CELEBRITY STATUS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #4) (15 page)

            “Damn it, Skip, say something!” she yelled.

            “I’ve been trying to say something for the last half hour. You won’t let me talk!” he yelled back.

            They both froze when they heard wailing coming from Billy’s room.

            “Now see what you’ve done,” Kate hissed as she dashed for the stairs.

            “As I recall, you’re the one who started this fight,” he defended himself, following her to the foot of the steps.

            Edie was standing at the top of the stairs, her eyes big as saucers. Kate had stopped beside her.

            “I’ll get her,” Skip said quietly, taking the steps three at a time. “Take care of Billy.”

            With her back still toward him, Kate walked to Billy’s door and went in.

            Skip scooped his daughter up in his arms. “It’s okay, Pumkin, everything’s okay.”

            Maria was headed down the steep steps from the third floor. Skip quietly said to her the Spanish equivalent of “We broke it, we’ll fix it.”

            Maria gave him a solemn look. “
Si, Señor
Skip, you need fix it.” She hadn’t added
señor
in front of his name in three years, not since his wedding day when he had become family.

            “I already fixed it, but she won’t let me tell her that,” he said through gritted teeth. Edie started crying in his tense arms.

            Skip took a deep breath, then turned and carried his daughter down the stairs. He cuddled her on his lap on the sofa.

            “It’s okay, Pumkin,” he kept saying, until her sniffles subsided.

            “Why’s Mommy so
mad
at you, Daddy?” the little girl said, her voice plaintive.

            “It’s a long story, Pumkin. One you needn’t worry your curly little head about. But it’s all going to be okay. Mommies and Daddies fight sometimes. It’s part of being a family. You know, like you and Billy fight sometimes ’cause you get on each other’s nerves. But you still love each other. Mommy and Daddy still love each other and we still love you. We just get on each others’ nerves sometimes, that’s all.”

            Edie leaned back in his arms and looked up at him. “Is this about the bad men with the cameras, Daddy?”

            “Yes, sweetheart, that’s what Mommy’s upset about. But it’s going to be okay now. The bad men won’t be coming around anymore. Daddy took care of it this afternoon.”

            “You did!” Edie said, awe in her voice. “Did you shoot ’em all with your gun?”

            Skip chuckled. “No, sweetie, I don’t shoot people unless I absolutely have to. But I got rid of the men. I told them all the truth so they would go away.”

            “What’s
truth
, Daddy?”

            “When you say what really is, like when you spill something and you admit it, instead of pretending Billy did it.”

            “What were the bad men pretending, Daddy?”

            “That’s a long, long story, Pumkin. I’ll tell you some other time ’cause it’s way past your bedtime now.” He gathered his daughter into his arms and stood up.

            Nuzzling the little girl’s neck until she giggled, he walked toward the stairs. And almost collided with his wife, who was standing at the bottom of them, tears in her eyes.

            “You fixed it?” Kate asked in a small voice.

            “Yes, darlin’, I fixed it. I’ll be right back.”

            When Skip returned to the living room, Kate was sitting on the sofa, tears streaming down her face. “Oh, Skip, I am so sorry. I can’t believe I yelled at you like that.”

            He sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “I was finding it a bit hard to believe there for awhile myself,” he said, but his voice was gentle.

            “Can you ever forgive me?” she asked, putting her head against his shoulder, afraid to look at him.

            “Now that depends on what you’re planning to do tonight to make it up to me, darlin’,” he teased.

            She lifted her head and smiled tentatively at him. “I could probably come up with a few things that might make you like me again.”

            “Well, then, yes, you’re forgiven.” He was tempted to kiss her. But he wasn’t sure he could stop with just a kiss and he wanted to tell her how he had fixed it, before he took her to bed.

            “Is Cherise going to be pissed when she hears about the press conference?” Kate asked when he had finished the story.

            “Frankly, I don’t give a damn if she is,” he said. “She had her chance to control the spin, as she put it, and she didn’t. I told her and her agent what I was going to do, if they didn’t come clean with the press. They had fair warning.”

            “Are you done with her case then?”

            “Not completely yet. I need to hang in a little bit here until this guy is prosecuted, then I’m going to ask Rose if she’s willing to take over the case. I can’t be seen anywhere near Cherise now. If she’s not willing to deal with Rose, then she can find herself another security company. I think you need to stop seeing her though. I don’t want this case affecting our family anymore.”

            Kate thought for a moment. “I agree, not just for that reason. I know most of this is not her fault
per se,
but there’s no way I can be objective or have any kind of clinical detachment with her anymore.”

            “You give me a colleague’s name and I’ll give it to her. I got you into this and I’m getting you out of it.”

            “No, I have to tell her myself that I can’t work with her anymore and why. It’s unethical to just abandon a client without some kind of closure.”

            “But she can’t come to see you now,” Skip said. “If the media got wind of it, they’d assume she was there for some kind of showdown, not for therapy, and the whole mess would be stirred up again.”

            “An excellent point, and probably the one that will convince Cherise this is in her own best interests. But I still have to call her.”

            Skip didn’t say anything. He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up to kiss her. When they came up for air, he stood and pulled her to her feet. Then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again.

            When she broke away, gasping, he started steering her toward the bedroom. They both froze when they heard the soft purr of Skip’s phone vibrating in his pocket.

            Filled with dread, he pulled out the phone and read the caller ID. He swore under his breath, then he turned the phone off and put it back in his pocket. Pulling his wife up against him, he said, “Now where was I?”

            He nuzzled her neck, finding that sweet spot where shoulder begins to curve upward into neck. He kissed her there. The mother, unlike her daughter, did not giggle. The mother swayed against him as she sucked in her breath and her knees gave out on her.

            ‘How is it you can still turn my joints to jelly, Mr. Canfield?” she whispered.

            “Darlin’, I plan to be turnin’ your joints to jelly when we’re eighty-nine.” He was about to pick her up in his arms and carry her to bed when the house phone rang.

            Kate broke away and dashed into the kitchen to pick it up before it rang a second time and woke the children. Jaw tight, Skip followed her. If Cherise was calling on his home phone, he would kill her with his bare hands.

            “It’s Rose,” Kate said, handing him the phone.

            He listened without speaking for almost two minutes. “I’ll be there soon,” he finally said.

            Dropping the phone on the counter, he grabbed both of Kate’s hands in his. “Please don’t be mad, darlin’. I gotta go out there. There’s a bad situation brewing and our men are at risk.”

            He let go of her and headed for the study and his gun cabinet, explaining as he went, “Half an hour ago, bunch of guys showed up, saying they were from some security service up in New York. Her agent sent them down. Our men wouldn’t let them on the property, which these guys did not take well. Head guy insisted on talking to Cherise. She sent one of our men out instead to tell them to get lost. They didn’t take that well either. The message they sent back was that they had their orders and our men had an hour to clear out. Cherise was trying to call me while our man in charge was calling Rose. She told him to sit tight until we get there.”

            Kate was staring at him, incredulous. “Where do these guys think they are, some third world country?”

            Skip shook his head as he headed toward the front door. “A lot of private security guys are ex-cops. Unfortunately, a few of them are the ones who like to throw their weight around. That’s what attracts them to that job, when they leave the force.”

            “Dear God! Be careful, Skip.”

            He turned at the door and took her hands. “I will be, darlin’. I’m calling the Howard County police when I’m within shouting distance. I want to get there first though, so I can intercept the officers and tell them our side of the story. People tend to believe what they hear first.”

            “Very true,” Kate said.

            Skip pecked her on the lips, then took off out the door.

* * *

            When Skip arrived at the top of Cherise’s driveway, Rose’s car was parked on the shoulder across the road and a big hulk of a guy was banging on the window, shouting for her to move on.

            Skip pulled in behind her and flicked on his high beams as the guy turned toward him. Skip lowered his window a few inches.

            “I suggest you back away from my partner’s car, sir, before she feels the need to shoot you in self defense. The Howard County police are on the way.”

            The guy squinted into the light and started moving in Skip’s direction. His hand was on his holster which did not bode well for civil discourse. Skip raised his window, leaving only a crack at the top. He picked up the gun that was lying on the passenger seat.

            “You make a move to pull your weapon, mister, and it’ll be the last move you make,” Skip growled, poking the .38's barrel out through the crack, pointed at the middle of the guy’s chest.

            The man had the good sense to freeze, just as another guy jogged up carrying a Maglite. The asshole shown the light in Skip’s face.

            “Turn that light off, or my finger might just slip on this trigger,” Skip called out.

            “Turn the light off, George,” the guy beside the car said, his voice ending on a squeak.

            “The man said to turn the light off,” Mac’s growl came out of the darkness. The light went out. Skip blinked a couple times, then made out a shadow next to George. Mac’s gun was jammed into the guy’s side.

            “I’m thinking George and Squeaky Voice need to put their hands on their heads, just so there’s no misunderstanding, that might lead to an unfortunate consequence,” Rose said conversationally as she stepped into the light from Skip’s headlights. Her snub nose .32 was in her hand. Both men complied with the suggestion.

            Skip heard a siren in the distance and breathed a tentative sigh of relief. He opened his door into Squeaky’s gut and climbed out of his truck. Flipping the flap on the man’s holster open, he lifted the gun from it with two fingers and tossed it inside his truck. “You got Georgie’s gun, Mac?”

            “Yup.”

            “Okay, George, spread eagle on the hood,” Skip ordered. “You, Squeaky, you do the same against the side of the truck. Pat ’em down, Mac.”

            While Mac did so, removing a second gun from George’s ankle holster, Skip pointed out the obvious. “
We
are the security people the owner of this property hired. We have a legal right to be here.
You
do not.”

            The siren was getting louder. Mac nodded at Skip. “Gentlemen, you will stand politely between my colleagues over there, hands on your heads. Either of you twitches and you’ll be on the ground eating dirt before you can spit.”

            Skip turned to Mac and Rose. “Holster your guns. Keep your hands where the cops can see ’em, but keep your eyes peeled for any more members of this travelin’ road show.”

            “My men are well trained,” George growled. “They’ll hold their positions until ordered to do otherwise.”

            Skip nodded at the man as swirling lights came around the curve a mile down the road, siren blaring. “Let me do the talking, guys,” he said to Mac and Rose. “Hopefully I can avoid letting on who Carol Ann Morris really is.”

            “Is there any point at which
I
get to boss
you
around,” Rose said. Her tone was teasing but her eyes were scanning the front of Cherise’s property.

            “Now I thought you’d already acknowledged I was the sweet talkin’ one amongst us,” Skip drawled good-naturedly, as he watched the police cruiser pull onto the shoulder behind his truck.

            “If it’ll make ya feel better, Honey Bun, I’ll let ya boss
me
’round,” Mac said, a chuckle in his voice. “Ya can even handcuff me.”

            Rose shot Mac a quick glare.

            Skip snickered without taking his eyes off the shadowy figures of the two police officers who were climbing out of the cruiser. “He calls you
Honey Bun
?”

            “Aw, shut up, partner, and go sweet talk the cops.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

            It was one in the morning before Skip got home, but Kate was waiting up for him. She rushed to greet him at the door when she heard his key in the lock.

            He gathered her up in an exuberant hug. “Shootout at the OK Corral diverted,” he said. “And I shamefully cowered in my truck until Mac and Rose had the bad guys subdued.”

            “As if that would have stopped a bullet,” she said, her face pressed against his chest.

            He held her away from him. “Remember when I had that truck special ordered? I had steel plates put in the doors, and the glass is bullet-proof. Rose’s car’s the same way. How many times do I have to tell you? I
am
careful.”