The Watcher (30 page)

The watcher stared and remembered, but mostly he planned and fantasized about how he’d capture this devil-woman, this K. Myers, and what he’d do to her when she begged him for mercy.

Chapter Thirty-three

The pounding on the front door drew Kate from the lazy stupor of the tepid bathwater. After a few moments she realized the banging was Slater’s fist and the noise was his voice shouting at her to open up.

Let him knock. She was in no hurry to face him. Pulling the bathtub plug, she stood and toweled off, then blew out all the candles except one which she used to guide her way into the bedroom.

The shouting increased.

She held her palms over her ears, then lay down and hugged the pillow to her face.
Just go away, Slater, go away. I’m not ready to fight you.

Fifteen minutes later, Slater was still banging on the door. Wearily, she rose from the bed, dressed, and crossed to the living room. “For heaven’s sake, can’t you take a hint?” she yelled through the door. “You’ll disturb the dead.”

“I’m not leaving until I talk to you. Even if it takes all night.”

Damned obstinate man.

Gritting her teeth, she steeled herself for a confrontation and opened the door. “You have five minutes,” she warned. “If you don’t leave after that, I’ll call 911.”

Slater lifted a disbelieving brow and brushed past her to stand by the sofa. When he removed his jacket and tie, Kate noticed stains on the rumpled arms of his dress shirt. He looked exhausted as he swiped a hand across his jaw where the day’s growth of beard left his face dark and menacing.

Sometimes when she watched Slater, she caught a hint of restless, unleashed energy, reminding her of the pressure cooker her mother had used for canning vegetables on their Idaho farm. If you weren’t careful around all that steam, you’d get burned. This felt like one of those times when the lid could blow off Slater’s patience.

The hackles rose on Kate’s neck. What explanation could he possibly have? Even if he were divorced or separated, even if he thought there was a legitimate excuse, he’d still kept his wife and child a secret from her. Didn’t the very secrecy imply guilt?

“Go ahead, talk,” she demanded.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.” His voice was quiet and the haunted look on his face reminded her of the expression her father had worn after identifying Kassie’s body.

“Look, Kate, I know I should’ve told you about Julie, but you and I – we hadn’t been together long, and then the timing never seemed right.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “When I saw the phone message, I realized I’d made a mistake. Kate, I’m sorry.”

His apology grated her nerves. Sorry was supposed to cover the deceit, the lies of omission? “You’re sorry? Sorry for being married, or sorry for getting caught?” She cringed at the heavy sarcasm in her voice.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Give me a break, Slater. Julie called, I talked to her, and she left a message.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s not.”

“I’m not married to Julie.”

She hated him for the continued prevarication. “So she lied when she identified herself as your wife.”

“Ex-wife. We
were
married, but we’re divorced. It’s been eight years. Julie’s not in my life any more. That part of my life is over with, finished. I put it behind me years ago.”

“And what about Max?” she argued. “What about your son? Have you put that part behind you too? You never mentioned a child. How old is he? Do you ever visit him? Or did you just abandon him?”

Like my father abandoned me when Kassie died.

Slater’s face went ashen. “What did Julie tell you?”

“Does it matter? I saw the picture in your desk drawer.”

Slater sank into the armchair, his arms propped on his knees, his face buried in his hands. “She’s not my wife,” he whispered. “Not anymore.”

She loomed over him, her fury hanging in tatters around her, but she wouldn’t let it go. “That doesn’t make sense. Why did she say she was your wife? Why is she calling you?”

“She’s – Julie’s not well. She still thinks – hopes, fantasizes, I guess – that we’ll get back together.”

“Is there any basis for her hope?”

“None. Absolutely none. Look, I’m a mess. Can I take a quick shower and grab a cup of coffee before we continue?”

Kate remained firm. “Not until you explain about your son.”

Slater stood and moved like a man in a trance toward the guest bathroom. “Max is dead.”

He didn’t wait for her response and reached the end of the hall before she could speak. Rooted to the spot, Kate watched his retreating back and later listened to the sounds of the shower running. She moved into the kitchen and automatically started the coffee. Her mind couldn’t wrap itself around the meaning of his words.

Slater had a son and that son was dead.

Resigned to his staying until he’d spoken his piece, Kate dressed and waited for him to emerge from the bathroom. Ten minutes later, he stood in the archway that separated the kitchen from the hallway. He’d apparently shaved with her razor because there were several nicks on his jaw. His damp hair was slicked straight back, and he’d put his rumpled clothes back on.

A rush of butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She wanted him even while she felt betrayed by him.
He should have told her.
He had no right to keep a wife – even an ex-wife – a secret from her. And a son? It was cruel and unthinkable.

Slater poured a cup of coffee. “I need to tell you about Julie.”

They sat on the sofa, Kate with her arms round her knees, her body tucked into one end of the couch.

“I met Julie my second year of law school at Berkley,” he began, staring at his hands dangling between his knees. Pain permeated his voice. “I was twenty-three. She was eighteen, barely graduated from high school. She was young and headstrong. I was just plain stupid.”

Kate wouldn’t look away, no matter how tragic his admissions were.

“The physical part of our relationship was good. She was uninhibited, almost wild, and I was young enough to mistake that for genuine love and devotion.” He gave a sardonic laugh and shook his head. “We married after a three-month courtship. Her parents were ecstatic. I didn’t think that was strange at the time, even though she was very young and we hadn’t known each other long. My sisters warned me there was something – something off about Julie, but I wouldn’t listen.”

“They warned you about marrying her?”

“My sister Janie, who’s two years older than me, was married. She sensed something was wrong with Julie from the start, but she had her hands full with a new baby. Anne is a year younger than me and was engaged to her husband, all wrapped up in wedding plans. Grace, the baby, was too young to understand.” He shrugged and turned to face Kate. “It wouldn’t have made any difference if they’d tried harder. I was determined to have her.”

His face hardened with an emotion she hadn’t seen before – anger, disgust, she wasn’t sure. He took her hand and clasped it hard with both of his. His eyes burned with intensity.

“I tried to make the marriage work, Kate, I swear. I really tried hard. But she was so wild. I’d come home from my law classes and she’d be gone night after night, no note, no phone call, nothing. I was frantic with worry half the time.”

Unaware, he increased the pressure on her hand. “I threatened to leave, but she’d cry and say how sorry she was, beg me not to go. I think in my heart I knew she wasn’t stable, but she refused to see a doctor. Her parents were no help. They blinded themselves to reality. I felt trapped. How could I leave her if she was sick, you know?”

Kate pulled her hand away and walked into the kitchen for a bottle of water. She didn’t want to hear this. The grief in Slater’s voice and face was too much.

“So you stayed with her.”

He nodded. “After law school graduation, I joined a firm as a junior partner, working long hours, just starting out in a career I wasn’t sure I really enjoyed all that much. Julie came from a wealthy family, and I felt I had to provide her with the material comforts she was used to. For a while she seemed to get better, and then she got pregnant. She was twenty and I was twenty-five when our son Max was born.”

The last sentence was a whisper and so full of anguish she almost went to him, but the mention of his son was another betrayal that stabbed her chest with fiery daggers. The look on Kate’s face must’ve conveyed her emotions.

“Let me finish,” he protested, walking to where she stood in the kitchen.

Her back against the counter, the water bottle clutched in both hands, Kate nodded for him to continue. Now she was afraid to look at Slater, afraid she’d start bawling and wouldn’t stop.

“Things got better. The initial months after Max was born were hard, but I took care of the baby at night so Julie could sleep. I cut back on my work hours, tried to help her as much as possible. She seemed – if not affectionate toward the baby, at least accepting of him.”

A chill ran up her spine.

He placed his palms against the refrigerator door and leaned into them.

“What happened?” she prompted.

Moments passed and she thought he was weeping. She remembered again the look of desolation on her father’s face when he’d identified Kassie’s body. She began to tremble. “Tell me.”

“I came home one afternoon.” His voice was an automaton, reciting a rehearsed narration. “Max was twenty-one months old. I called out for Julie, but there was no answer. Max usually ran to greet me. He liked me to swing him up in the air and catch him. At first I thought they’d gone out for a minute. I – I searched the apartment and finally discovered them in the bathtub. Julie sometimes bathed Max with her, and then I’d get him out, put his jammies on, give him a bottle, and tuck him in his crib so she could soak a little longer.”

Kate wanted to press her hands to her ears, prevent Slater from finishing the story. She knew by the anguish in his voice that something too terrible to imagine had happened.

“Julie was lying back in the tub, lots of bubbles and steam. At first I couldn’t see Max, but then I realized that he was under the water, just lying there, very still. I froze for a second. I didn’t understand what it meant. Julie was so calm, her eyes closed. She was humming a familiar tune, a lullaby I think.”

A harsh sound escaped him and he paused before continuing. “I reacted like a maniac. I pulled Max out, screamed at Julie to call 911, and started mouth to mouth.”

Slater was so close she could feel his breath on her temple and smell the fear coming off his body.

“But I knew there wasn’t any point. His body was blue. He’d been under the water too long.”

Kate turned him toward her, both hands holding tightly on either side of his head. The grief in his eyes ripped through her heart like a claw. “Julie killed your child?”

Slater shook his head dumbly. “She was never prosecuted. They couldn’t determine if it’d been an accident, or if she’d drowned the baby on purpose. She voluntarily committed herself to Hurstwood.”

“The psychiatric hospital near Oakland?”

Slater nodded. “I grew to despise her. I wanted to punish her in a thousand hurtful ways, but I knew I was partly to blame. She was young and unstable, and I was clueless about the depth of her psychosis. I stayed with her two more years, visited her almost every day in the hospital. Out of guilt, I guess, certainly not out of love. Then at the end of her second year at Hurstwood, something changed forever.”

How could there be more?

“It was fall, cold outside, and heavy fog had moved the marine layer in from the ocean, settling there and keeping the temperature down. Julie seemed cheerful when I visited her. I realized later it was because she’d planned to deliver the final blow.”

“What?”

“You see, I’d never said it, but she knew I didn’t love her anymore, that I stayed with her out of obligation. Or pity. But she also knew how much I loved Max, that the only way she could get to me was through him.”

Kate couldn’t stop the tears that ran down her cheeks and spilled onto their locked hands.

“Julie went crazy that day over some imagined offense I’d committed. She screamed at me, pounded on my chest. Accused me of loving Max more than her.” He smiled bitterly. “She was right, of course. She tried to provoke me every way she could. When nothing worked, she got this diabolical smirk on her face and her voice became vicious and spiteful.”

He stopped and took in a long ragged breath. “‘He’s not even yours,’ she said. ‘You loved him so much, but you’re not even his real father.’”

“No,” Kate whispered.

“God, I wanted to throttle her, to squeeze the life out of her. I knew then that she’d drowned him deliberately. His death hadn’t been an accident. And to tell me he wasn’t mine? I filed divorce papers the next day.”

“Did you believe her?”

Slater’s eyes were bleak. “I had a test done, matching hair from Max’s baby brush with my DNA. She was telling the truth. He wasn’t my child. I felt like my son had died twice.”