Killer Kisses (4 page)

“No, you don’t mean it.
You never mean it.
” She couldn’t take her eyes off the woman’s swollen belly. It felt as if someone had reached into her chest and slapped an iron fist around her heart.
His baby
.

He slipped an arm around Candi, then kissed the top of her head. “We wanted to tell you, honest. But not this way. I didn’t intend to hurt you. It's over.
We’re
over.”

Vision blurred, breath ragged, she stumbled backwards, and nearly tripped over a briefcase. As she righted herself on the door jamb, she saw the look of pity on Jim’s face. Turning on her heel, she bolted.

~*~

The expensive Manhattan hotel offered all the amenities, including an honor bar, stocked with mini-bottles of booze. Pulling out the first four her hand touched, she lined them up by height on the nightstand, then placed one of Jim’s sleeping pills in front of each bottle.

One pill for every miscarriage she'd suffered through.

Her wedding band landed at the end of the line-up. Kicking her shoes off, she sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, and flipped through the television channels, stopping when she came across,
The Women
. Joan Crawford, wife
of a philandering husband, stood in a department store dressing room confronting the
other
woman about their affair—only to have the hussy announce the husband planned to divorce her.

It was as if her very life was being replayed before Sandra's disbelieving eyes. “Son of a bitch,” she yelled, and chugged the scotch to wash down a pill. “How dare he do this to me?”

She hurled the empty
tiny crown-shaped bottle across the room, anticipating the satisfaction of shattering glass—and watched it bounce harmlessly off the wall.

“Dammit! I can’t do anything right!” She punched the pillow, then kicked at the dust-ruffle, only to hit something hard beneath. “Ow, ow, ow!” She grabbed her foot, flopped onto the bed, and sobbed. As she drifted off to sleep, the television whispering in the background, she heard the wronged woman’s friends coaxing her to go with them to a resort to get over her broken heart.

Hours later, as she emerged from a dream of slapping Jim an infomercial for, ‘The Cure Center, a MediSpa in the beautiful resort town of Lake Placid’ commanded her attention while a flood of memories washed over her.

In 1980, she and a group of college friends decided to drive from the State University in Albany to Lake Placid to take part in the biggest party Upstate
New York had ever seen during the 1980 Olympic Games. A pre-law student, working part-time as a secretary in a law firm, Sandra scrounged together enough money to buy two tickets to most of the events and stay in a cheap motel. When they arrived in Lake Placid, they went straight to a bar, where her wallet was stolen. Fortunately, she’d listened to her granddad and put the tickets in a money belt. Too bad she hadn’t put her money there, too.

The next day, bundled in layers of wool and down, and forcing a big smile, she stood on a street corner in downtown Lake Placid holding a cardboard sign that read: “Will Sell—Figure Skating, Ski Jump, etc.”

A large, handsome man in his thirties stopped in front of her, took a picture, and said, “I’ll buy all your tickets—but only if you go with me.”

Days later, in the middle of a crowded tavern, Jim and Sandra screamed and cheered with the euphoric crowd as the U.S. hockey team roared into history. When television announcer Al Michaels crowed, “Do you believe in miracles?” Sandra screamed, “Yess!” and hugged Jim.

He leaned down, kissed her, and shouted, “Marry me!”

That was more than twenty years ago, when she’d been young, beautiful, and built like Raquel Welch. Now a paralegal and soon-to-be ex-wife, she was still taller than her peers. Gray hairs had begun to silver her auburn brown strands, and she longed to recapture the time in her life when anything had been possible—even miracles. She turned up the volume, listened to the hypnotic spiel for the medical spa that promised rejuvenation, and dialed the twenty-four hour number plastered across the screen.

~*~

The next day, shards of pain shot through Sandra’s head—either from the rough van ride, the scotch and sleeping pill hangover, or a combination of both. Jim had always said she couldn’t hold her liquor.
I guess the S.O.B. called that one right.
She pressed her sunglasses firmly in place, and glanced around the vehicle.

The driver stared ahead at the road, wearing head-phones that blasted music so loud she wondered how much hearing loss he had. The big man with the crew cut sitting at the end of bench seat had helped her into the van at the Westport train station after she’d arrived from Grand Central with little more than the small overnight case she’d packed for the hotel.
What was his name? Bert? Bud?

A young copper-haired girl whom Sandra guessed to be about twelve or thirteen sat between her and what’s-his-name. Dressed in a faux-fur trimmed navy-blue parka, hands clasped in her lap, the girl stared straight ahead, her face an immobile mask. With her attention riveted on the child’s strange affect, Sandra’s headache was all but forgotten. “Who is she?"

“Shhh.” What’s-his-name stroked the girl’s hair. “Her name’s Erin. Sweet thing’s had a terrible time. Her mother was murdered in front of her. Police had a time of it getting her out of the crawl space under the house, half-frozen, mute. She’s practically catatonic.” His hand lingered a bit too long, fingers played a tad too sensuously with tendrils of hair that trailed down the girl’s neck.

He licked his lips, as if anticipating a special treat. Revulsion shuddered through Sandra, setting off a relay race of adrenalin from her heart to her head and mouth. “Take your hands off her.”

Startled, the man jerked his head in Sandra’s direction; his hand not moving from the girl. “What are you talking about?”

“If you don’t take your hands off her
right now
, I'll call the police.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and flipped it open.

The creep slid away from Erin and pressed against the sliding van door. Sandra put her arm around Erin’s shoulder, pulled her tight against her side, and glared at the man.

He muttered something that sounded like “Bitch!” And pulled the hood of his jacket up, hiding his face.

Forty minutes later, they arrived in the Village of Lake Placid. The Adirondack Mountains rose up around her, seeming to touch the sky. In the distance, a tiny gondola crawled up a cable. Normally, the sight of the picturesque village and its colorful shops would have excited her, filling her with the urge to visit all the places she’d been during that eventful time when she met Jim.

Her mood now, however, was anything but festive, and she wondered what had possessed her to come here. Was it a search for another miracle? A last stab at youth? An attempt at closure? What
should
one do when a marriage is over?

The van pulled into a parking lot next to a path that led to the front door of an old-fashioned camp cottage with a screened-in porch. Despite the sunglasses, the glare of the morning sun off the snow-covered lake beyond the cottage hurt her eyes. Using one hand as a visor, she focused on the building, and watched a pinch-faced woman dressed in a puffy black coat step off the porch, walk to the van, and open the door.

The creep hopped out and mumbled something indecipherable to the woman.

“I’m Louise Carson, Nurse Manager.” She reached for the girl’s hand, and led her out of the van, handing her over to the waiting man. “Take her in house. We’ll be right there.”

Head down, Erin obediently went along.

“
No!
” Sandra shouted. “He shouldn’t be alone with her.”

Carson took what felt like a proprietary hold on Sandra’s arm. “Not to worry, Ms. Blake. Bob will take care of her. She’s in good hands.”

Bob. That was the pervert’s name.

“His
hands
were all over Erin in the van. No matter what I said, he
kept touching her
.”

The nurse sniffed. “Bob’s an excellent mental health aide. Now, let’s get you into the cottage.”

An arctic gust blasted across the lake and up the hill to the cottage, its temperature close to the iciness in Sandra’s voice. “Listen to me. I’m a CASA volunteer and a Court Appointed Special Advocate for kids. I’ve seen a lot of creeps in my time, and I don’t like the way he---”

Louise cut her off mid-sentence. “We’ll get you a bite to eat and settle you into Cottage A. There’ll be plenty of time this afternoon to talk about your stay with us.” Iron-handed, she half-dragged Sandra along the icy sidewalk. Her breath came out in white puffs in the sub-zero air. “Here we are. Watch yourself. We need to get some salt on these steps.”

Sandra stopped at the door, teeth clenched in frustration. “Your
excellent employee
is a pedophile.”

“Ms. Blake,
please,"
Louise huffed. “All our staff have impeccable credentials. You have my word on it.”

With a short honk of a horn, an SUV with LAKE PLACID POLICE printed along its side pulled into the parking lot. The driver’s window rolled down, revealing a handsome, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and matching mustache. He removed his sunglasses and yelled, “Hey! Nurse Carson! You lose someone?”

Louise stiffened. “What did you say?”

“Looks like you lost one of your patients. We found her on Main Street. In pajamas. Barefoot. Incoherent.”

Louise picked her way down the stairs, stepped over to the squad car, and stared through the rear window. After a second, she muttered, “She’s ours.”

First the creep in the van, now this?
Sandra thought.
What the hell’s going on here?
 

“Second one this week,” the cop said in a voice sharp with annoyance. “You guys having problems?” 

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, when the sound of a man’s scream came from inside Cottage A.

Already at the door, Sandra raced inside with Louise not far behind. Sandra found Bob in a bedroom, on the floor, sobbing and moaning. Blood oozed through the fingers of his hands covering his mouth and his panic-stricken eyes bulged out of his pale face.

Gaze locked on bright red trails on Bob’s hands, Sandra heard Louise in the hallway, talking to someone. “We’ve got a situation here. No, not a patient. That new mental health aide. Yeah. I need an administrator here ASAP. The police chief is outside. I think he’s calling for back up.”

Movement caught Sandra’s eye. The girl, Erin, sat in a corner with her head on her knees, hands inside her jacket, rocking. Years of working as a CASA never prepared Sandra for this. She knelt beside her. “He can’t hurt you anymore, Erin. Why don’t you give me that?”

Louise shrilled from the doorway, “Get away from her! She might have a weapon!”

The girl looked up, her beautiful face smeared with red streaks. She took her empty hands out of her pockets, smiled, and spat a chunk of pink flesh into Sandra’s open palm.

~*~

While the EMTs attended to Bob, a patrolman took Louise to a separate room, leaving a female uniform behind to stand guard. Erin refused to let go of Sandra's arm and remained glued to her side while they sat on a couch in the waiting room.

Sandra thumbed through spa and tourism pamphlets with her free hand, and a wave of melancholy swept over her when she came to a glossy brochure advertising guided tours of Olympic sites.

“Ms. Blake?”

Sandra had to tilt her head back to see who was speaking.

The man from the squad car stood in front of her, a cowboy hat tilted back on his head, wearing a dark blue uniform beneath a shearling jacket. The heavy coat accentuated a pair of broad shoulders. His V-shaped torso tapered to a fully loaded Sam Browne duty belt, sans shoulder strap. His light blue eyes seemed to pierce her protective aura, an impression heightened by his furrowed brow.

 Even as she studied him, she realized, he was examining her. Refusing to remain in a subordinate position, she stood. Erin, making soft grunting sounds, clung to her arm with one hand while patting her shoulder with the other. “It’s okay, honey. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

"Ms. Blake?" he repeated.

At five-feet ten inches, Sandra was taller than some men—but not him. “Yes, that’s me,” she said. “And you are…?”

“Chief Doug
Harrington, LPPD. I need a statement about the incident.”

“That’s a delicate way of putting it.”

He nodded at Erin. “Is this the young lady you found with the victim?”

“I’m not sure the term ‘victim’ applies to Bob. He’s lucky she only bit his tongue.”

The Chief lifted an eyebrow and his lips quirked. He took a pen from behind his ear, pulled a small notepad out of his shirt pocket, and stood with pen poised over paper. “Could you describe what you heard and saw—minus the editorials?”

While the Chief scribbled, she described Bob’s behavior in the van, then the scene in the cottage bedroom, careful to delete the
editorials.