turned to Skip, her face bright with pleasure.
“Dad and Ma’s plane was a bit early getting in. Dad’s renting a car, so we
don’t have to pick them up. He said it’d be nice to have their own
transportation while they’re here. They’re going to do some visiting with
friends.”

Kate pecked him on the
cheek as she rushed by. “Come on, Edie, let’s get you into that new outfit
Grandma sent you.”

Skip realized that
there wouldn’t be much chance to talk privately for the rest of the day.
I’ll
tell her tonight, after her folks have gone to bed.

But at bedtime, he lost
his nerve.

O
n the first Saturday
of the new year, Kate was feeding her now one-year-old daughter her breakfast
cereal and daydreaming about the holiday vacation that was coming to an end.
Overall, it had been wonderful.

Her parents had arrived
a couple days after Christmas to celebrate Edie’s first birthday with them.
Rose and Mac and the Franklins had joined them for a small party. That day was
when Kate had really missed her siblings, especially her sister Mary.

Her folks were thrilled
that Skip was to be their new son-in-law. Her father hadn’t stopped beaming the
whole time they were here. They had flown home late yesterday afternoon, to get
back in time for a big
shindig
, as her father had called it, at their
retirement community this evening.

Kate was brought out of
her reverie by the ringing of the phone. She reached over to grab the portable
out of its charger on the counter. It was the answering service.

“Lady wouldn’t give her
name, just her number, but she said she was a client of yours. Sounded pretty
upset.”

Kate sighed as she got
up to get paper and pencil to jot down the number. She figured she should
consider herself lucky there hadn’t been any emergencies before this. Turning
the baby over to Maria to wipe her hands and face, Kate punched the number into
the phone.

It took a moment for
her to realize that the sobbing woman who answered was Tammy Wingate. She made
calming noises while trying to figure out what she should do. She did not
particularly want this difficult client back in her caseload. Especially since
this woman and/or her husband might have been the sender of those notes.

“I know I have
absolutely no right to ask this of you, Kate, but I really need to see you. I’m
falling apart, and I have no one else to turn to. Please, please, can I see you
today, just for a few minutes?” the woman begged.

Okay, the fact that
she gets it that she has no right to ask is a good sign,
Kate thought.
Knowing she might end up regretting it, Kate agreed to meet Tammy at her office
in an hour.

Now the question was
what to tell Skip. Despite the lack of notes for almost a month, he was still
being very protective. He was not going to like the idea of her going to the
office alone, but she could hardly show up with him in tow. Who knows what that
would set off in Tammy’s psyche if she didn’t already know that the
investigator she had hired to spy on her husband was the fiancé of her
therapist.

Maybe Skip would be
satisfied if Rose followed her over and watched her go into the building. She
found him in the living room, where Maria had deposited Edie next to her toys.
After telling him that she had an emergency, she said, “I think Rose is off
duty today. Maybe she can follow me over to the office, so you can stay here
with Edie and Maria.”

Skip looked at his
watch. “Actually she’s doing some surveillance work in a little while. But she
probably hasn’t left yet. Maybe she could take you over on her way, and then I
could come pick you up when you’re done. I’ll pile everybody in the truck and
then we’ll go do something fun as a family.” That way Kate would have to stay
put until he got there. If she had her own car, she’d be likely to just come
home.

It flashed through his
mind that he should tell her now about the more recent note, so she’d know
there was an increased risk. But then she would be pissed off and upset just as
she had to deal with a client in crisis. Maybe not a good idea.

Especially since she
was already rushing toward the bedroom, saying over her shoulder, “Can you call
Rose while I change my clothes?”

~~~~~~~~

A
udrey woke up Saturday
morning with a sense of excitement. She had her first obstetrician’s
appointment today, in over four years. She couldn’t wait to hear the doctor
confirm that she and Ted were going to have another baby!

Crawling carefully out
of bed so as not to wake Ted, she went into the bathroom to take a shower.
She’d been lucky to get a Saturday appointment, so Ted could stay with Alicia.
She needed to ask her friends about reliable teenagers in the community, now
that she could no longer just call her mother whenever she needed a sitter.

When she came back into
the bedroom, her robe wrapped around her, Ted was sitting up on the side of the
bed. “Bad news, babe,” he said. “Pete just called. I’ve gotta go in.”

Pete was the weekend
foreman at the small manufacturing company where Ted was the new Vice President
of Production. The plant was currently going full tilt to meet a government
contract deadline.

“Crap,” Audrey said.
“What am I going to do with Alicia, then?”

“Can you reschedule?”

“Yeah, but I won’t be
able to get a weekend appointment any time soon.”

Ted grimaced. “Can you
take her with you?”

Audrey sat down on the
side of the bed next to her husband to think about that option. “I may have to.
But it’ll make things awkward when he’s examining me, and she’s been such a
handful lately.” Audrey frowned as she imagined herself trying to monitor
Alicia while discussing serious issues with her doctor, such as the risk of birth
defects now that she was older. She paused for a moment, contemplating another
option. Her mother had been much more subdued and cooperative the last couple
times she had talked to her.

“Maybe Mom would be
willing to come over and watch her here.” As desperate as the woman was to see
her granddaughter, Audrey was fairly sure she’d jump at the chance to babysit.

Ted’s face brightened.
“Call her and see,” he said, as he got up to grab a shower.

Audrey threw on her
clothes, hustled Alicia out of bed and into the bathroom to brush her teeth and
then grabbed the phone to call her mother.

Frances Wells always
tried to resist the sin of lying. She had to improvise fast. She wasn’t about
to pass up a chance to see Alicia, but she’d had a different agenda for this
morning.

She quickly adjusted a
knob on the stove and slid a cake pan into the oven. “I’d love to, Audrey,” she
said, “but I’m in the middle of baking a cake. Why don’t you bring her over
here? Your father’s going to be occupied all day. Some sports thing. He said
he’d be home around four.”

She could sense her
daughter’s hesitation on the other end of the line. “Audrey, I do get it. I
don’t believe your father ever did anything to you. But I’d never jeopardize my
grandchild’s safety.”

Tears sprang to Audrey’s
eyes. Those were the words she had hoped her mother would eventually say.
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Frances hung up the
phone and went into the living room where her husband was watching the golf
channel. “Dear, I hate to ask but I just realized I need more vanilla extract
and I’ve got a cake in the oven. I need to bake another one today, ’cause I
promised Joanne at church that I’d bring at least two for the bake sale
tomorrow. If you’ll run out and get me some more vanilla I’ll bake your
favorite coconut cake for dessert tonight.” She smiled at him, praying that he
would, for once, be cooperative.

He grumbled a bit but
then turned off the TV and got up to fetch his car keys.

Smelling something
burning, Frances raced into the kitchen and turned off the oven. Grabbing an
oven mitt, she pulled the cake pan out.

The empty scorched pan
was unsalvageable.

~~~~~~~~

R
iding to the office in
Rose’s car, Kate was feeling guilty. She probably should have told Skip who she
was going to see. Well, ethically she wasn’t supposed to. But she had told him
she was not a rash person, didn’t take risks. So what was she doing now?

But then again, she
most likely didn’t have anything to fear from this woman herself. The threats
in the notes had been aimed at Kate’s family. If Tammy was the note sender, she
probably wouldn’t attack Kate directly. Especially since Tammy seemed to need
her at the moment.

That is, unless Kate
poked the hornet’s nest too hard. She had decided she was going to look for an
opportunity to probe about the notes. She wasn’t willing to keep living like
this, having to be guarded, and on guard, all the time, constantly worried
about the safety of her loved ones.

In the unlikely event
that Tammy tried to hurt her, Kate was fairly confident she could protect
herself. She had taken several self-defense classes through the years, and she
exercised regularly.

It never occurred to
her that the woman might have a weapon.

As Rose swung into the
parking lot, Kate saw Tammy getting out of her car. “You can let me out here,
Rose, and watch to make sure we get into the building okay.”

“Be sure to lock
yourself in the center, Kate, and
stay there
until Skip comes to get
you.”

“Okay,
Mom
, and
I won’t let the boys take advantage of me either.”

Rose flashed her a
quick grin. “Seriously, Skip’s not just being over-anxious here. We don’t know
that the threat is gone.”

Kate thanked Rose for
the ride and got out to escort her client into the building. As they neared the
door, Fran pushed it open and stepped outside.

“Hey, Fran, Rob being a
slave driver and making you work on Saturday again?” Kate said, as the woman
held the door open for them.

“Yeah, big court case
next week. I’m going on a donut run. Stop by and say hi later.”

“I might do that. Happy
New Year, Fran.”

Tammy managed to hold
it together until they were actually inside the center, then she burst into
tears in the middle of the empty waiting area. Kate put her arm around the
woman’s shoulders and herded her into her office and over to the loveseat. She
handed Tammy the tissue box and while the woman was dabbing at her eyes, Kate
quickly went over to lock her door.

“Okay, Tammy, can you
tell me what this is about?” Kate asked, as she settled into her chair.

“Oh, Kate, I made such
a mistake leaving you. I hope you’ll forgive me and let me come back.”

Kate dodged the
question by asking one of her own. “What happened to change your mind?”

“That other therapist I
was seeing, she turned out to be horrible. The first few sessions, when I was mostly
complaining about Mark and about... uh, she was great then. But when I finally
got up the nerve to tell her about my parents, and the things my father did to
me, she didn’t believe me!”

“Who is it you’re
talking about? Who were you seeing?”

“Sylvia James.”

Kate managed to keep
her face neutral. Sylvia James was a novice therapist with whom Kate had
crossed paths at a conference a few months ago. When Kate had identified
herself as a trauma recovery specialist, the woman had bluntly declared that half
the people with
supposed
PTSD just had lively imaginations, especially
if they were claiming they had been abused as children. James had then
expounded on the fallibility of human memory and how easily it could be
influenced by suggestion. When Kate had attempted to politely insert that, yes,
memory was fallible but nonetheless child abuse was a very real phenomenon,
James had talked right over her. Kate had finally walked away from the woman
while she was in mid-sentence.

Kate interrupted
Tammy’s blow-by-blow description of her last session with James. “Tammy I know
this woman. Your perceptions of her are accurate.”

That brought Tammy up
short. Kate usually implied that she was over-reacting.

“Sometimes people
really are...” Kate caught herself. She shouldn’t be slamming a colleague to a
client, no matter how much she disliked that colleague. “Well let’s just say,
even intelligent people can be misinformed.”

“Oh Kate, I felt so
awful when I left her office on Wednesday that I wanted to kill myself. And
then I had to spend New Year’s Eve by myself, and I missed Mark so bad, even
though the son-of-a-bitch broke my heart... I tried to do the right thing, not
be so needy. That’s what Mark always said, that I was just too needy, that I
drove people away. And he’s right. I’ve been driving the people I love away
ever since I was a kid.” Tears were once again pouring down the woman’s face.

“I tried so hard to
wait until Monday for the center to open. I was going to call and make an
appointment.” Tammy buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Kate. I couldn’t
stand it anymore. I was starting to think about what was in my medicine cabinet
that I could take to get away from the loneliness once and–”

“Calling me was the
right thing to do,” Kate gently interrupted again. As she attempted to calm
Tammy down and assess her stability, she realized that the young woman was
actually a bit less borderline than she had been recently, despite the suicidal
thoughts and emergency call.

Finally Kate said,
“Tammy, you may not be ready to hear this but I’m going to say it anyway. As
long as you were trying to save your marriage, I was supportive of that goal,
but now I’m thinking that you’re actually doing
better
without Mark.”

There was a flash of
something in the woman’s eyes–was it anger? Then Tammy started to protest, “But
I miss him–”

“Of course, you miss
him. But missing him is not the same thing as needing him back. In time, you’ll
get over missing him. I know that’s hard to believe right now, but you will...
And here’s what I’m seeing. You were handling life okay, even got through
Christmas without him, until your therapist let you down. And even then you
tried not to interrupt my holiday, which I appreciate. Quite frankly, the Tammy
who was living with Mark Wingate was much more selfish than that. You’ve been
so wrapped up in trying to get him to meet your needs, that you were becoming
more and more that desperate, self-centered child.”