ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #2) (14 page)

Lindstrom was hoping the lab results would help him figure out what had really happened here today. Had the killer tried to set up a fake suicide to frame Mrs. Franklin? Or had this best-selling writer of fiction come up with a creative ruse to throw suspicion off of herself? Easy enough to scrape up the window frame, then leave the window hanging open while she set up the rest of it.

Canfield had said they’d heard the intruder running away through the apartment, but people sometimes thought they’d heard or seen something afterwards because it was what they expected to hear or see under the circumstances.

As Rob rose to shake the detective’s hand, Lindstrom quietly said, “I suggested before that she go to a motel. Maybe you can convince her.”

“I’ll try,” Rob said.

The detective and his technicians went out the door.

In the straight-backed chair, the butt of Skip’s gun had been digging into his back for the last half hour. He pulled it out of its waistband holster and started to slip it into his pocket.

Mac sitting on the floor beside him, caught a flash of mother of pearl. “Nice lookin’ piece,” he said.

Skip held the pearl-handled snub nose .38 on the flat of his palm so Mac could get a better look.

“May I?” Mac asked.

“Sure.” Skip handed the gun to the other man butt first.

“Any coffee left?” Rose asked.

“I’ll get it,” Skip said, standing up. “Wouldn’t mind another cup myself.” He stepped around behind their chairs, then put his hand on Kate’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “You want any?”

Kate twisted around to smile up at him and shook her head.

“Anybody else?” Skip asked as he took Rose’s cup from her. The others shook their heads and he headed into the kitchen.

Rob was staring after the younger man. Had he just seen what he thought he’d seen? He got up and went over to the liquor cabinet. He’d decided to have that second bourbon after all.

Meanwhile Mac was examining Skip’s pistol, carefully avoiding contact with the trigger of the loaded gun. “Nice,” he said. “Double action?”

“Yeah. It was my grandfather’s,” Skip said, as he poured coffee into the two cups. “He was with Patton in World War II.”

“Was this one of Patton’s guns?” Mac asked in an awed voice. General Patton was known for his penchant for pearl-handles on his sidearms. Reverently Mac laid the pistol on Skip’s chair, the barrel facing away from the occupants of the room.

“No, Gramps bought it after the war. Said it reminded him of the general.”

Skip handed Rose her coffee. He scooped up his gun and sat down again next to Kate.

From across the room, Rob was studying him through narrowed eyes, as he was rapidly polishing off his second drink.

“Liz, did you have any luck with the back-up disks?” Kate asked.

Liz shook her head. She had been hoping they would have forgotten about that idea, considering what she had found out. Gently she said, “I’m sorry, Aunt Betty, I’m afraid the subplot does start to show up in the drafts around mid-April, around the time you met with Doris.”

Betty’s expression moved from surprise to dismay. “Are you sure, Elizabeth?”

Liz nodded, feeling horrible for her.

Betty dropped her face into her hands. “I’m a plagiarist.”

Kate quickly said, “Betty, did you mention the subplot idea at the club meetings before you included it in the story?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t remember.” Betty raised a tear-stained face to look at Kate. “We talk about so many things.”

“It’s possible that Doris got the idea from you. Or maybe you did come up with the subplot idea after your talk with her, but thought it was your own original idea. That happens more than you think. It’s even got a fancy psychobabble name. It’s called source amnesia. As in you remember the information but not the source it came from.”

Betty shook her head. “I can’t write anymore if I’m getting too old to remember what are my ideas and what I’ve heard from other people.” There was anguish in her voice.

“No, no, it has nothing to do with age.” Kate moved across the room and knelt down in front of the elderly woman, taking both of Betty’s hands in her own. “College students unintentionally plagiarize ideas all the time. They read something while doing research for a paper, then forget where they read it and put it in the paper as their own idea.”

“It’s an honest human mistake,” Liz said gently, patting Betty’s arm.

“It definitely doesn’t mean you’re too old to write,” Kate said emphatically. “I want to find out if the heroine in your next book gets the lawyer to fall in love with her or not.”

Betty gave her a weak smile. “Thank you, Kate.” She took the tissues Liz offered her and wiped her eyes.

As Kate struggled up off her knees, Rob said, “I think we need to go to a motel for tonight.” Before his aunt could protest, he quickly added, “It’s not safe here, especially now that the security chain is broken.”

“If I can find me a hardware store,” Mac said. “Get some supplies. I can fix it tomorrow.”

“I saw a Home Depot on Route 30,” Kate said. “But shouldn’t you two be heading home? You’re on duty tomorrow, aren’t you, Rose?”

“Called my sergeant this afternoon,” Rose said. “Told him I needed to take a few days’ leave. Personal business.”

“You shouldn’t be using up your leave for this,” Betty protested.

“Counts toward my training hours, for my PI license. Right, Skip?”

Skip nodded.

“Got things covered at the restaurant,” Mac said. “We’re in this. For the duration.”

Kate hid a smile. Even without the Rose factor, she figured Mac found chasing a murderer much more interesting than running a restaurant. When it came to careers, her childhood friend had a short attention span. Kate suspected his next one might be private investigating.

“Kate, we were assuming
you
would want to go home tonight, now that we’re here,” Liz was saying.

Kate silently debated with herself. She wanted nothing more than to go home, kiss her sleeping baby, then wake up tomorrow morning to a day of childcare and laundry. But maternal guilt was doing battle with several other kinds of guilt.

She was worried about Betty. And despite Skip’s efforts to reassure her, she still felt guilty about Frieda. She did not want to see the woman’s murderer go free.

She was also increasingly concerned about Rob. Besides looking physically exhausted, something was definitely troubling him. She couldn’t in good conscience walk away from this, abandon her friends in their hour of need. If she went home to Towson now, she’d just worry constantly about what was going on up here in Lancaster. Better to be here and help out.

Finally she said, “I’ll stick around and help for another day or two, if you think Shelley won’t mind holding down the fort back home.”

“There’s a Travel Lodge near here,” Skip said. “Has an Indian restaurant attached to it.”

“I’m paying for the rooms,” Betty said emphatically. Rob opened his mouth to argue, but his aunt cut him off. “You all are here for my benefit, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am. Besides, Nephew, my books have made enough money, I couldn’t possibly spend it all if I live to be a hundred.”

Liz offered to help Betty pack some clothes and Kate went into the den to gather up her things. As Skip retrieved his duffel bag from the corner of the living room, Rob frowned at the younger man’s back.

Heading out the door, Liz held her hand out and wiggled her fingers. “Gimme the keys, Big Guy. I’m driving.”

K
ate had trouble getting to sleep that night. Laying in one of the two double beds in the room she was sharing with Betty, she stared at the ceiling. She missed her child horribly. Her whole upper body ached from longing to hold the little girl in her arms. She imagined Maria bathing Edie and envy shot through her. Of all the things she loved about motherhood, the one she loved most was cuddling with her freshly bathed, sleepy baby.

But as soon as she started contemplating going home, leaving the Franklins to deal with this mess without her, the image of Rob’s drawn face came into her mind’s eye. Her stomach felt queasy from worry. She hadn’t seen him this tired and stressed out in a long time, not since those horrible weeks when they had been trying to track down Eddie’s killer.

Sighing, Kate thought,
I miss our baby girl, Eddie.

I miss you, love!

I miss you too, darling.

She rolled over, punched her pillow, and decided to try the age-old tactic of counting sheep. After thirty or so, she did, indeed, begin to feel drowsy. As she drifted off, it only half registered that the sheep were starting to have Skip’s big easy-going grin on their faces.

Kate woke up early the next morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. She pulled on the previous day’s clothing and slipped out of the bedroom.

Skip, stretched out diagonally on the too-small sofa bed in the suite’s living room, opened one eye as Kate tiptoed across the room. When she started quietly rummaging through drawers, he whispered, “What are you looking for?”

Kate jumped.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Skip said quietly.

Kate walked partway across the room, then stopped at the sight of bare muscular shoulders above the sheet and tousled brown hair falling across his handsome face.

“I was going to write you a note. I’m slipping out to Denny’s for some breakfast. I, uh, could use some alone time,” she whispered back.
Mainly to figure out how I feel about you.
She was suddenly self-conscious in her rumpled clothing.

Skip propped himself up on his elbows, contemplating the wisdom of trying to stop her from going out by herself. The sheet slid down to his waist, exposing a broad chest sprinkled with dark hair.

Kate prayed he hadn’t heard her sharp intake of breath. But the slow grin spreading across his face told her he had. She blushed, as he said, “Don’t worry. I’m wearing pants. In case I had to jump up to fend off the bad guys in the middle of the night.”

“I’ll be back… in a little while,” she stammered as she moved toward the door.

Skip’s grin faded. “Kate, wait.”

She turned back toward him. He gestured for her to come closer as he swung his legs out of bed and stood up.

She stopped a few feet away from him, lowering her eyes. He grabbed his shirt off the chair, where he had draped it the night before, and put it on. He wanted her to pay attention to what he was about to say.

“Kate, the other case Lindstrom caught. It’s a serial rapist. There’ve been three attacks so far, in the last two months. First two didn’t report it until the third one hit the paper.”

Kate grimaced. “When do the attacks happen?”

“At night, so far, but there’s no guarantee he’ll stick to that MO.”

“I know, but he probably would only go after a woman during the day if she were in an isolated spot and not paying attention. Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to be paying attention now.”

“The key word is
probably
. You can never tell for sure what these guys are going to do. Now that he’s getting media attention, he may go underground but he also might escalate to something more daring, to thumb his nose at the police and keep the attention coming.”

Kate took a step closer and held out her hand. He took it. She tried not to let her reaction to the little zing she felt show on her face. “Skip, I appreciate your concern, and the warning. But I really need some alone time. I’ll be on guard and make sure I’m always near other people.”

He wrapped both of his hands around hers, as if to keep her there. And for a moment there was a look of naked fear in his face. Then it was gone.

Kate tugged her hand. He let it go reluctantly. She knew he had once been on the Maryland State police force. “I’m sure when you were a state trooper, you received training to help you understand how rapists think and behave. Maybe went to a workshop about it?”

He nodded. “Two over the years, if I recall correctly.”

“Skip,” she said gently. “I could have taught one of those workshops. This is my field. I know how to handle myself to minimize the risk, and I wouldn’t go out by myself if I thought the risk was anything but minimal.”

Skip opted not to remind her of her close encounter with Joe. He knew she was right. If she had her guard up, and never let herself be out of the sight and shouting range of others, the risk was minimal. He walked her to the door so he could keep watch while she went to her car. “Just be careful,” he couldn’t help saying again as she stepped past him. “Remember there’s also a killer out there, who’s probably not very happy that we’re trying to find him.”

•   •   •

Kate was sitting in the Denny’s a few blocks from the motel, eyes closed, waiting for the waitress to bring her coffee.

Edie would be waking up about now. Trying to block out the breakfast smells of the restaurant, Kate imagined nuzzling her little one’s neck and breathing in the scent of clean baby skin. An ironic smile bloomed on her face as she realized she was even beginning to miss changing diapers.

She heard rustling and felt a familiar presence. Opening one eye, Kate saw Rob slide into the booth across from her.
So much for alone time
, she thought.

“Good morning. Skip ratted me out, didn’t he?”

“Morning,” Rob said, without answering her question.

There was definitely something bothering him. “What’s the matter, Rob? Did your case go badly?”

“No, I won. Or at least got the ruling I expected.”

As Kate’s expression invited him to elaborate, he said, “What we got was the best any judge was likely to give him, joint legal custody, sole physical custody, wife got liberal visitation.”

“At least he got custody,” Kate said, breathing out a small sigh. “Are you worried about the kids when they’re with her?”

Rob shrugged. “She says she’s in recovery now, volunteered to get a breathalyzer installed on her car. The kind that won’t let you start the car if you register above a certain alcohol level.”

“Which can be circumvented.”

“Yeah, but I’m not unhappy with how the case went. I did my job and got him the best deal he was likely to get.”