MULTIPLE MOTIVES (The Kate Huntington mystery series Book 1) (37 page)

The waitress chose that moment to bring their food. Kate let go of his hand to pick up her sandwich. She took a bite, but her eyes never left Rob’s face as he digested what she’d said.

He busied himself with swiping her pickles to add to his own on his sandwich, which always made her wince. Seemed like the ruination of a good crab cake to her.

“I have another question about those feelings.” He chewed on a French fry for a moment. “At the time, I felt… responsible, like I’d somehow caused it to happen. Because I didn’t think to call Lou from the office phone, just went out there by myself, like a dunce–”

She intentionally interrupted him. “That’s a very normal reaction. When something bad happens, we beat up on ourselves for some little thing we did or didn’t do that we think might have changed the outcome.”

“Yeah, that’s it exactly. I was trying to figure out what I’d done to get myself into such a mess.”

“Rob, it wasn’t your fault!”

“Yeah, I know that up here.” He touched his temple. “But I still felt that way, and kind of still do. It doesn’t make sense.”

Kate put her sandwich down. “Actually in a weird way, it does. We human beings can’t stand to feel helpless. We’d rather blame ourselves, to give ourselves some sense of control, rather than acknowledge that there truly was nothing we could do about what happened.”

“So by telling myself, if I’d just called Lou I wouldn’t have been kidnapped, I’m…” He faltered, looking confused.

“… taking back some semblance of control,” Kate said.

“’Cause it’s better to feel guilty than helpless.”

“Exactly. As awful as guilt feels, it trumps helpless every time.”

“Okay, that makes sense ’cause I felt plenty helpless too, and that truly was an awful feeling.” Rob finally picked up his sandwich and took a bite.

After a moment, he asked, “So how long am I likely to have these nightmares?”

“That’s hard to say, but you don’t have to just wait for them to go away.” Kate pulled her wallet out of her purse and extracted the business card of a colleague–a card she had strategically placed there before leaving the office. “I strongly recommend that you see this lady a few times, to help you get through all this.”

His face was skeptical as he read the card.

“Rob, trauma can cause all kinds of repercussions. It can undermine trust, affect our relationships.”

His expression still said,
I’ll think about it and get back to you.

“This is my field.” She heard the edge of anger in her voice and decided not to suppress it. “You expect me to listen to you when you give me legal advice, well you need to listen to me on this. You are one of the most mentally healthy people I’ve ever known. I do
not
want this bastard leaving any lasting scars on your psyche! Please, do this, for me, and for Liz and the girls, if not for yourself.”

“Now that’s playing dirty.”

“Hey, I’m willing to play dirty if that’s what it takes.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll call her and make an appointment. I should know better than to resist when I’m dealing with the second most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.”

Kate grinned. “Liz being the first, of course.”

“First of what?” Rose asked as she dropped onto the bench next to Kate. She was wearing jeans and the peach knit top that made her skin glow.

“Rob’s list of most stubborn women. Liz is first and I’m second.”

“Can I be third?” Rose asked, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Stubborn women get things done.”

Rob chuckled. “An astute observation, Rosie!”

She winced. “Never should’ve told you all I don’t like Rosie. Now you’re gonna use it against me every chance you get, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but we only tease people we like.” Kate smiled at her.

“Not that I’m not delighted to see you, Rose, but what brings you here?” Rob asked.

Kate answered for her. “She’s going shopping with me this afternoon, for maternity clothes. Everything’s getting tight.”

Rose winced again.

“Not big on shopping, huh?” Rob said.

“She made me feel sorry for her. Said Liz was too busy, getting caught up at work.”

“You don’t have to go!” Kate protested.

“Naw, I don’t really mind.”

The waitress came along to ask about dessert.

Kate ordered a brownie with vanilla ice cream.

I am eating for two, and I’ve been really good about avoiding caffeine lately
, she rationalized to herself.

“Get something, Rose. It’s on me. Payment for going shopping.”

“Geez, Kate, first shopping, now chocolate desserts. You trying to turn me into a girlie girl?” But she did order a brownie, no ice cream.

“So anything new on the case?” Rob asked.

“Yeah, but you’ve got to pretend we never had this conversation.” Rob and Kate both nodded.

“Bastard confessed this morning, so there won’t be any trial.”

Rob breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“Hallelujah!” Kate said. “Did he give any reason why he did it? Besides the obvious that he blamed us for the break-up of his marriage.”

“Yeah, at first he was focused on you, Rob, ’cause you were handling Cheryl’s case
pro bono
. His rationale for going after Liz was kind of confusing. Sounded like a combination of revenge–take away your wife since he saw you as taking away his–and he figured if he could distract you with a dead wife, get you out of the picture for awhile, the other lawyers at your firm wouldn’t be willing to handle Cheryl’s case for free. My sense is, also, that he was too chicken to take on a man directly, so he went after Liz instead. When that didn’t work, he tried to shoot you from a distance. Didn’t even realize your daughter was with you.”

“Why’d he switch his focus onto Kate?” Rob asked.

“That happened when Cheryl told him Kate had advised her to change her phone number so he couldn’t call her. He also got it in his head that her buying a gun was Kate’s idea.”

“Hardly. I never was too thrilled about her having that gun.” She still wasn’t, since she was more convinced than ever that Cheryl had D.I.D.

“How’d Crofton happen to be there Thursday night?” Rob asked. “Just coincidence that he stepped into our trap?”

“That’s the question that led to his confessing. Umpteenth time he was asked why he was in the building, he said, ‘Just hangin’ around,’ like he had before. But then he added, ‘Once the bastard got away from me….’ His lawyer tried to shush him up but it didn’t take much longer to get him to admit he kidnapped you. Apparently after you escaped, he started hanging around the building, hiding in one of the stairwells, waiting for a chance to get at one of you. Once he started talking, he couldn’t help bragging about the rest of it. Like he’s some kind of master criminal.”

Rose snorted. “Even admitted to hitting Ben on the head. That afternoon he’d gone over to Cheryl’s place to try to talk to her. Saw Ben in his car near her apartment and thought he was her new boyfriend. Decided to hide in the bushes by her patio and spy on them.”

“So that was the movement Ben saw,” Kate said, “and when he went over to investigate, Crofton hit him with something.”

“Yup. Flowerpot. And the day he hit Mary… We had the wrong perp but the right motive. He was planning to kidnap you, Kate. Use you to get to Rob. When he saw all the blood, he thought he’d killed you and he took off.”

“That fucking bastard!” Rob shuddered. “Sorry, ladies.”

Kate reached for his hand to steady them both. “Don’t apologize on my behalf. That’s pretty much my sentiment as well!”

Rose nodded her agreement.

“Did Phillips get all this out of him?” Kate asked.

Rose shook her head. “Lieutenant did the interrogations himself.” Then she grinned rather maliciously. “Phillips is on suspension. Being investigated. Seems he found a note on your front door Saturday morning, before I checked your house. He took it to the lab and didn’t bother to follow up on it. I didn’t hear what the location was, but apparently it said for you to come to a certain spot at ten that night, alone, or Rob would be killed.”

Kate gasped. “If you hadn’t gotten away, Rob….”

“Who knows what Crofton would’ve done,” Rose said. “And it was a big missed opportunity to catch the bastard at the meeting place. Before he had the chance to try to shoot you.”

Rob’s face was dark with anger. “So Phillips almost got us both killed.”

Rose suddenly sat up even straighter than her normal posture. “What if Phillips was
hoping
you wouldn’t be found, Rob? Then he could just let the case go cold. An unsolved case would do his career a lot less harm than having his pet theory proven wrong and all his blunders revealed.”

“Especially since those blunders meant other crimes weren’t prevented that could’ve been,” Kate said.

“Like the attack on Mary,” Rob said.

“And your kidnapping itself,” Rose added. “If he’d been looking for other leads instead of being so focused on you two, the whole thing might’ve never gotten that far. This perp’s no rocket scientist. We probably could’ve caught him if we’d actually been chasing him.”

“I think I need to have a talk with Lieutenant Cody,” Rob said through clenched teeth.

“Probably not necessary. I don’t think Phillips is gonna be carrying that gold badge much longer. Gave the lieutenant my report about the other stuff he did, and didn’t do. Like not canvassing after the kidnapping, and telling you all he was going to treat it as a missing person case.”

Rob’s jaw dropped. “He did what?”

“Yeah, that was our reaction at the time,” Kate said. “He told us he wasn’t even going to look for you for forty-eight hours.”

“At which point Kate went after him. It was all Skip and I could do to keep her from getting arrested for assaulting a police officer.”

Rob batted his eyelashes at Kate and said in a falsetto voice, “My hero!” They all chuckled.

The desserts arrived.

Kate took her first bite. Savoring the contrasts of hot and cold, rich chocolate and smooth vanilla, she closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Rob was watching her with an indulgent smile.

“Have you given any thought to names for the baby?” he asked.

“How does Edwina Elizabeth Rosa Huntington sound?”

“Long.” Rob gave her a teasing grin. “What, no Roberta?”

‘Rosa’ had just raised an eyebrow, but Kate saw the corners of her mouth twitching. Rose was pleased.

She swallowed another luscious spoonful of gooey chocolate. “Thought about Roberta, but she’s going to hate me enough for Edwina. Going to call her Edie.”

“Then why not Edith as the formal name?”

“That’s my mother-in-law’s name.” Kate excavated another spoonful of ice cream and brownie.

“’Nough said. What if it’s a boy?”

“Then you get second billing. Edward Robert Mathias Huntington.”

Rob grinned at her as she slowly demolished the rest of her dessert. Meanwhile, Rose was pretending she wasn’t really enjoying hers all that much. This was revealed as some of her acting when she smacked her lips after the last bite disappeared.

As they were getting up to leave, Mac appeared,
sans
greasy apron and wearing a clean, Army-green T-shirt. Kate suspected it was the spare he kept in his office, and that he had put it on for Rose’s benefit.

Sure enough, after they’d exchanged pleasantries, Mac gruffly asked Rose if he could talk to her alone for a moment.

Kate hid her smile as she and Rob walked out into the summer heat. They exchanged a long hug, and he headed for his car.

Waiting for Rose, Kate savored the feeling of being able to stand on the sidewalk alone without fear.

When the young woman came out of the restaurant, Kate asked, “So what was that about? Did Mac apologize for being so obnoxious?”

“Not exactly.” Rose flashed one of her beautiful smiles. “But he did ask me out.”

~~~~~<>~~~~~

Author’s Notes

If you enjoyed this book
, please take a moment to leave a short review on Amazon and/or other retailers. Reviews help to sell books and sales help me keep the series going! You can readily find the links to these retailers at the
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bookstore
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.  Heck, go ahead and e-mail me just to say hi; I love hearing from readers!

This manuscript was proofread many times by many sets of eyes, but proofreaders are human. If you found errors in this book, please e-mail me and let me know. Thanks!

This book was my first novel. When I
finally
finished writing it, I gave it to friends and family to read. They all said they loved it, but some had a note of surprise in their voices. That told me they really meant it. They had read out of obligation but were pleasantly surprised that they truly liked the story! Let me express my gratitude again to all those people. You helped make this book and the Kate Huntington series possible. And a big thank you to the beta readers, editors and my fellow authors at
misterio press
, all of whom have helped me grow as a writer.

This book took over fifteen years to write. It’s not unusual for first books to take awhile, but not usually
that
long. I started it in my mid-forties; then life kept getting in the way. When I retired from my practice as a psychotherapist, I finally had time to focus on my writing.

Once I thought the book was sufficiently polished, I braced myself to start looking for a literary agent. With that goal in mind, I went to a writers’ conference in August, 2011. There, two life-changing events occurred.

First I attended a workshop on the relatively new (at the time) phenomenon of e-publishing. I’d only had my own e-reader for a few months at that point, and I was intrigued by the changes in the publishing world that e-books had precipitated.