MULTIPLE MOTIVES (The Kate Huntington mystery series Book 1) (7 page)

~~~~~~~~

Rob returned Kate’s call as he was walking across the courthouse parking lot. She was telling him what had happened to her car when he heard her doorbell ring in the background.

“Hold on,” Kate said. “Someone’s at the door.” His lawyer instincts kicked in when he heard her say, “Detective Phillips. Wow, the officer actually called you.”

Shit!

“Don’t say anything, Kate! I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

When he arrived, Kate and Phillips were already in full-blown argument. The detective kept referring to her “little stalker story.” She was waving the inspection notice in his face.

In response to the detective’s what-does-that-prove shrug, Kate said, “Go to the garage. You’ll see the glass there.”

“Where were you parked?”

She froze.

Rob realized she didn’t remember. Under the best of circumstances, it was the kind of information one only committed to memory temporarily.

“I’m not sure,” she said.

Phillips smirked. “How convenient.”

“Look,
Detective
, when are you going to give up your little pet theory and actually start
doing
some detecting?”

They had a staring match for several seconds, then the detective said in a flat voice, “If I can find a uniform with nothing better to do, I’ll send him down to look around that garage.”

Phillips turned to Rob. “Ah, and here is the knight in shining armor, always ready to rescue damsel Huntington when she’s in distress.”

Rob fought the urge to bust the man in his chops. He clenched his fists and ground his teeth. “Phillips, I think you need to leave now before one officer of the court is forced to deck another.”

Phillips smirked at him, but there was a flash of fear in his eyes. Rob was half a foot taller and at least thirty pounds heavier. The detective gave an elaborate shrug and headed for the front door.

Once the jackass was out the door, Rob turned to Kate. “I don’t want you talking to him again without me present.” He realized too late how sharp his voice sounded.

Kate arched an eyebrow at him, a silent reminder of something she’d pointed out to him before. When he was fresh from the courtroom, he tended to be a lot more adversarial than usual.

He huffed out air. Softening his tone, he said, “Look, I’m not going macho on you here. I’m talking as your lawyer. This guy seriously believes we’re having an affair and we’re trying to get rid of our spouses. He even checked out my alibi for when Liz was hit. Fortunately, I was in a settlement conference with four other people at the time.”

Anger surged again in his chest. “Then he asked if I’d hired a hit man. I’ve never wanted to physically harm another human being in my entire life, but I want to put my hands around that detective’s neck and squeeze ’til his eyes bulge!”

Kate patted his arm. “Whoa, Tiger. Actually a little macho protectiveness feels good to me right about now, but let’s not get ourselves thrown in jail for assaulting police officers. And what happened to the he’s-just-doing-his-job attitude?”

There was an irritating twinkle in her eye as one corner of her mouth quirked up.

“Humph,” he snorted. “In my line of work, I’ve rubbed elbows with a fair number of police officers. Most are intelligent and dedicated, but I’ve encountered ones like Phillips before. Ambitious, not overly bright and dedicated only to number one.” He pointed his thumb at his chest. “Their goal is to close cases quickly so they look good, and to hell with whether or not they have the right suspect.”

He decided not to tell Kate that Phillips had also searched his house and garage, no doubt looking for signs of bomb-making. He’d granted permission for the search since he had nothing to hide. But when Phillips had wanted to search Kate’s house, Rob had told him to get a warrant.

Which the jackass had been unable to do. The judge had been unimpressed when the only probable cause Phillips could offer for intruding on a grieving widow was the fact that a male friend had hugged her and called her
dear
right after she’d learned of her husband’s murder.

Rob ground his teeth one last time, then changed the subject. “Okay, if you’re going to let me take care of you some, get me the phone book so I can find a glass repair shop.” He was much less concerned about the taillight than he was about someone crawling into her car through that back window. “Then I’ll follow you over to drop the car off.”

“My hero!” Kate gave him a mock simpering smile and fluttered her eyelashes.

“Milady,” Rob said, taking off an imaginary hat and bowing deeply.

With a snort, Kate went off to find the phone book, shaking her head at his silliness even though she’d started it.

Okay, sense of humor’s coming back. She’ll make it
. He smiled to himself.

The smile faded at the next thought.
If nobody kills her, that is.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thursday evening, Mary called her sister.

“Wow, you are psychic, girl!” Kate said. “How’d you know I needed to hear your voice?”

“Don’t know about psychic, but I was thinking I’d fly east this weekend and visit. Maybe stay a week and get together with some old friends.” Mary tried to sound nonchalant, but she was worried about Kate. She could only begin to imagine what her sister was going through. The thought of losing her own husband was unbearable.

Pete, the sweetie, had agreed to a week of single parenthood so she could go see for herself that Kate was okay.

“I know it’s last minute, but with the holiday Monday, it’s one less day Pete has to jockey his schedule around the girls’ school.” Mary didn’t want to give her too much time to think about it, and maybe realize that her little sister was mainly coming to check up on her.

The strategy apparently worked.

“I’d loved to have you!” Kate said without hesitation.

~~~~~~~~

Kate hadn’t realized just how lonely she was until she’d heard her sister’s voice. Looking forward to Mary’s arrival helped her get through the next day. It started off rough and seemed to grow worse with each session.

Her three o’clock client was Jim Lincoln. One of his alters, a twelve-year-old boy named Sammy, was currently very depressed. She had been able to extract a promise from Sammy that if he felt the urge to harm himself, he would call her first.

She held back her sigh of relief until Jim was totally out the door of the outer office.

At least her last session would probably be an easy one. Cheryl Crofton was doing quite well lately, although Kate reminded herself to watch for signs of white knight syndrome regarding Rob.

Cheryl arrived a few minutes late and was dressed much more provocatively than usual. Despite the fact that her belly now had a significant bulge to it, she was poured into a snug knit top that revealed considerable cleavage, and maternity Capri pants that accented muscular calves. Again, she was wearing three-inch heels.

Seeing the appraising look in Kate’s eyes, she grinned and sashayed around the outer office. “You like?”

“Wow,” Kate said. “That’s quite an outfit. But how
do
you walk in those heels?” She was concerned that Cheryl was going to fall and hurt the baby if she insisted on continuing to wear such footwear.

“Aw, I’m used to ’em.” Cheryl snapped the gum in her mouth. Kate had never seen her chew gum before.

She ushered the client into the office. “You certainly seem to be in a good mood today.”

“Oh, yeah,” Cheryl said, dropping onto the loveseat. “But I can’t wait to get this brat out of my body, so I can do some serious partying. This not being able to drink really sucks.”

Kate struggled to keep her alarm from showing. Was that resentment in Cheryl’s voice, under the joking banter?

So much for this being an easy session.

As she settled into her own chair, she decided to come back to the issue, after she’d had a few minutes to ponder the woman’s apparent change in attitude toward motherhood.

“Have you heard any more from Frank?”

Cheryl’s face morphed into a mask of rage. “No, that lying son of a bitch! Last time he called he said he was gonna send me some money but he hasn’t called since. That was weeks ago. I tried callin’ him and his phone’s been disconnected.”

This time Kate didn’t bother to hide her shock. “You gave him your address? Cheryl, the idea was to keep him from knowing where you are.”

“Oh, don’t worry. He knows not to mess with me no more. I told him I had a gun and I’d shoot his sorry ass if he ever came near me again!”

The session continued along those lines, with Cheryl ranting about what she would do to Frank or any other man who ever messed with her again, and Kate trying to calm her down. Finally Kate said, “Look, these assholes, as you call them, aren’t worth going to jail for.”

Cheryl narrowed her eyes at her. “I thought you wanted me to stand up for myself?”

“I do, and if someone’s actually attacking you, by all means protect yourself. But it’s not okay to shoot some shmuck just because he makes a pass at you. You need to stand up for yourself verbally and only use a violent response as a last resort. Otherwise you’re no better than Frank.”

In a softer voice, she added, “Look, it’s totally understandable that you’re pissed at Frank, and men in general. And it’s a good thing that you’re letting that anger out.” She pointed to Cheryl’s belly. “But I don’t want that baby growing up in foster care because his mom’s in jail.”

The client gave her a dirty look, then subsided into a pout. Kate managed to hide her surprise at this out-of-character behavior. Cheryl wasn’t highly educated but she was an intelligent woman. She usually listened to reason.

After a moment, the pout shifted to a sly smile. “You really think this outfit is sexy?”

“About as sexy as it gets.” Kate smiled back.

After a few more minutes of Cheryl switching from angry to almost flirtatious, she finally seemed to settle down. As the session was coming to an end, she looked down at her outfit, confusion on her face. “Don’t know what I was thinking when I got dressed this morning. This outfit’s a bit over the top.”

Kate caught herself as her mouth was about to drop open. She stood up and ushered her client to the door.

“See ya next time,” Cheryl said over her shoulder, clicking away on her ridiculously high heels.

Kate flopped back down into her desk chair. She was trying to process what had just happened. Could Cheryl have multiple personalities?

Maybe I’m imagining things, because she came in right after Jim today
.

No, there was definitely something going on here. Kate shook her head, then made a note in the file to keep an eye out for additional signs of D.I.D. It was a diagnosis with serious implications, not one to be made in haste.

As she locked up the file, Kate shook her head again to clear it of client issues. She had places to go and sisters to see!

Driving to the airport, she experienced something she hadn’t felt in quite awhile–a light, bubbly feeling in her chest, something akin to happiness.

She’d warned Mary that she would have to go to work next week, having already missed too much time with her clients. She’d even had to schedule Jim and another potentially suicidal client on Monday, Memorial Day. She wasn’t sure either one would make it through a three-day weekend.

Mary had assured her that she could easily occupy her days with shopping and visits with childhood friends. She’d pointed out that stay-at-home moms rarely got vacations from their jobs. She was looking forward to some alone time and being able to shop without squabbling kids along.

~~~~~~~~

They had a delightful weekend, staying up late, drinking wine and chatting. Mary was regaling her sister with stories of her nieces until she caught the wistful look in Kate’s eye. She changed the subject.

At breakfast Monday morning, Kate handed her a set of keys. “I hope it starts. It hasn’t been driven in awhile.”

With a jolt, Mary realized the keys were to Ed’s Saturn. She faked a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “Whatever. If it doesn’t start, I’ll laze around the house and we’ll deal with it this afternoon.”

Kate gave her a hug and left for work.

The Saturn’s engine turned right over, then coughed and died. On the second try, it stayed running. Mary backed it carefully out of the garage and headed for Towson Town Center to check out the Memorial Day sales.

Two hours later, she returned with a bag of new clothes. Kate wasn’t due home for another hour so she decided to take a nap. She’d come east to check on her sister, yes, but she had every intention of enjoying her vacation from motherhood while she was here.

She had no idea how much time had passed when she was awakened by the faint ding-dong of a doorbell. Groggy, she shuffled into the living room and over to the front door. She couldn’t see out the peephole that Ed had apparently installed at Kate’s eye level.

She tried standing on tiptoes. All she could see was the distorted image of one of the posts holding up the porch roof. The doorbell rang again.

This is ridiculous
.

Mary unlocked and opened the door. There was no one there. She stepped closer to the screen door. Then she heard a truck engine roar in the distance.

The UPS guy! They never wait for you. Just ring the bell and take off.

She opened the screen door. Looking down in search of a package, she stepped out onto the porch. And fell into darkness.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kate caught herself humming to the tune on the radio as she drove home.

Wow, I didn’t think I’d ever hum again. Guess I’m gonna be all right, Eddie.

She imagined him saying, in his soft baritone,
Well of course you are, my love.
She smiled to herself.

The smile faded as she turned the corner onto her block. The street was clogged with emergency vehicles and bystanders. The latter were staring in the direction of her house.

Heart pounding, she parked haphazardly, jumped out of the car and raced toward the crowd. She elbowed her way through it without bothering to excuse herself.