FATAL FORTY-EIGHT: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mysteries Book 7)

FATAL FORTY-EIGHT

A Kate Huntington Mystery

by

Kassandra Lamb

A
misterio press
publication

Published by
misterio press

http://misteriopress.com

Edited by Marcy Kennedy

Cover art by Melinda VanLone, Book Cover Corner

http://bookcovercorner.com/

E-book design by Kirsten Weiss

Copyright © 2014 by Kassandra Lamb

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used, transmitted, stored, distributed or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the writer’s written permission, except very short excerpts for reviews. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the publisher’s/author’s express permission is illegal and punishable by law.

Fatal Forty-Eight
is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and most places are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Some real places may be used fictitiously.

The publisher does not have control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites and their content.

Books by Kassandra Lamb

The Kate Huntington Mystery Series:

MULTIPLE MOTIVES

ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS

FAMILY FALLACIES

CELEBRITY STATUS

COLLATERAL CASUALTIES

ZERO HERO

FATAL FORTY-EIGHT

 
The Kate on Vacation Novellas:

An Unsaintly Season in St. Augustine

Cruel Capers on the Caribbean

Ten-Gallon Tensions in Texas

(coming Spring 2015)

ECHOES, A Story of Suspense

(a stand-alone ghost story/mystery)

This book is dedicated to

Marcy Kennedy,

a great editor,

a fabulous teacher,

and a very nice lady.

Thank you, Marcy, for helping me

take my writing to the next level!

PROLOGUE

Sally Ford wrapped slender brown fingers around the telephone receiver and punched in the familiar number. Running her other hand over her cap of silver curls, she waited for the call to go through.

“Charles, darling, would you mind terribly if we didn’t go out tonight? I’ve had a hell of a day, and I have a late client now, coming in for an intake interview at five.”

Her words elicited a soft chuckle, his rich baritone rumbling in her ear. “Why did I know you were going to do this to me, baby?”

No one but Charles Tolliver had ever dared to call Sally
baby
. At sixty-three, she was a tall, elegant woman, with a no-nonsense personality that tended to scare the bejesus out of people who didn’t know her well. In an earlier era, she would have been called a spinster, but she had finally met a man who could see past her brusque persona.

Recently Charles had convinced her to retire, so they could travel and enjoy their life together. She had one more week at the Trauma Recovery Center–that had been her
baby
for the past thirty-two years–and there was so much to do. She’d referred her clients to the other counselors, but she was still doing intake interviews with new clients. And she had a ton of paperwork to finish up before her successor took over.

“Charles,” she said into the phone, “I’m sorry, but I have to–”

“No, baby, that’s not the issue. I don’t care about going out to dinner, but that wasn’t really where we were going tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

Charles blew out air on the other end of the line.

Dear lord, even his sighs are sexy!

“You’ve got to promise you won’t let on that I told you.”

“Told me what?”

“I was charged with getting you to your surprise retirement party tonight.”

It took a second for Sally to digest that. “So we’ve got to show up at the restaurant then.”

“Yeah, that was the tricky part, how to get you to where we’re really going,” Charles said. “The party’s at a former employee’s house. A lady named Kate…can’t remember her last name.”

“Huntington.”

“No that isn’t it.”

“Oh, right, Canfield. She’s remarried since she left the center.”

Sally glanced at her watch. Five o’clock. “Charles, I’ve gotta go. I have this client waiting. What time’s the party?”

“Seven was when I was supposed to get you there.”

“Why don’t you swing by and pick me up at quarter of. We’ll come back for my car later.”

“Okay,” Charles said, “but you’ve got to act surprised or Pauline is going to skin me alive.”

“Pauline? She’s been retired six years now!”

“You seem to inspire loyalty in even your former employees, baby.”

“Humph. See you at six forty-five.”

Sally hung up her desk phone and stood up. She tugged on the bottom of her tailored jacket. At least she was wearing something she would be comfortable in all evening. The pale peach suit was one of her favorite outfits, partly because it complemented her chocolate brown skin but mainly because it fit her so well, without any binding or pinching. Too often, in her opinion, women’s clothing was too much about the latest style and not enough about practicality and comfort.

She went out to the waiting area of the center, an apology on her lips for keeping this new client waiting.

But he never gave her a chance to verbalize it.

The short, inconsequential-looking man stood up quickly. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Ms. Ford. I’m thrilled to make your acquaintance.”

Thrilled to make my acquaintance? What an odd choice of words.

Sally extended her hand. As the man shook it, he placed his other hand on her arm.

A sharp zing. Her arm reflexively jerked away.

The man jumped back a little. “Oh my, I’m sorry. Static electricity.” His embarrassed laughter sounded almost feminine. “It’s such a nuisance this time of year.”

“No problem, Mr. Johnson,” Sally said. “Come on in to my office.”

He followed her down the short hallway and through the door, closing it behind him.

Sally stumbled a little as she walked to the sitting area in the corner of the room, where she talked to clients. She was even more exhausted than she’d realized. Hopefully they would be able to beg off from the party after an hour or two. She gestured toward the loveseat and lowered herself into her own chair.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Ford, for keeping you here this evening. I see that your staff has all gone home.”

Sally shook her head, then wished she hadn’t when the room spun for a brief moment. “I was planning to work late anyway.” After she’d heard the poor man’s story over the phone earlier, and his comments that had hinted of severe depression and suicidal ideation, she wasn’t about to make him wait until Monday.

She just hoped she could stay alert enough to be helpful. Fatigue was making her limbs heavy, and she realized her mind was wandering. Mr. Johnson was talking and she had no idea what he had just said. She shook her head again. Her vision blurred but her mind cleared enough for his words to partially register.

“What time is Mr. Tolliver picking you up, Ms. Ford?”

Sally tried to push herself up straighter in her chair. She wondered vaguely how this man knew about Charles. “What did you say?” Her voice sounded slurred, as if she’d been drinking.

“I need to know exactly when Mr. Tolliver was supposed to pick you up, Ms. Ford,” Johnson said more firmly.

Was
supposed
to, not
is
picking me up!

Panic shot through her system. Her brain told her body to jump up and run, but her limbs didn’t respond. They felt like they were made of lead.

“Why…” Sally’s head fell back against the chair, her neck no longer able to support its weight.

“Because that is when the clock starts,” the man said.

But Sally didn’t hear him. She had already sunk into darkness.

CHAPTER ONE

7:00 p.m. Friday

A blur of orange streaked across the kitchen floor, between the guests’ legs. A cream-colored puppy awkwardly charged through the crowd, his legs and feet too large for the rest of his body. He cornered his quarry under the table, crouched down and yipped playfully at the cat, whose arched back and hissing indicated she was not at all amused by this game.

As she negotiated her way through her guests to the foot of the stairs, Kate silently berated herself again for caving to the children’s pleas for another pet. “Billy, come get your dog!” she called upstairs, raising her voice to be heard over the buzz of conversation and laughter in the living room. She headed back to the kitchen and her glass of wine on the counter.

A moment later, her six-year-old son rounded the corner and scrambled under the table. He nabbed one of the puppy’s legs and the cat made good her escape. Kate leaned down and helped Billy subdue the wiggling mutt, a Humane Society rescue of indeterminate parentage.

She picked the pup up. “Toby, you have
got
to leave Peaches alone. She doesn’t like you.”

“That’s not true,” Billy said, hands on his hips.

She snorted. The cat hated the canine interloper. Whenever the puppy was napping, Peaches would stalk him and try to scratch his nose or his soft underbelly. Then she’d dart away. The puppy was too dumb to realize this was a blitz attack and would chase after the cat, wanting to play.

“Put Toby in the laundry room,” Kate said, then rethought that strategy. Someone was bound to open that door eventually, and the pup would be underfoot again. “On second thought, take him upstairs to your bathroom until the party’s over.” Knowing her former boss, that would be by nine-thirty or ten. Sally was not a particularly social person. But the trauma center staff, past and present, weren’t about to let her retire without a fuss.

Kate handed the puppy over to her son.

A tall, barrel-chested man, with a thatch of now mostly gray hair, sidled up to her. He draped an arm loosely over her shoulders in a big-brother-type gesture. “Great turnout, don’t you think?”

She grinned up at Rob Franklin. “Thanks for all your help pulling this off.”

“No thanks required. Sally’s my colleague, too. I consider her a friend.” Rob’s law firm and the trauma center were located in the same Towson office building. He’d represented many of the center’s clients with legal issues through the years, even when they couldn’t pay him.

The buzz of conversation and laughter fell abruptly quiet as the phone on the kitchen counter rang. People started talking again when they realized it wasn’t the doorbell.

Kate swiped an errant, dark curl back from her face. She desperately needed a haircut, but with all the preparations for the party, she hadn’t had time. “Shhh,” she said as she plucked the portable phone from its charger. “It might be Sally.”

It took her a moment to recognize the frantic, out-of-breath voice.

“Charles, where are you?”

The hum of conversation grew around her once she’d said his name, not Sally’s. She stuck a finger in her other ear. She could barely make out what he was saying, but it sounded like he was asking if Sally was at the party.

Huh?

“No, no, she’s not here.”

His next panicked words sent a chill down her spine. “Dear God!” she whispered, feeling the blood drain out of her face.

She scanned the room for her husband’s head towering over the crowd, for the familiar gesture of long, slender fingers skimming brown hair out of his eyes.

The guests chatting in a group nearby fell silent when they saw her pale face.

“Find Skip,” she hissed to Rob. A ripple of worry followed his big frame as he pushed through the crowd into the living room.

Kate’s knees threatened to give out. The hand that wasn’t clutching the phone grabbed for the edge of the counter top. “Yes, call the police,” she said to Charles. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

~~~~~~~~

8:00 p.m., Friday