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

            Rob and Kate had started out as work buddies, with Rob handling the legal messes her psychotherapy clients sometimes encountered. Over the years, the relationship had evolved into a friendship, first between them and later between the two couples. The hell the three of them had been through together, when Eddie was murdered and Kate and the Franklins were being stalked by his killer, had taken that friendship to a whole new level.

            Now her friend was watching her. “How’re you doing, Kate?”

            “Fine,” came out of her mouth, as she grimaced.

            “What’s the matter?”

            “Oh, it’s not a big deal. I just had a session right before lunch with a somewhat difficult client.”

            “Need to talk about it?” Rob asked.

            “I’d love to but I can’t. She’s a celebrity, pretty high profile, and a bit spoiled.” Kate changed the subject. “So how are things in your world?”

            While waiting for their usual order of crab cake sandwiches, with seasoned fries on the side for Rob and a salad for Kate, they chatted about the latest adventures of the Franklins’ daughters. The oldest, Shelley, was in her third year in an archeology doctorate program and Samantha was a junior at Johns Hopkins University, in pre-med.

            “Wow, your girls are gonna be doctors,” Kate said.

            “Yeah, who’d have ever thunk it, especially Sam. For a long time there we weren’t real sure she’d make it out of high school in one piece.” Rob shook his head, recalling his youngest’s two-year rebellion. It had felt like a decade. “You’ll be dealing with that eventually you know,” he couldn’t resist pointing out.

            “Don’t remind me. Billy’s full-blown terrible twos right now. I don’t want to think about that same attitude in a six-foot tall teenager.”

            “Or taller, considering his daddy.” Rob grinned, as the waitress delivered their food. Rob swiped the pickle slices off her plate to add to his own stacked on top of his crab cake.

            “I’ve been meaning to do an intervention with you,” Kate teased him, as she spread tartar sauce on the bun of her own sandwich. “Find you a treatment program for pickle addictions.”

            They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. Then Rob noticed Kate’s face had clouded up again.

            “Kate, what is it? Something’s bothering you.”

            “It’s this case. I really wish I could talk to you about it. It’s somebody Skip referred to me. And what’s really bothering me is not my involvement with the client, but his. He’s providing bodyguard services personally, because it’s a VIP...” She trailed off, wishing she could tell him about the threatening notes and the dead cat. Until she and Cherise had talked about it in this morning’s session, Kate hadn’t realized just how much the cat incident had spooked her, although she’d hidden those feelings from the client.

            “Skip knows how to take care of himself.” Rob covered her hand with his own. “I’ve never met anybody as capable of handling himself as he is. I’ve seen him, we’ve
both
seen him in tricky situations. He keeps his cool, does what needs to be done. Hell, Kate, he saved
our
lives three years ago, by keeping his head.”

            Kate turned her hand over and gave his a squeeze, then let go to pick up her fork. She stabbed at her salad. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” She looked down at her plate. “It’s just that I couldn’t handle...”

            When she didn’t finish the thought, Rob said, “I know, Kate. And so does Skip. He’s always careful.”

            Kate poked at her salad some more, without actually eating any, while she got herself under control. Finally she looked up, having blinked away the tears in her eyes. “I know it’s irrational, to be this scared for him. His work really isn’t all that dangerous, and he’s good at it. Heck, when’s the last time you heard about a bodyguard getting hurt in the line of duty. As he’s pointed out to me several times, bodyguards are there as a deterrent and their mere presence keeps the bad guys from trying anything.”

            She stabbed again at her plate.

            “Kate, I don’t think you have to kill that salad. It looks like it’s already dead to me,” Rob said.

            She gently poked the back of his hand with her fork. “Leave me alone, Funny Man. I’m trying to sort something out here.”

            He grabbed her hand and disarmed her. Then held the hand between both of his big paws. “Kate, I don’t need a degree in psychology to figure out why you’d be afraid of losing him.” Rob had been there when the police had come to tell her Ed Huntington had been killed. It was high on his list of the worst moments of his life.

            Kate shook her head. “It’s not just that Eddie died, but how he died. It was so sudden, and so senseless. One minute we were going along, just being ordinary people, doing boring mundane things. The next minute... Hell, Rob, I think I’d be scared silly half the time if Skip were a shoe salesman. Eddie was a tax accountant, for God’s sake. How safe can you get? The only people he had reason to be afraid of were IRS auditors.”

            Rob didn’t know what to say to comfort her, and he wasn’t sure she was ready to be comforted. It had taken him many years of marriage–and of friendship with this rather intense woman sitting across from him–to realize that sometimes, often actually, women didn’t want you to fix it. They just needed to talk it out.

            “A friend of mine, a psych prof at the university, she talks about what she calls healthy denial,” Kate was saying. “I sat in on her lecture on depression one time. She told her class that depressed people are actually more realistic than the rest of us. They realize that bad things really can happen to anyone. They’ve lost their healthy denial, the ability to assume that when they leave the house in the morning nothing bad will happen to them that day. That assumption is what allows us to function on a day-to-day basis, without being constantly afraid and depressed.”

            “But in your case,” Rob said softly, putting the pieces together along with her, “you have that denial for yourself, just not for Skip.”

            She nodded, her eyes filling again. “Every minute, every
single
minute I’m away from him, I’m afraid somebody’s going to walk up to me and tell me he’s dead.” She dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief Rob produced. “The only time I know he’s safe is when he’s in my arms. It’s the only time I can relax.”

* * *

            Rob drove back to his office after his lunch with Kate. On the sidewalk outside his building, he paused to call a number on his cell phone. He almost disconnected while the phone was ringing. He’d never violated Kate’s confidences before. Was this such a violation? He wasn’t sure.

            He got Skip’s voicemail. “Hey, it’s Rob. This case you’re both on. She couldn’t tell me much about it, but for some reason it’s got her spooked. She’s scared for you, my friend.” Rob hesitated. “Don’t tell her I called.”

            He was walking into his office when his phone beeped. He looked at the display.
You have a new text message. Do you want to read it now?

            Rob was technologically challenged. He’d never figured out how to send text messages and wasn’t real sure he ever wanted to. But this was easy enough. He hit OK and the message popped up.
Thx, man. I’ll b careful.

* * *

            Cherise was not able to cancel the charity concert. Her publicist had thrown a fit at the thought of cancelling so late in the game, her agent informed her over the phone. The charity, the Make A Wish Foundation that tried to fulfill the dreams of children with terminal illnesses, had already incurred expenses. If Cherise backed out now, it would be extremely bad publicity, instead of good.

            When Cherise told the agent, Jannine Welsh, the reason she wanted to cancel, Jannie threw a fit of her own. “What do you mean you’ve been getting threatening notes from somebody? And you didn’t even
tell me,
” she yelled in Cherise’s ear.

            “No, I didn’t tell you because I was afraid Jim would try to turn it into a publicity stunt, and then every other wacko in the world would have played copycat. And don’t you dare tell him.”

            “Okay, okay, you’re right. Jim Bolton would find a way to leak it to the press,” Jannie admitted. “So I won’t tell him, but he’s also right, Cherise. You can’t cancel. It would totally blow your image as the sweet wholesome gal who loves puppy dogs and kids.”

            “Actually I’m a cat person and I can’t stand anybody under nineteen,” Cherise said acidly.

            “I know that, lovey, but the world doesn’t, and we want to keep it that way. So you have to do the concert. But we can shorten your part by a few songs, just one long set, no intermission. I’ll look into adding another warm-up act. And maybe Johnny could end with a solo, while security is getting you out of there.”

            “I’ll talk to Skip Canfield about it and get back to you. But I’m not promising I’ll do it,” Cherise said. “Only if he’s sure he can keep me safe.”

            “Who’s this Skip dude?” Jannie asked, fearing Cherise had hooked up with yet another loser.

            “He’s my
personal
security chief,” Cherise answered. “I hired him and his firm a few weeks ago.”

            “His firm?”

            “He and his partner run a private investigation agency, and they also provide bodyguard services.”

            “Ooohh. But the question is, my dear, is he a hunk?”

            Cherise giggled. “The hunkiest,” she said, then disconnected.

* * *

            This was a first for Canfield and Hernandez. Skip had called a staff meeting. Rose, Mac, and ‘Dolph’ Randolph, a retired police detective, were gathered in the agency’s conference room. Three of the newly hired guards were at Cherise’s farm, so that Ben could be at the meeting.

            “Cherise Martin wants assurances from us we can keep her safe before she’ll agree to go ahead with the charity concert at Merriweather,” Skip began.

            “When is the concert?” Dolph asked, chewing on the end of his bushy ginger mustache. It and his full head of rust-colored hair were both heavily salted with gray. At eleven in the morning, the dress shirt and slacks he wore were already rumpled, the shirt gaping a bit around the buttons where it fit too snugly over a slight paunch.

            “A week from Friday. Memorial Day weekend,” Rose answered.

            “Ugh,” Ben and Dolph said in unison.

            “Probably a capacity crowd,” Ben finished the thought for both of them.

            “Probably,” Skip concurred. “Cherise has given us an unlimited budget, so here’s what I have in mind. We hire as many big bodies as we can find. Cherise is going to be the President of the United States. Nobody gets within twenty feet of her. Rose, I’d like you and Mac to be in the crowd, near the front, screaming and acting like just another couple of fans, but you’re watching and listening for anything out of whack.”

            Rose made a face. Acting like a screaming fan wasn’t her cup of tea, but it was the best allocation of their resources. Neither she nor Mac had been seen in public with Cherise so they were the logical ones to be undercover. She nodded.

            “Two, three rows back. One of us on each side. ’Bout fifty feet apart,” Mac said, in his usual clipped sentences.

            Skip eyed the short, wiry man, who looked scruffy on his best day. Working hard to keep the chuckle out of his voice, he said, “Better make sure we introduce you to all the hired muscle, Mac, so they don’t think you’re the stalker.”

            “We going armed?” Rose said.

            “Oh, yeah, but nobody draws unless the guy shows a weapon,” Skip said. “Don’t want anybody getting arrested for assault with a deadly. I’ll take care of contacting the Howard County police and Merriweather’s private security people to coordinate.”

            “Hopefully this won’t turn into a train wreck,” Dolph said, shaking his head at the thought of three different groups of men, with testosterone and adrenaline surging through their systems, trying to coordinate security in a crowd of crazed fans.

            “Hopefully not,” Skip fervently agreed.

            After the meeting, Skip and Rose conferred. “Sarah sent me those lists,” Rose told her partner. “I’ve put them together. Most likely suspect to least likely. See what you think?” She handed him a sheet of paper.

            “Oh, ho. Top of the list. Ex-boyfriend from just last year. Is he the last guy she dated?”

            “No, she’s gone out with a couple of guys, off and on, since then, but they haven’t made it to ‘tell them about the farm’ status. One’s in L.A., the other’s in New York. Seem to be fairly casual relationships, from what Sarah told me. This Lansing guy, the break-up was messy. And  he’d practically been living at the farm for awhile.”

            Rose shook her head in frustration. “I can’t believe Cherise refused to tell us about these guys up front. They should’ve been the first thing we checked out, instead of me trying to chase down postmarks and fancy paper stock at stationary stores.”

            “Cherise claimed, when I signed her up as a client, that she’d only had a couple relationships and they’d ended amiably months ago. She was convinced it was some crazy fan.”

            Rose snorted. “There are eight guys on this list, and that’s only going back about three years, the two that Sarah’s worked for her, plus two ex-lovers the other staff had mentioned in her hearing.”

            “You run a background check yet, on this Lansing guy, to see if he’s got a record?”

            “About to. Then I think we should go talk to him together. If this guy’s into sticking knives into kitties, he may not take a compact woman like myself too seriously.”

            “Since you’re going to be undercover at the concert, I better go by myself,” Skip said.