FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (19 page)

What does it mean
that he doesn’t need his name on the deed? Is he actively resistant to the idea
because it smacks of taking money from me, or is he saying it doesn’t matter
one way or the other?
Kate was unconsciously gnawing on her lower lip.

Skip gently touched her
lips with his fingertips. “What’s the matter, darlin’?”

As Kate looked up into
his eyes, the thought struck her that what they had was more important than the
damn money. If it bothered him when he found out he was marrying a moderately
wealthy woman, she would put all the money in a trust fund for Edie.

Ignoring his question,
she smiled up at him. “I’m thinking we can let those horses have free rein now.
How’s this for a happy note to end the evening? When and where shall we get
married?”

He grinned at her
without answering, then lifted one of her hands to kiss her palm.

When she could breathe
again, Kate said, “I think the where should be Texas. My family’s scattered all
over the country anyway. Just as easy for them to fly to Texas as Maryland.”

“My part of Texas is
right purty in early May, ma’am,” Skip drawled.

“May it is then.”

He wrapped his arms
around her. She reached up to brush back the hair from his forehead. He closed
his eyes and groaned softly as her fingers caressed his skin. The sound sent a
wave of shimmering warmth down the core of her body.

Kate rested her hand
against his cheek. “Skip,” she whispered, “there’s one more thing I should tell
you tonight.
You
are
my
heart and soul!”

~~~~~~~~

T
he doorbell rang on
Wednesday, as Kate was changing her clothes to go meet Rob for lunch. She was
putting on her jewelry–simple pearl studs in her ears, her watch, and of course
the diamond ring–when Skip came into the bedroom, his face grim.

“It’s Bradley. Wants to
talk to both of us.”

In the living room, Bradley
took the pearl-handled revolver out of his pocket and handed it to Skip. He
broke it open and spun the cylinder. It wasn’t loaded. Bradley held out a
handful of bullets.

“Clean as a whistle,
son,” the detective said, as he was pulling a folded sheet of paper out of his
inside jacket pocket. “I don’t think we’ll need to be troubling Mrs. Wingate
about your alibi.”

Bradley handed the
search warrant to Kate. “Hate to bother you with this, ma’am, but I need a hair
sample from you.”

She took the paper and
stared down at it, her mind reeling from the name she had just heard him say.

“Your hairbrush in your
bedroom?” the detective asked. His voice was pleasantly conversational, but he
was watching Kate intently.

She nodded, still
staring down at the paper in her hand.

“And that would be
where?”

Skip was trying to
decipher the expression on Kate’s face. “Down the hall,” he replied belatedly
to the detective’s question, pointing in the direction of the master bedroom.

Bradley came back in
less than a minute, sliding a small evidence bag into his coat pocket. “Thanks
for your time, folks,” he said, and left.

As soon as the door had
closed behind him, Kate turned to Skip. “Mrs. Wingate, as in
Tammy
Wingate?”

“Y
eah, do you know
her?” Skip said.

Kate debated for a
moment, but she really couldn’t
not
tell him. “She is... was my client
too, until yesterday.”

“That’s weird.”

“More than weird. Let
me call Rob and ask him to come here for lunch. There’s something we need to
hash out, and we need to tell him about the search warrant.”

Skip just gave her a
curious look as she grabbed the phone and punched in Rob’s cell phone number.
While she was on the phone, Skip told Maria that they needed to talk privately
to Rob. She took the baby into the living room to play on the floor.

After explaining to Rob
in vague terms what was going on, Kate disconnected and started dragging things
out of the refrigerator to make sandwiches.

Skip stepped over to
her and took her hands to steer her to the table. “I’ll do that. You sit and
relax for a moment.”

“Oh, come on, even I
can make sandwiches.”

Skip didn’t want to
tell her that her sandwiches were actually a little dry. He grinned at her.
“Yeah, but my daddy used to say ‘Wait on the woman, now and again, son...”

“And she’ll love you
forever,” Kate finished for him, grinning back at him from her chair. But then
her face sobered again as she tried to sort out what this meant, that Skip just
happened to be the private investigator Tammy had hired to follow her husband.

When Rob arrived, Skip
asked him first about the significance of the police wanting a sample of Kate’s
hair. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Rob answered. “They must have found
some hairs at the scene that looked similar to Kate’s. But I seem to recall
that Wells’ secretary had dark curly hair. Longer than yours, Kate, but
otherwise similar.”

“There’s something else
we need your take on,” Kate said. Without saying their names, she and Skip
filled Rob in on the Wingates, and the unlikely coincidence that the wife had
hired her therapist’s fiancé to spy on her husband. Kate was also weighing her
words carefully, trying not to reveal anything that Skip didn’t already know
about the couple.

“At first Sally and I
wondered if the husband might be sending the notes, trying to back me off
because he saw me as supporting his wife’s side and maybe making their
arguments worse, which I wasn’t... But then the notes started talking about
destroying families and that sounded more like the way the false memory people
would talk.”

“This guy’s an
average-sized man,” Skip said. “So bundled up the way Maria described the
church lady, yeah, I can see him disguising himself as a woman that way.”

“The attack on Amy
doesn’t really fit though,” Kate said. “He’s a Type A businessman. Works
practically 24/7. I just don’t see him taking a whole day off to follow us
around Towson Town Center looking for a chance to snatch one of us.”

“The tone of the notes
changed some around then,” Skip said. “More directly threatening.”

“Yeah, they did,” Rob
said.

“There’s another thing
that doesn’t fit,” Skip said. “According to the e-mails from the mistress that
the wife stumbled on, he was already having his torrid little affair a little
while before Thanksgiving, and maybe didn’t care quite as much what his wife
was doing.”

Kate hesitated. She
really shouldn’t discuss anything more specific with them. Then she remembered
that the notes were making threats against her daughter.

“The wife fired me
yesterday as her therapist,” she said. “After she got the goods on her husband
from you, Skip, she tossed him out on his ear... Wait a minute, she said she
first confronted him
on Thanksgiving!
So I take it back. He could’ve
come unglued when he realized that his affair had been discovered and he was
about to lose his family. Yeah, under those circumstances, I can see him coming
over here the next day and spying on me, and following us to the mall.
Especially if he’d been blaming me all along for stirring her up.

“And the wife’s definitely
blaming me for the break-up,” Kate continued. “She said, point blank, that if
I’d been doing my job, their marriage wouldn’t be over.”

“That’s pretty crazy,”
Skip said, then thought for a moment. “So could be the husband, but another
possibility just occurred to me. The husband could’ve started off sending the
notes, told Tammy about them at some point... Maybe even planted the seed in
her mind that the marital problems were because of you, Kate. Then Tammy
kidnapped Amy and delivered this last note.”

Kate winced at Skip’s
use of even the woman’s first name.

“Kate, do you think
this woman is capable of sending threatening notes to her own therapist?” Rob
asked.

Kate hesitated again.
She had a sick feeling in her gut. This was so against the rules, and she’d
already said more than she should have. But Edie was at risk, and it was
totally weird that Tammy just happened to hire Skip when she was looking for a
private investigator.

Kate’s face went pale
as another thought struck her. “Skip, you’ve got to be really careful. This
woman’s blaming me for the collapse of her marriage. The absolute best revenge
against me would be to take away the man I love.”

“She did come on to me
some when I took her the report on Sunday,” Skip said.

Kate shook her head.
“That’s not what I meant. She could try to hurt you. Maybe that’s what the more
recent notes about destroying my family were referring to. Not Edie, but
you
.”

“And by using you to
spy on her husband, she’s established a professional relationship with you,”
Rob said. “So you would be relaxed around her, wouldn’t have your guard up.”

Skip snorted. “I don’t
think any man would ever be completely relaxed around Tammy Wi...” He stopped
when Kate shot him a sharp look. “Come on, Kate. We can’t be worrying too much
about confidentiality at this point. If we’re going to sort this out, we need
to have all the information on the table. It won’t go beyond this room.”

Kate sighed. “Skip, you
need to understand the seriousness of confidentiality in my profession. Beyond
the ethical issue itself, it’s the quickest way to get sued, and Tammy would go
there in a heartbeat. She’d have a damn good case too. At best, I’d lose my job
and probably would never be able to get malpractice insurance again. At worst,
I’d lose my license.”

“Rob and I are both
used to being discreet regarding confidential information,” Skip said, his
voice gentle.

“You never did answer
me, sweetheart,” Rob said, matching Skip’s tone. “Is this woman crazy enough to
send threatening notes to you while she was actually still in therapy with
you?”

Kate looked across the
table at them. These two men and her daughter were the most important people on
the planet to her. As much as she loved her work, she could handle losing her
license better than losing either Skip or Edie.

“Okay, okay, yes, she
could be... angry enough, and distorted enough in her perceptions to do that.”
Kate sighed again. “Tammy has borderline personality disorder. She has volatile
moods, and does something called
splitting
. People with this disorder
have a very all-or-nothing view of the world, and other people. They can’t
integrate the idea that someone might be a good person and care about them, but
might also be imperfect and sometimes let them down. And their perceptions of others’
behaviors and feelings, and especially motives, are often skewed.

“So, yeah, it’s
possible that Tammy could have written at least the last two more blatantly
threatening notes. By that point, she was pretty pissed off at me, because I
was pushing her to... do certain things to help with her healing, things she
didn’t want to do. And I think she was already looking for a new therapist by
then.”

“Are these folks often
violent?” Skip asked.

“Well yes and no. Most
of the time they get depressed easily and do self-harm things, like cutting, or
attempting suicide. But they are full of rage about the things that were done
to them as kids. This is a disorder that is most often caused by pretty
horrific child abuse. And they have poor impulse control, so yeah, they can
sometimes become physically aggressive, especially if they see someone as
having betrayed them or as thwarting their efforts to get their needs met,
which are legion. They are very needy people.”

Skip grimaced. “It must
be hard for you to work with these people.”

“Most therapists hate
dealing with this disorder. But I actually,
usually
, like my borderline
clients, even though they’re tough to work with. Underneath all the annoying
symptoms, there’s an innocent and usually quite loveable child who has been
horribly wounded and is just trying to get their needs met. But they’re going
about it all wrong because adults aren’t supposed to be clingy and demanding
and volatile. We accept it if children are that way, because we know they don’t
know any better and can’t really control themselves that well yet, but adults
are supposed to be more mature than that.”

“So you could put up
with this lady because you saw that loveable child inside of her,” Skip said, a
note of respect in his voice.

“Well, truth be told, I
was relieved when Tammy fired me yesterday. In her particular case, her inner
child is a spoiled brat.”

Skip flashed her a
quick grin.

“Well, if either she or
her husband were the source of the notes,” Rob said, “now that you’re not
seeing her anymore as a client, the notes may stop.”

“Yeah, but if this is
about one of them blaming Kate for their problems, they may take action now
that the marriage has collapsed,” Skip said.

“So time will tell,”
Rob said.

They worked on their
sandwiches for a minute. “There’s got to be a way to check this out,” Kate
finally said, a touch of desperation in her voice. “Can we somehow find out
what these people were doing the day Amy was kidnapped?”

Skip stopped chewing
while he thought about that. Finally he swallowed and said, “I can try.
Probably could find some excuse to talk to the wife again.”

“Don’t go alone!” Kate
said.

Skip thought for
another moment. “She’s not likely to be open with me if I’m not alone, but I
can have Rose wait in the car. Figure out some way to signal if I need back-up.
And if she tries something, that’ll tell us she
is
the culprit and we
can put an end to this.”

Kate had mixed emotions
about that idea, but before she could respond, Rob said, “Can we get Detective
Randolph to check out the husband, maybe question him directly, ask him about
his alibi for that day.”

Kate shook her head.
“We can’t tell him about them without explaining why we suspect them, and then
I’d be breaching confidentiality.”

“Let’s see what I can
find out,” Skip said. “Try not to worry, Kate. This is what I do. I know how to
protect myself.”

Kate sighed. She wasn’t
just worried about him. She was also frustrated that she couldn’t do more
herself to investigate. She did
not
like the idea that they might never
know who had made these threats, or whether or not the danger was truly over.

Skip changed the
subject to the false memory group’s picketing plans for the following week.

“We can’t stop them
from picketing out front on the sidewalk,” Rob said. “But I can get a
restraining order to keep them out of the back lot. That’s private property.
I’ll talk to the landlord.” He turned to Kate. “I would suggest you all tell
your clients to come in the back way, but the picketers may try to block the
entrance to the back parking lot. Again, that sidewalk is public.”

“A half dozen beefy
guys should be a good deterrent for that,” Skip said. “I’ll make some calls,
and I’ll see if Rose can tag some of her police buddies to do some off-duty
work.”

“I’m paying for them,
Skip. No arguments,” Kate said, shooting Rob a quick look. “This is to protect
my workplace, and my clients.”

Rob interpreted the
look accurately. “I’ll talk to my partners,” he said, as Skip opened his mouth
to protest. “The firm can help cover some of the cost. The pickets would affect
our business as well. The landlord may pitch in too.”

“I just hope this
doesn’t get the center evicted,” Kate said.

“We’ll cross that
bridge if and when we come to it,” Rob said, standing up. “Thanks for the
lunch, guys.”

Kate got up to walk Rob
to the door. Once out of Skip’s earshot, she brought up something that had been
gnawing at her all during lunch. “Rob,” she whispered, “can you write up a
legal document naming Skip as Edie’s guardian should I be unable to care for
her?”

“Sure, but why?”

“If I get arrested,
Social Services may come and try to put her in foster care. My folks would be
able to get her back, or I would if the judge lets me out on bail, but I don’t
want her to be exposed to that, even temporarily.”

“Kate, you’re not going
to be arrested. You’ve never been to Wells’ office. Never even met the man. The
police aren’t going to be able to tie you to his death.”

“Rob, please! I’m not
willing to risk that she might have to spend even one night torn away from
everything familiar, suddenly in the care of strangers, maybe in a situation
where she could be abused. They screen foster parents carefully but some
abusers fool them, or other foster kids in the family could...” Kate’s throat
closed at the thought. “Skip needs a piece of paper he can wave in their faces
and say, ‘You can’t take her, she’s mine.’”

“You’re getting a bit
paranoid, Kate.”

She tried to grin but
didn’t succeed. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to
get you.”

“Okay, sweetheart, if
it will make you feel better.” He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “But I
don’t think you have anything to worry about.”