FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (5 page)

He let go of her hand
and opened the truck door for her. “Not exactly the way I’d planned to start
the evening,” he said.

She smiled at him,
feeling more secure now that the door was between them. “Want a do-over?”

He grinned back at her.
“So, Kate, where would you like to go this evening?”

They decided on
Chinese. When their food arrived, Kate laughed at Skip’s attempts to use
chopsticks. He finally tossed them on the table and waved for the waiter to
bring him a fork. “My hands are just too big and clumsy for those things.”

“Your hands are not
clumsy. I love your hands!”

Skip froze, his teacup
halfway to his mouth. He grinned, the gold flecks in his eyes dancing.

Okay, that might not
have been the best thing to say,
Kate thought. She changed the subject by
asking him a question about his childhood. She never tired of hearing his
stories about his family and growing up in a small town in Texas. She
especially loved the look in his eyes when he talked about his father, Reginald
William Canfield, the second, after whom Skip was named.

When there was a lull
in the conversation, Kate asked a question that had been on her mind for some
time. Now that she was surer about her own feelings, she felt brave enough to
ask it. “Skip, I’ve been wondering. It sounds like your folks had a great
relationship, so I’m kind of curious as to why you’ve shied away from
commitment?”

“Classic case of never
met the right gal.” He paused, then added, “Until now. Closest I ever came was
the last woman I dated seriously.”

His expression grew
sad. “We were actually living together, when my father got sick. I thought I
should move back to Texas. But when I brought it up, she flipped out. How could
I consider giving up my good job with the state troopers, and asking her to
abandon her career?

“We fought about it,
off and on, for a couple months. Then my sister called...” Skip’s eyes were red
rimmed. He looked up at the ceiling, swallowing hard.

Kate debated, then
reached across the table to take his hand.

“They never told me how
far along the cancer was. My father didn’t want me to disrupt my life, they
said. So they’d pretended that he had more time than he did. I never even went
home to see him, before...”

He pulled his hand free
to search his pockets for his handkerchief, turning his head away from her as
he blinked rapidly.

Kate waited quietly.

He swiped at his eyes,
then put away the handkerchief. “Can I have your hand back, by any chance?”

Kate reached across the
table again. He put his palm against hers and their fingers entwined. A surge
of energy–not sexual this time–flowed between their clasped hands. Kate’s
breath caught in her throat.

She’d never felt so
connected to anyone in her life.
Not even Eddie,
she thought, struggling
to ignore the stab of guilt.

“I got a little crazy
after my daddy died,” Skip was saying, his voice now thick with Texas. “Broke
up with Carrie. Quit the force. Had me a good ole-fashioned mid-life crisis, a
decade early. Bounced from job to job for awhile. Eventually ended up as a
bodyguard. I had finally gotten my act together and was working on getting my PI
license, around the time Rob hired me to protect you from your husband’s
killer.”

Kate had already known
a little bit about that period of his life but he hadn’t told her the whole
story before. She gently squeezed his hand.

Neither spoke for a
long moment. Then Skip said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him, “Do you
feel that?”

“Yes,” she whispered,
as she reluctantly tugged her hand loose.

“Kate, I...”

“No! Don’t go there
yet.” She reached over to gently touch his lips with her fingertips, then drew
them back. “Soon... but not yet.”

After a long pause, he
asked, “Can we at least stop pretending that we’re not dating?”

Kate’s emotions were so
stirred up that she couldn’t think straight. “Can I get back to you on that?”

“Do I have a choice?”
he said, frustration creeping into his voice.

“Yes, you do have a
choice,” she said softly. “But I’m praying that you keep choosing to be a
patient man.”

“No, Kate. I do
not
have a choice. I could no more walk away from you than... fly to the moon.”

“Oh, Skip, I’m sorry.
This is so unfair to you. Of course it’s silly to pretend we’re not dating.
But...” She stopped, not sure how to explain that she still wasn’t ready for a
physical relationship with him, not until she got Eddie out of her head.

His smile was gentle.
“It’s okay, Kate. We can leave the four-foot rule in place for awhile.”

She bit down on her
lower lip, resisting the temptation to reach out for his hand. “Skip...” She
faltered again. Her heart wanted to reassure him that she loved him. Her head
was saying that was a bad idea. Once those words were uttered, by either one of
them, there would be no backing up, except over the poor man’s heart.

“I wish it didn’t have
to be this way,” she said, her voice just barely above a whisper. “But I think that’s
what we need to do, for a little while yet.”

A
s Kate left work the
last Friday of October, she was really looking forward to the weekend. The next
night was Liz’s annual Halloween party. It was a tradition that Liz adored, and
her husband just barely tolerated. Every year Liz came up with costumes for
them. Rob’s usually made him cringe.

One year Liz had made
costumes that poked fun at Rob’s pickle addiction. His had been a kosher dill,
hers a baby gherkin.

They had skipped last
year. No one had the heart for it after Eddie’s death. But two weeks ago, Liz
had asked Kate how she would feel about resurrecting the tradition. Kate had
insisted that she do so. Liz had countered by insisting that Kate invite Skip.

Kate detoured from her
normal route home to make a stop at a costume store. As she drove, she thought
once again about getting some grief counseling, to speed up the process of
letting go of Eddie. It had been a month since she had admitted to Liz that she
loved Skip, and three weeks since they had
officially
started dating.
She was starting to fear that Skip would run out of patience if she kept him at
arm’s length much longer.

But the thought of
breaking the connection with Eddie once and for all made her heart ache. “Well,
that’s the point, Kate,” she said out loud.

She’d tried to just not
talk to Eddie, but she kept forgetting. Without forethought, she would find
herself conversing with him again.

I love you, Kate
,
echoed faintly in the back of her head. Tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked
them away and shook her head in frustration, as she turned into the shopping
center’s parking lot.

Once inside the store,
Kate recalled how Rob had teasingly called her Caped Kate. She headed for the
superheroes section. She was looking skeptically at a Wonder Woman costume,
wondering if she had the nerve to wear the revealing outfit, when she noticed a
Batman costume next to it on the rack. Thinking about Skip in that black
bodysuit kicked her heart rate into overdrive.

About half the people
at the party would be in costume, but the other half would be in normal attire.
Probably safer if she and Skip joined that half. Kate left the store
empty-handed.

When Liz answered the
door the following evening dressed as Tinkerbell, Kate had a real bad feeling.
She heard Skip snickering behind her. As they entered the Franklins’ living
room, she whispered, “Get it out of your system quick,
Skippy
. It would
probably be dangerous to laugh when you see him.”

A low chuckle was his
only answer.

The Franklin daughters
descended on them to ooh and ah over baby Edie, in the pumpkin costume Maria
had made for her.

Samantha, who was just
coming out of a rather rebellious stage, was dressed as a devil. Her father had
commented that it was a very appropriate costume for her. Her older sister,
Shelley, home from college for the weekend, was a witch.

Edie loved Sam’s
outfit. As the teenager held her, the little girl stroked the red satin
material of the costume while she stared at the funny little horns on Sam’s
head. Then she leaned over, almost flipping sideways out of the girl’s arms,
when she caught sight of the sequin-covered, pointed tail that curled and
bounced around Sam’s knees.

But the baby was afraid
of Shelley’s witch face and cried as the older girl got near her. Shelley had
to take off her fake pointed nose. She then used it to play peek-a-boo, putting
the big nose in front of Edie’s face and saying, “Where’s Edie? Where did she
go?”

Edie was delighted by
this new game.

Knowing that her
daughter was in good hands, Kate, with Skip in tow, went in search of Rob. They
found him in the family room, talking to Mac and Rose. All three of them were
in street clothes. Kate sidled up next to Rob. “She went too far this time,
huh?” she whispered out of the side of her mouth.

“Oh, yeah.”

~~~~~~~~

A
s Kate was getting
dressed for work on Tuesday, she smiled to herself, thinking about the
Halloween party. Her little pumpkin had been the hit of the party. Liz always
had the guests vote anonymously for best costume. As hostess, she exempted
herself from the contest, and Rob when he actually agreed to wear the costume
she had designed for him.

This year Edie had won
first place, with Samantha coming in second. The teenager had accepted her red
ribbon graciously, joking that it matched her costume. Kate, however, thought
that Sam had been cheated. Her costume was excellent, but who could compete
with a cute little baby.

In the car headed for
her office, Kate’s mood sobered as her mind turned to her schedule for that
week. Today was her long day, and her toughest session was likely to be
Tammy’s, right before lunch. Tammy had been in crisis almost non-stop for the
last two weeks. The number of emergency calls was increasing and Kate was
starting to get a little annoyed.

She reminded herself
that this was the nature of the woman’s disorder. Tammy wasn’t trying to be
annoying. The Catch 22 of working with borderlines was that their issues from
the past tended to fuel crisis after crisis in the present, and then those
crises interfered with their ability to focus on and deal with the past. As the
therapist trying to help them, you often felt like you were running full tilt,
in a tight little circle.

Kate was anxious to see
how Audrey was doing when she came in for her session on Thursday. More details
of the memory with the lollipop had surfaced during her session the previous
week, but the face of the man involved was still fuzzy. Audrey’s sense was that
this scene had occurred repeatedly over time. The man would say, “Come here,
sweetie. I’ve got a lollipop for you.” He would then coerce and cajole her into
having oral sex with him.

“Yick!” Kate said out
loud, shuddering as she turned into the parking lot behind her office building.
It never ceased to amaze and disgust her how depraved some people could be.

At eleven, Kate was
bracing herself before going out to the waiting area to usher Tammy into her
office. If she couldn’t get the woman stabilized, she was going to recommend an
in-patient treatment program.

The client spent the
first fifteen minutes reporting in gory detail every fight she’d had with her
husband that week. Kate’s attempts to break into the flow had been
unsuccessful. Tammy just talked over her.

When she finally wound
down, Kate said, “Quite frankly, I feel like we’re just going around in circles
here, Tammy. Actually a downward spiral would be a better way of putting it. As
long as you’re so angry, you and Mark are going to keep fighting. And as long
as your marriage is in turmoil, you aren’t in a good place to work on the abuse
that’s helping to fuel the anger.”

Tammy launched into a
defense of her position that she had a right to be angry at her husband for
neglecting her.

“I never said that he
isn’t neglecting you or that you don’t have a right to be angry with him. It’s
the intensity of the anger that’s the problem. Your reaction to Mark in the
here and now is intensified by all those unresolved feelings from the past. We
need to get those feelings resolved and then you’ll be able to deal with Mark
more rationally, and he’ll probably be more willing to listen to your
viewpoint.”

Knowing it was likely
to cause her already intense day to get worse, Kate took the plunge and
suggested a thirty-day in-patient program for sexual abuse survivors, pointing
out that it would provide Tammy with a safe, calm environment in which to face
those old feelings and start to get them resolved.

Kate got the reaction
she had anticipated. Tammy first accused her, repeatedly, of wanting to get rid
of her as a client. Kate repeatedly assured her that was not her reason for
making the suggestion.

Then Tammy shifted
gears and said that she couldn’t possibly be away from Mark that long.
Belatedly she mentioned her son as well. Was there something like that, but it
would only be for a week? Kate pointed out that a week would just barely be
long enough to get in touch with the feelings. Then she would be coming home to
her neglectful husband, with those feelings totally raw. Not a good idea.

Tammy finally agreed to
think about it, but she still did not look happy with Kate when she left.

~~~~~~~~

T
hat evening, Kate got
home just in time to put Edie to bed. Maria had given her a bath and put her in
her pajamas. Kate took the baby from the nanny and headed into the nursery to
enjoy her favorite part of motherhood, snuggling her sleepy child and breathing
in the scent of clean baby skin.

Once the baby was
settled in her crib, Kate flopped down on the living room sofa. Kicking off her
shoes, she let out a sigh. Much as she liked her work, it still felt good when
the day was done, especially on Tuesdays.

As she lounged on the
sofa, letting her mind become deliciously empty, her eye was caught by
something out of place in the baby’s portable playpen, tucked into a corner
across the room. Edie didn’t like being in it anymore, but Kate or Maria would
sometimes put her there temporarily when they needed to contain her while
answering the door or doing some other brief chore.

Kate squinted, trying
to make out what the object was. Finally curiosity overcame inertia and she got
up to investigate. A piece of white paper, folded in half, lay in the bottom of
the playpen.

How the hell did
that get in there?
She leaned over and picked it up to unfold it.

Kate jammed a fist into
her mouth to keep from screaming as the words on the paper registered. SEE HOW
EASY IT WOULD BE. YOU NEED TO LEAVE OTHER PEOPLE’S FAMILIES ALONE!

She raced into the
kitchen where Maria was making herself a cup of tea.

“
¡Dios mio!
What
wrong, Kate?”

“Who left this here?”
Kate held the note by its corner, as if it were coated with poison.

“Leave
qué
?”
Maria responded, confusion on her face as she attempted to see what was written
on the paper in Kate’s trembling hand.

Kate took a deep
breath, trying to calm herself. “I found this in Edie’s playpen. How did it get
there?”

Maria shook her head.
“Not see again... before?” Kate’s obvious agitation was making her nervous.

Another deep breath.
“Maria, did anyone come to the house today? Did you let anyone in?”

“
Si.
Lady come,
from
iglesia
... church. Want clothes, for
los pobres.
I give bag
in closet. Iz okay?” Maria had helped Kate, a few weeks before, sort through
her closet to weed out clothes she never wore. A few sweaters and a pair of
stretch pants Maria liked and could wear. The castoffs had been put in a bag to
be taken to Goodwill, a task Kate had not yet gotten around to doing.

“You left the woman out
here with Edie while you went in the bedroom!”

“No,
no, Edie wid me.” Maria mimed carrying a baby on her hip. “Not okay give
lady bag?” She was now looking distinctly anxious.

Kate tried to muster a
reassuring tone. “Yes, it’s okay that you gave her the clothes. But you can’t
let people in the house, ever!”

Maria shook her head in
confusion. Was it okay, or not?

Kate dropped the note
on the table and grabbed the portable phone from its charger on the counter.
She punched in Rose’s cell phone number.

Rose answered with a
curt “Hernandez.”

Kate gave a rather
incoherent explanation of what had happened, then said, “So you’ve got to
explain to Maria.”

She started to thrust
the phone toward Maria, then heard Rose’s voice saying, “Wait! Explain what?”

Kate put the phone back
to her ear. “Maybe you need to come over, Rose, if you’re not busy. Sorry to
disrupt your evening, but it’s kind of an emergency.”

“That much I got,” Rose
said. “I’m at the restaurant. I’ll come over while Mac finishes closing up. Be
there in ten minutes.”

Kate disconnected and
then called Skip’s cell. It went straight to voicemail. She left a message that
she needed to talk to him right away. It was urgent.

He had not called back
by the time Rose arrived. After exchanging a short greeting in Spanish with her
cousin, Rose turned to Kate. “So where’s the note?” Kate took her into the
kitchen and pointed to it on the table. “And it was in the baby’s thing, out in
the living room?” Rose asked.

“Yes, and the only way
it could have gotten there was from this woman who came to the door, supposedly
collecting clothes for some church,” Kate said.

Rose asked Maria
something in rapid-fire Spanish, followed by a lengthy answer from the latter. 
“She says the woman was nice but kind of ugly. Had thick glasses. Tall and
maybe fat, but hard to tell. She was all bundled up. Heavy coat. Hat pulled
down. Scarf around her neck. Covered her chin and part of her mouth.”

Rose asked another
question in Spanish. Maria said a few words.

“Little bit of hair she
could see was black, coarse. Real bright blue eyes.”

“That sounds like a
disguise, maybe a wig and contacts,” Kate said. 

“Distinct possibility,”
Rose agreed. Maria chimed in with another comment in Spanish.

“She says the woman had
some dark hairs sticking out beside her mouth and a couple above her upper
lip.”

“Hmm, tall, bundled up
to hide their build, stubble on the upper lip. Sounds like a man trying to look
like a woman,” Kate speculated.

“Could be, but to
Maria, many women would be described as tall.” Rose’s cousin was even shorter
than she was. “Can’t rule out a woman.
Mi madre
has some chin hair, and
a bit of a moustache, since she’s gone through menopause.” Rose turned to Maria
and asked her another question.