Sixth Sense (A Psychic Crystal Mystery) (12 page)

“If that’s what you want, then, okay.” Jack shrugged.

“It’s what I need right now,” Katherine assured him.

The light had gone out in Jack’s eyes, but she was too exhausted to worry about hurting his feelings. She needed to rest her tired body and her restless mind. The night headaches were back in full force. Her doctor had called in a prescription for sleeping pills, and she was going to take them to shut off the incessant voices in her head. She imagined herself as the princess in the Sleeping Beauty story, drifting off to an enchanted sleep. Maybe after she was rested she could face the handsome prince. Right now, she couldn’t deal with Jack’s pity and concern, or his possessiveness. And she couldn’t depend on him forever. She had to learn to stand on her own two feet. She was, after all, alone.

She knew she was pushing him away, but she wasn’t sure what to make of their on-again-off-again relationship, if it could even be labeled a relationship. Since they’d met, they’d only been together during a crisis. She didn’t even know what a normal life was anymore.

She’d call Jack in the next few days to see if he’d learned anything new from the police about her parents’ murder. Agent Spaulding from the FBI had given her his card and promised to follow up, but Jack spoke his language. He would help her sort through all the jargon and get to the bottom of the crime. She couldn’t imagine who would want to kill her parents. But whoever was responsible for their deaths was going to pay.

In the hospital, Agent Spaulding had warned her that her life might be in danger, but her safety was not really a concern to her. Jack, on the other hand, had hardly let her out of his sight. He was the overprotective type and she knew he was only being cautious, but she wasn’t his responsibility. He’d probably stick with her 24/7 if he had his way. So she had to be the one to make the break. It was better for both of them.

Chapter Twelve

Katherine wasn’t ready to let them go. She knew she should go through her parents’ things. Donate their clothes to a deserving charity. But she wasn’t up to it. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. There had been the reading of the will, which now left her independently wealthy, but she’d rather be dirt poor than have to live without her parents. Rambling around in this empty mansion, which now seemed stone cold and lifeless without her parents in it, she was lost, bereft.

She’d left the safe till last. That’s where she hoped to find more intimate traces of her parents. Keepsakes, papers, pictures. Maybe a letter—for her?

Katherine hoisted herself out of the comfortable, apple-green wingback chair and walked over to the safe. She knew the combination but had never used it. Never had to.

She swung open the safe, brought out the contents, and placed them on the coffee table. Her mother’s favorite necklace, a wedding present from her father—priceless not only in terms of dollars but in sentimental value. Katherine handled the stones, the last tangible vestige of her mother. Some bonds, stock certificates, property deeds, gold coins, pretty much the kinds of things you expected to find in a safe.

Rummaging through the papers, which she would have to discuss with her parents’ lawyer, now
her
lawyer, she came across a yellowed document.

What was this? Looked like some kind of contract or, no, it was an adoption certificate. Adoption certificate? That made no sense at all. She picked it up and examined it more closely.

Then it dawned on her. It was probably some kind of private adoption her father had handled for one of his clients when he had his own practice. Did she need to return this to its rightful owner? Well, her attorney would know what to do with it. She started to toss it aside when she noticed the date of the adoption. May 19, 1983. Her birthdate. That was too much of a coincidence, and she didn’t believe in them. She read further.

Birthplace: Casa Spirito, Florida.

Birth mother: Juliette Spencer.

Birth father: Rev. Carter Coulter.

Who were these people and why was this document in her parents’ safe? And why was the baby on the contract born on
her
birthday?

Katherine rubbed her eyes. She’d been born right here in Atlanta at the hospital on Peachtree Street, the same place her parents had died. Baby Girl Coulter had been born in Florida, a home birth, in a town she’d never heard of. No connection, except for the date and the fact that Baby Girl Coulter’s papers were in her parents’ safe, almost thirty years later.

Katherine picked up the phone to dial her attorney. This was really none of her business. It was a private matter between Juliette Spencer and Reverend Carter Coulter, but there was her father’s signature on the document. Her father’s lawyer would know the answers, or at least where to go to look for them.

She quickly hung up the phone. What if this was one of those illegal adoptions? You read about those all the time, the ones done under the table, for outrageous amounts of money, where couples who couldn’t conceive bought a baby on the open market. What if this was such a case? She didn’t want to involve the attorney at the risk of sullying her father’s reputation. You never knew who you could trust these days.

Without realizing it, she had subconsciously dialed Jack’s number. It had been on the card he pressed into her hands at the cemetery. She’d had his number on speed dial, but she hadn’t bothered to call him since that day. She wasn’t ready to face Jack again or think about what was happening between them. And he hadn’t called her. She could hardly blame him. Since the funeral, she had pretty much shut him out of her life.

“Hale here.”

“Jack—” Katherine looked down at the adoption document and coughed.

“Kate, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m—I had a question. There’s something I’d like you to take a look at. Something…unofficially. Could you come over?”

“Now?” His voice sounded froggy.

“Did I wake you?” Of course she had, because she had lost track of time.

“I had a late shift last night, but I’m off today, so I’ll be right over.”

“Thank you.”

Katherine heaved a sigh of relief as she realized she trusted Jack, implicitly.

In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of lemonade while she waited. There was a lot of food left over from after the funeral service. She set out some cheese and crackers and some cookies, two plates, napkins and glasses. Jack had a big appetite and he might be hungry. She felt bad that she hadn’t invited him back to the house after the burial, but she’d wanted to be left alone, and he had respected her wishes. But now she needed to see him.

He must have flown over, because he materialized at her front door in record time. That made sense. He lived in Midtown, and Buckhead wasn’t that far away.

“Come in,” she said, and he stepped through the door. She led him into the dining room. Katherine couldn’t stop staring at his face and felt an almost overpowering longing. She was so glad to see him. She hadn’t realized how much she missed him.

“How are you holding up?” Jack considered her to be as fragile as a china doll, she knew.

“Okay, I guess. I’m still numb. I can’t believe this happened, that I’m never going to see my parents again. And I can’t get my mind around the fact that someone tampered with their car. Do the FBI have any leads yet? They won’t tell me anything.” Katherine smoothed her hands down her green velour running suit. It was wrinkled because she’d slept in it. Jack must think she was a mess. Her mother wouldn’t have approved of her state of complete disarray.

“Nothing definitive to report yet,” Jack said, still staring at her sympathetically. “Things like this take time.”

Was he referring to the investigation into her parents’ murder or the time necessary to get over their deaths?

“I don’t know how you’re coping. When I lost my father, well, I’m still not over that, and to lose both parents at the same time… I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling.”

It was comfortable being around Jack again. She’d missed their closeness. When she could bear thinking about anything. She didn’t really know much of anything about him. Maybe it was time to learn more.

“What’s your mother like?” Katherine asked, as she offered Jack a chair and placed a dessert plate and a glass of lemonade on the end table, within easy reach. One thing she did know about him. He was perpetually hungry. “You still have her, don’t you?”

“Yes. Mom is great,” Jack answered, attacking the food with a vengeance. “A little too trusting. I mean, she’s open to anything. After my father died, she, um, brought a medium into our house who claimed she could contact my father.”

“Did she?” Katherine asked, moving closer.

“Are you serious?” Jack said. “She was a fraud. My dad was dead, and that was the end of it. You don’t actually believe you can contact the spirits of the dead, do you?”

Katherine bit her lip. That’s exactly what she believed. And she was determined to try it.

Jack shook his head and pursed his lips. “You’re not considering doing that, are you, Kate?” But he could see plainly that she was.

Katherine lowered her head. “I don’t believe they’re just gone. Don’t you believe that love survives—?”

“You and my mom are so gullible. Like two peas in a pod. When will you ever learn that love is not that powerful?”

Katherine lifted her chin. “My parents’ love was. I-I really think they’re together right now.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Sorry to disappoint you, Kate, but you’re not thinking rationally. You have to look at it from a scientific point of view. When the body goes into the ground—”

“Stop!” Kate shouted, stomping her foot, then covering her face with her hands and sobbing as she sank into the wing chair opposite Jack’s. “I don’t want to hear it!” She wanted to shut off her brain. Some things didn’t bear thinking about.

Jack bolted out of his chair, crossed the distance between them, and gathered her into his arms. “I’m sorry. You’re not ready to hear it. It’s okay, baby,” he said, trying to soothe her by rubbing her back.

Kate finally stopped crying and pulled out of his arms. “You’re just trying to placate me. And you are so wrong about the power of love.” She gestured toward the ceiling. “Somewhere out there…I know they’re still together. You’ll never convince me they’re not.”

Jack was overcompensating. He was all for getting her to talk about her tragedy, but he staunchly refused to confide in her about his. He’d built up an emotional barrier between them as big as a boulder.

“When your father died,” Katherine began tentatively. “Could you tell me about that?”

Jack stiffened and began pacing the room. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Let’s just say this medium should have been arrested.”

“For what crime? Peddling false hope?”

“It went way beyond that.” Jack struggled with his anger in his desire to be supportive of Kate.

“I’m a psychic, too,” she challenged. “Are you going to arrest me?”

Jack narrowed his eyes and he regarded her quizzically. “That depends. Have you done anything illegal?”

Katherine bit her lip. “Not that I know of, but there is something that might be, well, not quite kosher. I don’t know what to make of it, but you have to promise me that if you look at it, you won’t report it.”

“You know I can’t promise you anything like that if a crime is involved.”

“Still going strictly by the book, Beauregard? I don’t think it’s anything that sinister, but I’ve asked you here as a friend, not as a detective. I don’t want the police involved in this.”

Jack turned to face her. “Kate, you can trust me. I’m not going to do anything that would get you into trouble.”

“That’s why I called you.” She walked around the coffee table and pushed the adoption document toward Jack.

He examined the piece of paper for a few minutes. Then he looked her squarely in the eyes.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded.

Katherine blinked. “Is this an interrogation?”

“Well?” Jack tapped the paper with his index finger and stood waiting for an answer.

“Are you going to make me take a lie detector test?” Katherine bristled and finally relented under the pressure of his gaze. “I found it in my parents’ home safe. What is it?”

Jack rubbed his chin. “It looks like an adoption of some kind, but not a legal one. This is not an official certificate. What does this have to do with you?”

Kate shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I’m not sure. But look at the date.”

“May 19, 1983,” Jack read.

“That’s the day I was born.”

“Could be a coincidence,” Jack said, half-heartedly.

“I don’t believe in them.”

“Neither do I.” Jack looked at the names on the certificate. “Have you ever heard of these people? Juliette Spencer and Reverend Carter Coulter?”

Katherine shook her head. “Never. And I never heard my parents talk about anyone by those names. Maybe it was a private adoption.”

“Where the parents pay through the nose to buy a baby?” Jack accused.

Katherine shrank back. “That’s pretty cynical.”

“Yes, and it’s also illegal. I doubt if your father was involved in anything like that. He was a respected judge.”

“And he was just an attorney at the time I was born,” she noted.

Jack scratched his head and reviewed the document again. “This Baby Girl Coulter was born in Florida. Where were you born?”

“In Atlanta, as far as I know. That’s what it says on my birth certificate.”

Jack fixed her with a knowing glance. “Birth certificates can be forged.”

Katherine stuck her chin out. “I don’t think my father would be involved in anything illegal.”

“Desperate people do desperate things every day, Kate,” Jack reasoned, softening his glare.

“My parents weren’t desperate.”

“You’re an only child, right?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t your parents ever want more children?”

“My mother told me she couldn’t have any more children, that I was enough. I always wanted a brother or a sister.”

Jack glanced at the document, trying to piece together the clues, to determine what was missing.

“Maybe you already have one.”