Authors: Kassandra Lamb
Kate disconnected and quickly gathered her things. Tonight was the elementary school’s play,
The Princess and the Pea
, and her nine-year-old was playing the princess.
Kate dared not be late.
~~~~~~~~
The gold flecks in Skip’s hazel eyes sparkled with amusement as they made their way through the crowded school parking lot after the play. They each led a tired child by the hand. Skip had Billy and Kate, the princess.
Edie was both exhausted and excited–a dangerous combination. She was talking a mile a minute, while dragging her feet.
Skip leaned down a little and whispered to Kate, “Isn’t that story considered sexist these days?”
She raised up on her toes to reach her husband’s ear. “That wasn’t the original story they performed. It’s the Broadway adaptation, in which the feisty, tough-skinned princess foils the evil queen’s plans.”
Skip grinned, skimming slender fingers through the straight brown hair that perpetually flopped down onto his forehead. “With a little help from the prince’s friends. The jester trying to cram that vibrating jackhammer under the mattresses was a hoot!”
Kate returned his grin. Then in a low voice, she said, “I was kind of surprised that Maria didn’t come with us tonight.”
“Didn’t you know? She had a date.”
Kate stopped in her tracks. “Seriously?”
Edie looked up at her with glazed eyes. Kate started moving again.
“Some guy she met at church,” Skip said.
“Maybe we should check him out?”
“Darlin’, Maria’s thirty-four years old. I don’t think she needs our protection.”
“Yes, but she’s never dated, at least not since she’s worked for me, and that’s going on nine years now. She’s pretty naive.”
“And why are you assuming that?”
That gave Kate pause for a second. Why
was
she assuming that? “She hasn’t had much experience with men.”
Skip shook his head. “She grew up in Guatemala, one of the most corrupt countries in Central America. I doubt she was naive much past the age of four.”
“Point taken. But I can’t help being curious about this guy.”
“He picked her up a little bit before you got home. Seemed nice enough. Hispanic, about fortyish. She said something about him being a widower with three kids.”
Uh, oh. He’s looking for a mother for his children.
But Maria might not mind that. Her whole identity was defined by taking care of people. And she might want to have children of her own, before it was too late.
Kate’s stomach clenched. She glanced down.
Edie had fallen silent, worry in her eyes as her gaze darted back and forth between her parent’s faces.
Kate decided to change the subject. They’d cross the “losing Maria” bridge if and when they got there.
~~~~~~~~
A week had gone by when Kate realized she’d never heard back from Josie Hartin. On Tuesday morning, she made a mental note to call her again at lunchtime.
Turned out there was no need. When she checked messages after her last morning client, there was Josie’s cheerful voice. “Hey Kate, just dawned on me that I never called you back. Skipping this week is fine. See ya at eleven next Monday. And maybe by then, I’ll have something very interesting to tell you.” Her voice dropped to an excited whisper. “I think I’m on the verge of a major breakthrough, but I need to check some things out first.”
A faint noise in the background, then another voice, muffled, said, “Who are…” The rest was indecipherable as Josie whispered a hurried goodbye.
A major breakthrough? Wonder what that’s all about?
Josie could be talking about her art work or her therapy, or some other wild project she’d latched onto in her manic state.
Kate shrugged. She’d find out next week.
A mechanical voice gave the day and time of the next message. “Tuesday, eleven-ten a.m.” Several clicks in a row. A hang-up.
No doubt a telemarketer. Kate checked caller ID. Sure enough, it read NUMBER BLOCKED.
There were no more messages. Kate sank deeper into her desk chair and let out a long breath. For once she’d be able to eat her lunch in peace, without having to wolf down her sandwich between returning phone calls. She erased Josie’s message and the hang-up, then fished her lunch bag out of her desk drawer.
~~~~~~~~
The following Monday, Kate sat at her desk with her office door ajar so she could hear the outer door open. She was trying to focus on paperwork, in between frequent glances at the clock on the wall.
Eleven-fifteen. Josie was late, which was out of character.
Unless she’s gone into full-blown mania.
If that were the case, the woman’s behavior was unpredictable. She certainly wouldn’t intentionally blow off an appointment, but she could have gotten caught up in some manic-driven project and lost track of time.
Kate called Josie’s cell phone. It rang several times and went to voicemail.
That didn’t make sense. The ringing said the phone was on, and Josie had a Bluetooth in her car, so she would have answered even if she was driving to Kate’s office.
She waited for the beep. “Hey, it’s Kate. Just wondering where you are.”
Josie never did show up. And no call came in from her during Kate’s afternoon sessions.
This is totally unlike her!
Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, Kate called her again, got no answer and left messages both at her home and on her cell phone.
After a moment of hesitation, she looked up Josie’s parents’ number in the young woman’s file. Her call to them went to voicemail as well. She wasn’t about to identify herself as Josie’s therapist so she left a message saying she was a friend who had been trying to reach their daughter and was concerned that perhaps she’d been taken ill or had an accident. She left her cell phone number rather than the one for her office.
.
By lunchtime on Tuesday, no one had returned her calls. Kate left messages again on both of Josie’s numbers and on her parents’ voicemail.
When she finished up with her clients that afternoon, she immediately checked for messages, praying there would be one from Josie with a logical explanation for her long silence.
The third message made her heart stutter in her chest.
“Mrs. Huntington, this is Pernette Wells, Mrs. Hartin’s personal assistant. You have made several attempts to reach her daughter. I regret to inform you that Josephine has passed away. Please do not try to contact the family. They have no desire to talk to you.”
CHAPTER TWO
Their seven-month-old Labrador mix greeted Kate at the door with his usual enthusiasm, which she most definitely did not share this evening. When she didn’t freely offer an ear scratch, Toby nudged her hand with his nose.
“Out of the way, boy.” She pushed past him to hang her coat in the closet near the door.
When she turned, Toby placed a big paw on her pants leg and tilted his cream-colored head to one side.
“Down!” Her voice was sharper than she’d intended.
He dropped the paw to the floor. His ears sagged. Big brown eyes stared mournfully up at her.
“Sorry, boy.” She patted him quickly on the head, then beelined for the study and her computer.
She called up the
Baltimore Sun
’s website and searched for news about Josie’s death. Her stomach churned.
She had lost a few clients in the past–one in a car accident, another to a heart attack. A few years ago, a former client’s previous profession as a CIA covert operative had caught up with him, with fatal results. But they had all been middle aged or older.
Josie was only in her early thirties and was finally reaching a level of mental health that allowed her to truly enjoy life. How cruel that she should die now.
Peaches the cat jumped onto her lap, rubbing her head against Kate’s arm. Kate absently stroked her silky fur as she scanned the newspaper’s site.
She was about to give up when she found the small notice among the obituaries from the previous Friday. It was not particularly helpful. There was no cause of death listed and the memorial service was to be restricted to close family and friends, by invitation only.
Somehow that didn’t surprise Kate. Josie’s upper-crust parents wouldn’t want her riffraff artist friends showing up.
Kate wouldn’t have gone anyway, not after the message from the snooty PA, Ms. Wells. The leave-us-alone part of that message hadn’t surprised her either. Josie’s mother had never approved of her daughter being in therapy.
Where to look next?
The police blotter. She went back to the newspaper site’s home page and found the link for it. She searched backward from Friday to Tuesday, when Josie had to be alive because she’d left a message on Kate’s office voicemail.
Finally she spotted the report of a woman found dead in her apartment Wednesday evening–no signs of foul play, identity being withheld pending notification of next of kin. She sat back and tried to process what that might mean, if this report was indeed referring to Josie.
Her thoughts stalled as her mind conjured up an image of Josie, lying perfectly still, eyes closed, skin pale. Dead.
A lump grew in her throat. Her eyes stung.
Hands descended on her shoulders. She jumped. The cat bolted from her lap.
The hands pressed gently downward. “Didn’t you hear Maria calling, darlin’?” Skip kneaded her muscles with his long, slender fingers. “Supper’s ready.”
“Sorry. I was absorbed in what I was doing.”
Toby bounded into the room and tried to insert himself between them. Skip gently blocked him with his knee. The dog settled for pushing his head under Kate’s elbow and bumping it, a not-so-subtle hint that she should pet him.
Feeling guilty about her earlier neglect, Kate scratched behind his soft ears. The dog closed his eyes and made a sound very much like a human moan of pleasure.
Skip’s thumbs continued to massage away the tension in Kate’s neck. She leaned back against him and let out a soft moan of her own.
Skip chuckled. “What are you doing?” He bent down a little and squinted at the monitor.
Kate instinctively moved to block him from seeing it, then realized there was nothing on it that identified her client.
Unfortunately.
“Why are you looking at the police blotter?”
Kate took a deep breath and let it out slowly, debating with her conscience. Technically, confidentiality did not end with the death of a client, but she trusted her husband’s discretion. And she didn’t need to give him any names. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you about it after the kids are in bed.”
~~~~~~~~
After reading the children their bedtime stories, Skip found his wife on the living room sofa, her legs tucked up under her. The dog was curled up on the floor nearby, doing what dogs do best–sleeping.
Kate was staring into space, her eyes the washed-out gray they became when she was stressed or worried.
He sat down next to her and gently hooked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. He noted some gray scattered amongst the dark curls. He knew the gray hairs bothered her some but he thought of them as silver highlights. Besides, he had a little salt in his own hair now.
Dropping an arm around her shoulders, he said, “Penny for your thoughts.”
She tensed, rather than relaxed. “Okay, what I’m about to tell you is confidential.”
Aw, crap!
Could he take his metaphorical penny back? Every time she said those words, they ended up in the middle of somebody else’s mess.
“One of my clients was found dead last week.”
Skip’s stomach clenched. The last time she’d said
those
words, they’d ended up being chased by international thugs. It had been one of the scariest experiences of his life, and that was saying something considering his was a somewhat dangerous profession.
He hoped his dismay wasn’t showing on his face. “What did he or she die of?”
“Well, that’s the problem. I don’t know.” Kate stopped and took a deep breath. “The last communication I had from her was a call to my office last Tuesday morning. She was confirming a scheduling change. But then she didn’t show up for her appointment yesterday. I kept leaving messages on her voicemail because it wasn’t like her to just not show up like that. Finally I left a couple messages at her parents’ home. Today I got a message back from them, saying she had died and to leave them alone.”
Skip’s jaw tightened. “That’s pretty rude.”
“Yeah well, I’m used to families not liking me. All too often they’re part of the client’s psychological problems and they often object to the client being in therapy.”
“Why wouldn’t they want their loved one to get better?”
“They don’t want anyone rocking the dysfunctional family boat.”
“Ah.” He tilted his head in a slight nod. “So what did you find in the newspaper’s files?”
“An obit from Friday that said nothing. And a police report that a woman–no name given–was found dead in her apartment Wednesday night, no sign of foul play.”
Skip used his fingers to comb back the hank of hair hanging in his eyes. “Could be her.”
“So what’s the best way to find out more about that woman?” Kate asked.
“Dolph may be able to find out. He’s still got some contacts with BCPD.”
“Can you ask him?”
“Sure. I’ll make it his morning assignment.” A retired Baltimore County police detective, “Dolph” Randolph now worked for Skip’s agency as a private investigator.
“Oh, no!” she said. “I don’t want to take up agency time with it.”
Skip shrugged. “Not a lot going on tomorrow anyway. He’d just be sitting around eating donuts.” He smiled down at her. “Think you can put it aside until we know more?”
“Yes, now that I know we can probably find out more. The not knowing what happened is driving me crazy.”
“Good, ’cause I’ve got something else important to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
He leaned down and nibbled on her ear, then whispered, “How soon do you want to go to bed?”
She let out a low chuckle. It stopped abruptly when he kissed the sweet spot where her neck met her shoulder.