FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (11 page)

They ate in silence for
a few minutes, then Kate pushed her half-empty plate away. She bit her lower
lip, trying not to cry as she thought about her niece. The tears started
leaking out anyway.

Maria stood up, lifting
Edie out of her highchair without bothering to wipe the mashed potatoes and
cranberry sauce off of her face and hands. “I get dishes later,
Señor
Skip,” she said quietly, then added something in Spanish.

Skip nodded as Maria
took the baby off to bathe her.

Kate started to push up
from the table to follow, but Skip said, “Maria’s going to put Edie to bed, if
that’s okay?”

Kate nodded and sank
back into her chair. She hadn’t slept at all the previous night and suddenly
she was so tired, she could hardly hold her head up. “I’m afraid I’m lousy
company tonight,” she said. “I think I just need to go to bed.”

Skip walked around the
table and took her hand to pull her to her feet. Once again, he gathered her
into his arms, her head tucked under his chin. “I’m gonna hang out in the
livin’ room ’til your folks get back, if that’s okay, darlin’?” he said into
her hair. He felt her head nodding, where it rested against his chest.

He let her go and she
shuffled toward the bedroom.

A half hour later,
worry had him opening the master bedroom door a crack to check on her. She was
laying on top of the comforter on the king-sized bed, still fully clothed
except for her shoes. He tiptoed in and looked down at her sleeping form. “I
love you, Kate,” he whispered under his breath. Then he found a quilt, draped over
the back of an antique rocker in a corner of the room, and gently spread it
over her.

When the elder
O’Donnells returned, Dan used the key on Kate’s ring to let themselves in. Skip
was standing in the living room, his hand instinctively going to the small of
his back. But his gun was in his apartment, locked in a drawer, since he
couldn’t take it on the plane to Texas.

Dan just shook his
head, his expression grim, and herded his drooping wife toward the stairs.

“Can I borrow Kate’s
door key, sir? I want to go home and get my gun. Then I’m gonna sleep down here
on the sofa. Just so y’all can sleep sound knowin’ you’re safe tonight.”

“’Preciate that, lad,”
Dan said, handing him the key ring.

~~~~~~~~

O
n Sunday, Skip offered
to take her parents to the airport. “I’d like to come back afterwards,” he said
to Kate, while her parents were upstairs packing.

“There’s nothing I’d
like more, Skip... But I need some time to think. Too much has been happening
too fast. We’ll be okay, with the security system and the window bars and all.
Whoever this is, they’re not likely to try anything so soon, at least not until
I go back to work.”

“So you are going back
to work, then?”

“I don’t have much
choice. The holidays are not a good time for people from dysfunctional
families. I have several clients in crisis. I can’t just abandon them. But if I
can get them all somewhat stabilized I may refer them to other therapists,
after Christmas, and take a leave of absence. That’s one of the things I need
to think about.”

“Okay. But you need to
be very careful, Kate. This guy’s watching the house, at least some of the
time. He’d figured out that Amy was your niece, had to have seen you gals
leavin’ on Friday and followed you to the mall. Then, later he must’ve dropped
Amy off near here. It’s unlikely she could’ve found her way back from the mall
on her own... You’ve got to assume this creep is nearby and watching you.”

Kate couldn’t suppress
the shudder that went through her body. Skip stepped to her and put his arms
around her. She leaned her forehead against his chest.

“Do you have that
detective’s number?” he asked. Even though the note had been destroyed, they
should let him know about this development.

Skip felt her shaking
her head against his chest. “He gave his card to my brother. I didn’t think to
get one for myself. I’ll call Michael... later.”

“I’ve got some stuff to
do tomorrow,” Skip said into her hair. “But if you need to go out, run errands
or anything, give me a call and I’ll come over. Might be best if we all went
wherever you need to go together. I’m not sure it’s safe for you to be out in
the world alone at this point.”

He had expected at
least some argument from this independent woman, who tended to bristle at any
sign of what she perceived as male overprotectiveness. But she just nodded
against his chest. He tightened his arms slightly and laid his cheek on top of
her unruly curls. She sighed and he felt her relax against him.

A few minutes later,
Dan came down the stairs, carrying a suitcase. He stopped when he saw the young
people. Despite the ache in his heart for their little Amy, the old man’s mood
lifted a bit. It looked like his Katie girl had found herself another good man.

He cleared his throat.
“We’re ready to go, lad.”

~~~~~~~~

O
n Monday morning, Kate
couldn’t shake the depression that had descended on her. She had to force
herself to call her brother at work.

When he answered, she
said, “Got a minute to talk, Michael?”

He hesitated, then
said, “Yeah. Let me close my office door.”

She heard the sound of
the door closing. “Michael, I love you.” She bit her lip to keep from crying.

After another
hesitation, he said, “I know, Kate. I love you too.”

“And you know I love
Amy, so please hear me out.”

He listened without
interrupting as she explained to him that the date rape drug Amy may have been
given left women helpless and kept them from remembering later on a conscious
level what had happened to them.

“But I know from the
work I do that they’re still traumatized by whatever did happen. They show
signs of PTSD even with no conscious memory of the event.”

“I hear what you’re
saying, Kate, but Phyllis believes that if Amy can’t remember then it didn’t do
her any harm.”

Kate took a deep breath
to keep from snapping at her brother. “A lot of people think that, but that’s
not what we’re seeing. You really need to get Amy into counseling, Michael. If
she can deal with it right away, there’s a much smaller risk that it will come
back to haunt her later.”

Michael was quiet for
so long that she was afraid he had disconnected. Finally he said, “I appreciate
your concern, Kate. I’ll try to talk to Phyllis again when she’s calmed down
some more.”

But Kate knew her
brother was too much of a wuss where his wife was concerned to push the issue.
“Michael, please!” she begged.

Another long pause.
“You don’t have to live with her, Kate. I do.”

“Can you give me
Detective Randolph’s number?” Kate asked.

“Phyllis threw his card
away.”

Kate clenched her teeth
to keep from raging at her brother.

After a couple of
beats, he said, “Take care, Kate,” and disconnected.

Kate sat at the kitchen
table for a long time, staring into space, unable to quite fathom her
sister-in-law’s attitude, even though she’d certainly seen that level of denial
before.

Maria paused by the
kitchen doorway, Edie on her hip. She gave her
patrona
a worried look.
It wasn’t like Kate to leave the little girl in the nanny’s care on her day
off.

Kate got up to go into
the bedroom to get something. Once there, she couldn’t remember what she had
come in for. She sat down on the side of her bed.

She thought about
talking to Eddie for moral support, but realized that she really wanted to talk
to Skip. She resisted the urge to call him, knowing if she did that he would
drop whatever he was doing, no matter how important. She’d already disrupted
his life enough recently.

She couldn’t recall the
last time she had talked to Eddie. It may have actually been before her
confession to Skip that she conversed with her late husband in her head. When
was that? At least two weeks ago.

Eddie? Are you
there?

The minutes stretched
out. Nothing happened.

“Eddie?” she whispered
out loud.

No answer.

Kate didn’t know how to
feel. There was a dull ache of sadness in her chest, but much weaker than the
longing and pain she had felt off and on for the better part of two years. At
the same time a small frisson of excitement ran through her. Did this mean it
was no longer too soon? Maybe.

Contemplating that idea
made her feel a little better. She kicked her shoes off and stretched out on
top of the comforter. She just needed to get rested up. She was so tired.

T
uesday morning, Kate
still felt tired despite having slept a good part of the last twenty-four
hours. She had to admit to herself that she was truly clinically depressed.
Which shouldn’t be such a shocker after all that had happened the past few
days. She tried not to think about what it would mean for her family if the
rift with Michael and Phyllis couldn’t be mended.

She felt bad for her
brother, but couldn’t drum up much empathy for her sister-in-law. “Denial is
not a river in Egypt,” she muttered under her breath as she finished dressing
for work.

When Skip arrived to
stay with Maria and Edie, he insisted on watching from the front porch as Kate
walked to her car. He’d arranged to have Rose come to her office when her
client hours were over, to escort her to her car in the dark parking lot. He’d
wanted Rose to hang out in the center’s waiting area, as a bodyguard. Kate had
told him he was over-reacting. He had backed off.

Once Kate got to work
she perked up some. Nothing like focusing on other people’s problems to help
you forget your own for awhile.

Pauline told her at
lunchtime that Tammy had cancelled her appointment for Thursday afternoon. Kate
was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the receptionist informed her that
the client had rescheduled for Friday.

Damn!

In response to the
funny look on Kate’s face, Pauline said, “Are you okay, dear?”

“No not really, but
thanks for asking,” Kate replied. She went into her office to eat her lunch,
and to contemplate whether she should refer Tammy to another therapist. It was
not a good sign when you were glad a client had cancelled and disappointed when
she rescheduled.

Audrey was Kate’s last
client of the evening. She hadn’t been able to get a sitter so she could come
in during the day. The downside to cutting off contact with her parents was
that it was now harder for her to find a babysitter. So far it was the only
downside, in Audrey’s opinion.

The abuser’s face was
still fuzzy in her memories, but Audrey told Kate that it didn’t seem to matter
all that much anymore. It was either her father or his look-alike brother, and
she had no intentions of having anything to do with either one of them again.

“It’s possible, Audrey,
that you’re not getting a clearer image of the abuser’s face because those
details weren’t recorded in the first place,” Kate pointed out. “We tend to
think of human memory like it’s a camera, but it’s not. It only records the
details of an experience that we actually actively pay attention to. As a child
you may have been
avoiding
looking at his face, because you didn’t want
to think about how this man, who was supposed to love you, was hurting you
instead.”

Audrey nodded. “The
voice, when he talks about... the lollipop, it sounds like my old man, but
again his brother’s voice is similar... Oh, speaking of my asshole uncle, my
mother called this afternoon. Without thinking I picked up the phone. Forgot to
screen the call. I was about to hang up when I realized what she was saying.

“She’d thought she had
my father talked into dropping the lawsuit, but then dear sweet Uncle Phil
convinced him not to. Mother started trying to guilt-trip me into letting her
see Alicia. Playing the martyr who can’t control what her husband does.”

“How did you deal with
that?” Kate asked. She knew Audrey was more susceptible to her mother’s
manipulations than to her father’s efforts to control her.

“I actually surprised
myself, Kate. I didn’t feel the least bit guilty. I told her she’s an
autonomous adult and she can refuse to participate in the lawsuit, and that
until it’s dropped, I’m not even going to discuss the possibility of her seeing
Alicia.”

Kate sat forward in her
chair. “That’s great that your mother’s guilt trip didn’t work, Audrey. But
don’t let the lawsuit against me affect your decisions about yourself and your
family.”

“Oh, I have no
intention of letting her see Alicia anyway, not until she gets it that there
is
abuse in this family and it’s her job to protect her granddaughter from it.”

“Okay, that’s the right
thing to be negotiating with her. The lawsuit is my problem. The agency’s
behind me. We’ve got malpractice insurance, and the insurance company has a
whole army of lawyers to defend me.”

Kate was fibbing here.
If the insurance company thought they could get a settlement that would be
cheaper than going to court, she suspected their lawyers wouldn’t hesitate to
throw her and her reputation right under the bus.

But she needed to get
her client to stop trying to protect her. “I only went along with Rob’s idea
that you sue them because that’s what you had wanted to do in the first place.”

“I understand all that,
Kate. But as far as I’m concerned my parents’ attacking you is an attack
against me. They’re only doing it to mess with me, to try to control my life.
And you’re the one helping me get through this crap. Without you, I don’t think
I could face it.”

Kate paused for a
moment. “Okay, putting myself in your shoes, I can see where you’re coming
from. A threat to me is a threat to you because I’m part of your support
system.”

“A huge part,” Audrey
said. “I need your support as much as I need Ted’s.”

When Audrey left and
Kate had to refocus on her own life, she discovered that she actually felt a
lot better than she had that morning. She was exhausted, but it had been a
satisfying day. Her job might be difficult at times, and it opened her up to
things like malpractice suits and anonymous threats. But she still loved it.

She hated that Amy and
her family had been caught in the crossfire, but she decided she wasn’t going
to let some crazy fanatics stop her from using her skills to help people. She
was not going to take a leave of absence.

Having made that
decision, Kate felt better still. The veil of depression had lifted.

~~~~~~~~

R
ose escorted Kate to
her car, then called Skip to tell him she was on her way. He was waiting on the
front porch when Kate pulled up.

She saw the fatigue in
his face as she mounted the steps. Guilt jabbed at her heart. He probably
wasn’t sleeping well, from worrying about her. He opened the door and followed
her into the house. Maria was descending from the second floor, with a
freshly-bathed Edie in her arms.

“Go on home, Skip. You
look beat,” Kate said over her shoulder as she took her sleepy child from
Maria.

“I think that falls
into the pot callin’ the kettle black category, darlin’.”

Kate gave him a small
smile, then wished the nanny a goodnight and headed for the nursery.

When she emerged
fifteen minutes later, Kate was pleasantly surprised to see Skip sitting on the
sofa. “You’re still here!”

“Yeah, I’m still here.
Made the mistake of sitting down and couldn’t get up the energy to get up
again.” The truth was that he hadn’t been able to make himself leave. He had no
desire to go home to his empty apartment.

“Well, if you’re that
tired, I guess it’s safe for me to sit down next to you.” Her voice was
teasing.

“Not sure I’m quite
that
tired.” He gave her an exaggerated leer.

Kate plopped down on
the sofa anyway, just a few inches from him. She had made another decision.

“Uh, I know we
suspended the four-foot rule over the weekend,” Skip said, “but we probably
need to reinstate... What are you doing?” There was alarm in his voice as she
wiggled closer, the soft wool of her slacks brushing against the side of his
jean-clad thigh.

“Just sitting down to
talk.” Her tone was casual, but Kate was feeling a powerful surge of
self-doubt. She’d been putting him off for so long. What if his interest had
waned? Her eyes stung at the thought. He’d jokingly leered at her, but maybe
that was just his way of segueing into the request that they reinstate the
four-foot rule.

“But if you’re too
tired...” She let her voice trail off. She would give him an out if he didn’t
want her anymore.

Skip had been sitting
very still for several seconds. Now he twisted around to face her. “Is what I
think is happening here, is that what’s
really
happening here?”

“Yes,” she whispered,
suddenly unable to catch her breath as his eyes locked on hers.

A smile spread slowly
across his face. It was the sexiest smile she had ever seen. He picked up her
hand and brought it to his face, then turned it over and kissed her palm, a
feathery touch of warm lips against her skin. She sucked in her breath.

“That wasn’t exactly
the reaction I expected,” she managed to gasp. “But I like it,” she hastily
added.

“Oh don’t worry,
darlin’. I’m gonna get to the kissing your lips part soon. But first I need to
ask you something.”

He was holding her palm
trapped against his cheek. She cupped her hand slightly under his jaw and tried
to pull his face down toward hers, but he resisted. He knew once they kissed
there would be no more holding back. “Is it okay if I ask you something first?”
he repeated softly, his face and voice serious.

“Yes,” she whispered
breathlessly. Her hand was still trapped under his against his cheek. He tilted
his head so he could touch his lips to the soft skin on the inside of her
wrist. She made a little strangling noise in her throat.

Now that the moment had
come, he was savoring the anticipation. But he knew it was unfair to keep
torturing her this way. “Actually two questions, darlin’. Where exactly is
Maria’s bedroom and how soundly does she sleep?” He knew Maria’s room was
upstairs somewhere. He was just wondering how
far
upstairs.

She smacked him on his
thigh with her free hand. “Third floor, has her own little apartment up there.”
Then her voice dropped to a husky whisper. “She’s off duty. She won’t come out
again tonight.”

“So we have an entire
story of the house between ourselves and Maria, as a sound buffer,” he said
softly, letting his lips drift slightly closer to hers. But he was afraid to
kiss her just yet. He knew once he did there would be no pausing to consider
logistics, and he was way too big a man to make love on a couch. “Then may I
suggest we move to the bedroom,” he murmured.

Dear God
, Kate
prayed.
Get us past this next bump and I think I can take it from there.

“Well, there is just
one little problem,” she said out loud, dropping her eyes to the diamond ring
and wedding band on the hand that was resting on his knee.

Of its own volition,
the hand moved a bit up the warm surface of his jeans, stretched tight across
his muscular thigh. It was his turn to suck in his breath. Her hand stopped
moving just in time. Half an inch further and it would have been the damn couch
after all.

“I’m afraid we won’t
have an
entire
story between us and Maria,” she was saying. She tilted
her head to the side, in the direction of the hallway that led to the master
bedroom. “Not
that
bedroom,” she said quietly.

His response was quick
and self-chastising. “Of course not. How stupid of me!” But then her first
words sank in. “You had another bedroom in mind? On the second floor?”

“Guest suite. Only a
queen-sized bed, but it has a lovely adjoining bathroom,” she said, sounding a
bit like a sales brochure for a bed and breakfast inn.

He tilted her chin up
so he could look down into her worried eyes, then his face broke into a wide
grin. “Second floor suite, it is then. We’ll just have to be quiet.”

He disentangled himself
to push to a stand, pulling her up with him. Leaning down, he whispered in her
ear, “Would you like me to sweep you off your feet or would you prefer to
walk?”

“Uh, just hold on to me
in case my knees give out. They’re a little wobbly at the moment.”

Arm around her
shoulders, he moved her toward the stairs. Her arm slid around his waist,
bumped up against the butt of his gun in its waistband holster, and moved up a
bit on his back. She veered over toward the nursery to retrieve a small plastic
box from the table beside its door. “Sorry,” she said, holding up the baby
monitor. “Comes with the territory.”

He grinned down at her.
“Of course.
Now
can I sweep you off your feet?”

“Sweep away,” she said,
grinning back.

He had her in his arms
and was halfway up the stairs before she could take another breath. On the
second floor, she pointed toward the guest room door. Once through it he put
her down on her feet.

But before he could
kiss her, she tilted her head toward the bathroom and said, “Uh, I’ll be right
back.”

He nodded, although
drawn-out anticipation was beginning to lose its charm.

“I’ll only be a
minute,” she promised and slipped into the bathroom, closing the door. It
actually took less than a minute to do what she needed to do, which included
removing the rings from her finger.

She opened the door.
Skip had turned off the bedroom overhead light. Intentionally leaving the
bathroom light on and the door open, she moved slowly into the dark bedroom,
temporarily blinded. The semi-sheer negligee drifted softly around her, backlit
by the bathroom light. She heard a soft hiss coming from the direction of the
bed.

As her eyes adjusted
she walked toward him. He was sitting on the side of the bed in nothing but his
jeans. But he wasn’t looking at her now. His head was hanging down between his
big shoulders, soft brown hair a curtain hiding his face.

She sat beside him and
ran her hand up his bare arm to the shoulder. They both sucked in their breath.
Then he said in a strangled voice, “Kate, we can’t do this.”