Just Evil (8 page)

“He’d often drop by unannounced to take me to the Santa
Monica Pier for a ride on the carousel or the Ferris wheel, or for long walks
on the beach. Alana would be furious that he hadn’t called first. I think he
did it to piss her off. And of course it did. But he always had a good excuse
or story at the ready. The man excelled at telling a story. He always made
whatever story he came up with sound so real, so believable. But I was a child
and kids tend to believe every word their parents tell them; that is, until
they don’t. I know I fell for his stories and his excuses on more than one
occasion.”

She thought back to the father-daughter Valentine’s Day banquet
at school when she’d been eight. She’d dressed up in her red dress and waited
for him in the foyer for two hours to show up before realizing he wasn’t
coming. She’d cried her heart out for two days. The memory had her remembering
his telephone call several days later and the excuse he’d used. Some work thing
had come up, some movie thing or television thing that always seemed to come
before his daughter.

But in spite of that, she needed to make Jake understand.
“But dad would spend time with me doing the things I’d never get from Alana.
Stuff like teaching me how to ride a horse. He’d take me hiking at Malibu
Lagoon, or camping at Lake Arrowhead, or skiing up at Big Bear. When I turned
eight, he bought me a surfboard and taught me how to ride a wave. And when I
wanted to play volleyball and softball, he supported my efforts. While Alana
grumbled and refused to sign the permission slip, he’d do it behind her back,
which would, of course, piss her off to no end.” 

“Lots of girls play sports. My sisters played tennis, ran
track.”

She laughed. “Alana thought sports were for boys. When I
made the varsity volleyball team in high school, it embarrassed her so much she
bitched about it the entire time.” Even now she remembered the argument, the
accusations.

“Once I got to college she had no say in the matter. I made
the varsity volleyball team as a freshman, got to play all four years. For once
I could play without the thought that she might show up during the game and
embarrass me. Dad never got to see me play though.” Even in the growing
twilight, Jake could see the pitiful look on her face, the sad eyes. He’d
thought he had his feelings pegged, but his heart turned over. And she didn’t
have a clue.

“Then there was my love of art. I’ve always loved to draw
and paint. As a child it was my only outlet…at times…when…” She caught herself.
“Dad encouraged me. You see, I didn’t do very well in school. It seems I always
had to play catch up for one reason or another. The usual subjects like math
and English didn’t interest me much, but I knew I had a talent for drawing and
painting. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough for Alana. She didn’t think I
was talented enough to make a living at it so it wasn’t worth my time.

“Mainly what Alana wanted was a carbon copy of Alana, girly
through and through. It didn’t matter that my interests weren’t in those
things. No daughter of Alana’s was going to be a tomboy. What she didn’t count
on was the fact that when she wanted me to do something, anything at all, I
usually did the opposite, especially as I got older, and deliberately headed in
the other direction from what she wanted.

“When she couldn’t mold me into what she so obviously
wanted…” She took a deep breath and just blurted it out, “She tried beating it
into me at an early age. But I was headstrong. I battled her at every turn even
when I was small. I paid for that stubbornness, but as I got older, either she
drew the battle lines in the sand, or I did. It was a tossup. I fought her so
often it became a way of life until I moved out.”

“Aw, honey.” He reached out and put his arm around her.
Hearing it now, Jake was sure his earlier instinct had been right; that St.
John would see that as motive. But tonight he refused to go down that path.
Even though his heart went out to her, he wanted specifics, and was determined
to get the answers. “Kit, how many broken bones did you have as a kid?”

At first the question startled her, but then she looked
away. “My right arm was broken at three, left leg at four, my left arm at five.
Those were her rage years. I mostly just tried to stay out of the woman’s way.
But when I was little, she was a force to be reckoned with and sometimes it was
difficult to avoid her. She was so much…bigger.”

Jake swore. “How could she hurt you like that, something so
beautiful?”

“I’m pretty sure Alana didn’t think of me as beautiful, most
of the time she was just pissed about something and I got in the way.”

If he’d known she’d had such a lousy childhood, maybe he’d
have…what? What could he have done about it back then? It was Jake’s turn to
fall silent.

As if Kit sensed his mood, she purposely pushed the memories
away. Enough, why did it always seem like she embarrassed herself with him?

She took in several gulps of ocean air, welcoming the slight
breeze that fanned her face. All the wine she’d had over dinner made her flush.
She took another deep breath and filled her lungs with the moist ocean air
before going on, “By the time Gloria and Morty moved out to L.A., dad’s letters
with postmarks from places like Africa or Spain came less frequently and then
one day stopped coming altogether. When I was fourteen, Alana told me he died
in Europe and that was that. John Griffin disappeared from my life. I never saw
him again.”

Jake squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head. “Kit,
I’m sorry I made you go through all that again.”

She shrugged. “I guess I better get used to it. I’m afraid
it’s like you told Baylee, with the abuse, the police will jump to an even
larger conclusion that I had a motive. Even though it doesn’t make much sense
that I’d wait so many years later and do…that. I swear I didn’t killed her.”

“No one who knows you could possibly think you killed
Alana.” But he was pretty sure Max St. John wouldn’t let up until he got all
the gritty details. He pictured the man’s face, the tough-talking, no-nonsense
detective.

Jake inwardly winced. He knew St. John would run with past
abuse as the motive. And what about the media, what would happen when they got
wind of it?

Jake watched as she distractedly picked at several broken
pieces of purple and black fan shells. She looked deep in thought. But in one
swift motion, she tucked her dress around her so she could bring her knees up
to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs and with her fingers, absentmindedly
started playing with her feet, then her toes, brushing the sand away. She
rocked back and forth watching the waves. “You’ve never once said what you
thought of Alana.”

“Vain, materialistic, a piranha in business. Right after I
started the company, I needed venture capital, needed investors to keep it
going. I was young. Banks weren’t exactly lining up to make loans to a
fledgling software business. Gloria and Morty pointed me in Alana’s direction,
thought she might be interested in providing some capital. Alana offered me the
entire amount. Taking her money would have solved my cash flow problems, but
she wanted controlling interest.”

He paused, thinking back to the encounter. He didn’t mention
that Alana had also tried to get him into bed. He’d been twenty-four. The
memory had him even now feeling nauseated, especially at learning what Kit had
gone through. He turned to look out at the water. “That isn’t unusual for a
venture capitalist to expect controlling interest if they invest heavily, but
it was the way she conducted the meeting that bothered me. When I declined the
offer, she threatened me, said she’d personally see to it that no one in
Southern California did business with me. I eventually got most of the money I
needed from Morty in the form of a loan.  I would have shut the doors before I
let that woman take control of my company.”

When Kit heard that, she stopped playing with her toes. Her
lips curved in a wide smile. Suddenly, she changed her sitting position to a
kneeling one and set about patting wet sand between her hands, shaping and
molding the wet stuff into sand creatures. Soon the sand took on various shapes
of animals, creating a menagerie of sorts.

When he recognized the shape of a crab, he said, “You’re
very creative.”

“You create an expensive software program worth millions and
you think I’m creative with sand? You’re a riot. Why don’t you try it though?
Working with your hands can be very cathartic.”

In the light from the moon, he looked over and saw the
sparkle in her jade green eyes as they went from dark to light depending on her
movement. When she caught him staring, he got busy rolling the wet sand into a
ball then forming it into clusters of shapes.

They sat there, two adults, grimy up to their knees in their
good clothes, playing in wet sand.

After several artistically ingenious minutes with the sand,
Kit proudly displayed her collection. “My animals look better than yours.”

“That’s how much you know; I’m not making animals.”

“Good, because whatever you’re making, you aren’t doing a
very good job.”

“Such a critic, you obviously have no appreciation for
abstract art.”

“Oh, I appreciate the abstract, but that doesn’t look like
any art I’ve ever seen. Besides, my elephant is going to flatten your abstract
art.” With a devilish look in her eye, her elephant-shaped sand creature
swooped down to obliterate his artwork.

He fired back, “That’s war.” Immediately going on the
offense, he hovered for a moment over her sand creatures before blasting them
with handfuls of sandy artwork.

Both on their feet, the battle raged on as they threw
handfuls of sand back and forth at each other, dodging each other’s aim and
trying to avoid defeat.

At one point, attempting to evade Jake’s constant
bombardment, Kit ventured out a little too far into the surf, got carried away
by the current, and ended up floating, albeit momentarily, out to sea.

Gallantly, Jake tried to fish her out, but with the constant
tide, the current strong, she easily pulled him down into the water with her.
Together they struggled mightily to regain their footing. Like two ten-year
olds, they played and splashed around in the water, as if it were an everyday
occurrence.

Once out of the water, back on sandy shore, they sat down
trying to catch their breath. But it didn’t take long sitting in wet clothes
before it grew colder. Jake took one look at Kit and declared, “You’ve ruined
that dress. Come on, let’s walk over to the boat and dry off.”

They headed toward the marina. As they trudged through sand,
she chose her words carefully. “I know you lived on the boat after
Claire…because you couldn’t go back to the house. What’s it like living on a
boat?”

“You learn to make use of every inch of space, learn to
downsize. Have you ever sailed?”

She looked out over the water again. “Once. Dad took me out
to Catalina Island for the day when I was a child, so long ago it seems like a
dream.” She thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, maybe it never actually
happened. Maybe I just dreamed he took me to Catalina.”

Jake noticed the sadness in her voice and once again wanted
to cheer her up. “We’ll definitely put sailing on the agenda then. Get you out
of port and on the open sea first chance we get.”

She smiled and Jake’s heart double-clutched in a feeling so
foreign his knees wanted to buckle.

Hand-in-hand they walked across the wooden bridge to the
pier until they came to a row of boats, where he stopped in front of one with
the name
Sea Warrior
emblazoned on the side.

He helped her onto the starboard side of the sleek fifty-foot
French-built sloop. She immediately felt the first indication she’d left land,
a nice sway and give, a motion she got used to in spite of all the wine she’d
had with dinner.

Still wet from the beach, Jake guided her below deck,
rubbing her chilled arms as he went. “Let’s get you out of the cold.”  He gave
her a quick tour, pointing out things like the galley and the engine room on
the way to a large bedroom, or stateroom, where he dug into a bin for towels.

As she accepted a large beach towel and began to dry her
hair, she looked around the master stateroom, saw the queen-sized bed, and
suddenly wondered how many women he’d had in this floating love nest. She knew
she had no right to think that way, but all the resentment over the past
bubbled to the surface, leaving her feeling ridiculous standing in his bedroom.

Would she ever learn? Hadn’t she figuratively been right
here, in this same spot, the year before? Not on the boat of course, she
silently corrected, as she did her best to get into the spirit of the tour.

By the time they ended up back in the salon, however, Kit’s
ridiculous feeling had turned into a slow boil directed at her stupidity. She
watched rather impatiently as he played with a panel, and went over all the
things it controlled, a stereo system, a DVD player, a television. With a cell
phone, a laptop computer, and Internet access, he pointed out he had all the
comforts of home, or as she decided, enough toys on board to keep any grown man
content as he sailed off into the sunset.

Kit took a seat on an L-shaped sofa, feeling suddenly
exhausted. But instinctively, her eyes drifted to the wall lined with
photographs. Scanning the pictures, she noted none were of Claire, but rather
photos of friends and family.

There were pictures of a much younger Jake skiing with his
friends Dylan and Reese, several others that showed a group of people wearing
UC Berkeley shirts, obviously taken during college tailgating at one of the
football games. Good times, Kit thought, times of his life she’d had no part
of. The slow boil of anger simmered to belated resignation. She had to face
facts. There was a huge chunk of his life she’d had no part in and never would.