CELEBRITY STATUS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #4) (34 page)

            “Excuse my appearance,” she said. “I just got out of the shower.”

            Then his expression registered. “What’s the matter, Skip? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She took his hand.

            “Long time to be out on the trail with a lame horse,” he said, as he let her lead him into the living room. He tugged his hand free and stepped away from her, moving toward the fireplace.

            “I just walked him.”

            Skip turned back toward her. “Where’s Manny?”

            “On the back patio. I told him I needed to be alone for awhile. What’s the matter?” Cherise asked again.

            He narrowed his eyes at her. “You didn’t happen to find out Sarah’s address, by any chance, before you threw her out of the house? After I’d told you to sit tight, that we were on our way to question her.”

            “I’m sorry, Skip. You’re angry with me and you have every right to be. I just freaked after I got off the phone with you. I couldn’t stand having her on the property another minute, then I had to get away, get my head straight. Am I forgiven?” She took two steps toward him before the cold look in his eyes stopped her.

            “Kate was attacked,” he said. “She almost died.”

            Cherise put both hands over her mouth, a look of horror on her face. “Oh my God! Is she going to be okay?”

            “Doctor thinks so.”

            Cherise took another step toward him. “I’m touched, Skip, that you rushed out here to make sure I was safe.” Then she made the move he’d been waiting for. She rushed to him and slid her arms around his waist. He clamped a hand down on top of hers before it got to his gun butt.

            Cherise relaxed her hand and gave him a comforting squeeze with her arms, then leaned back. Resting her other hand on his chest, she looked up at him. “That must’ve been horrible for you to come home and find her lying there like that.”

            Skip waited a beat. “I never said where she was attacked, Cherise.”

            She froze. Then the hand he didn’t have control over was sliding under his shirttail, fumbling for the pistol. He had anticipated the move, but not her speed and dexterity. Wrapping long fingers tightly around her wrist, he forced her hand out to the side, the gun pointed away from them.

            “Stop! You’re hurting me.”

            “Then let go of my gun,” Skip growled, clamping down harder. The gun clattered to the floor. He let go of one of her wrists as he leaned down to scoop up the pistol. She twisted the other arm free and ran away from him.

            Skip retrieved his gun and straightened up, just as Cherise whirled back around to face him. She was holding a .22 long-barreled revolver. A drawer in the cabinet behind her stood open.

            “Don’t move, Skip. This is loaded with hollow points. The caliber may be low, but at this range, they’ll rip a hole right through you.”

            “You know your guns, Cherise,” he said, almost conversationally. “Is that the one you tried to shoot Rose with?”

            “Yeah. I had to get the little dyke out of the way, so you’d take over my case again.”

            “Who’d you hire to sabotage the van? Can’t see you getting grease under your fingernails,” he said, stalling, distracting, as he slowly eased his gun hand up.

            “I’m a country girl, Skip. Helped my daddy fix the tractor more than once. You need to stop underestimating me, my love.”

            “Yeah, I definitely have been doing that. So there wasn’t any note this morning, was there? That was all just to make sure I wasn’t around. How’d you know Kate was at home?”

            “Went by her office first,” Cherise said, then laughed. “And you still don’t get it, do you? Those notes, the recent ones, those messages were from me, to you. And they kept you coming back, didn’t they?”

            Skip was digesting the horrible thought that his kids could have all too easily been at home this morning, when Cherise suddenly braced herself and extended both arms, finger tightening on the trigger of the .22. “Drop your gun, Skip,” she ordered. “Right now, or I swear I’ll shoot you.”

            He stopped moving. “I thought you loved me?” he said, letting his hand droop at the wrist, the pistol pointing toward the floor, as if he had no intentions of using it.

            “I do, with all my heart,” Cherise declared. Tears pooled in her eyes. “This is your last chance, Skip. Either you leave her and marry me, or I’ll kill you. And then I’ll go finish off your little family.” She curled her lip.

            Skip realized she was truly crazy. Did she think they could just ride off into the sunset together, and live happily ever after? She had killed a man–his friend–and had almost killed his wife.

            Watching her closely, he tried to look like he was thinking about those choices. A part of him was tempted to confront her about the roses, the bogus e-mails, the paparazzi she had stirred up every time they had lost interest. But confrontation was probably a bad idea; one that would most likely get him shot.

            “Where would we go, Cherise?” he said instead. “They’re going to be looking for you.”

            “Ah, but that’s the beauty of my plan. I didn’t send Sarah home because she had the sniffles. She told me a long time ago that she was running from her ex-husband. He used to beat her. I took her aside, told her a man had come looking for her last night, real angry. She ran out the front door, and I yelled after her, ‘Don’t come back until the risk is over.’ Manny thought I meant the risk of catching her cold.”

            “So how’s that going to keep the police from coming after you?” Skip asked, once again slowly easing his gun up.

            “She’s had enough of a head start now, she’s long gone. And she’ll probably change her identity again. We tell the police she was the stalker. She went after Kate for some crazy reason. That’ll buy us some time to get away.”

            Skip struggled to school his expression into one of calm interest. This woman was planning to frame her innocent assistant, who had served her diligently for two years. Frame her for murder.

            “You haven’t answered my question, Cherise. Where did you have in mind that we would go? It should be out of the country.”

            Cherise smiled, relaxing her grip on her gun. “I’ve got just the place. A little island in the Caribbean. They’ll never find us there.”

            She hesitated. He knew she was considering lowering the gun and rushing into his arms. He willed his body not to move. Now he didn’t want to distract her from those thoughts, her struggle to believe he loved her when they were standing there holding guns on each other.

            “You have to promise me, Skip, that you’ll never abandon me. I love you so! I thought I was in love with Kirk, but that wasn’t anything like this.”

            He slowly started moving his hand again.

             “I realize now I haven’t been able to love before. I was too afraid,” she was saying. “But I’m not with you. You’re so reliable, so strong. You’ll always protect me, love me. But you have to promise you’ll never leave me. I need to hear the words. Know that you mean them.”

            “Why are you so afraid of abandonment, Cherise? It seems to me that you’re usually the one who throws guys out of your life.”

            “I have before, but I won’t with you. Those others, they let me down. Pretended to love me, but then they’d do things that hurt me.”

            Skip considered pointing out that humans did that to each other sometimes, hurt each other, usually without meaning to. He certainly knew that for a fact after the last few weeks. But this wasn’t a philosophical discussion about love. Easing his hand up another fraction of an inch, he decided that once his gun was high enough, he wasn’t going to order this woman to drop hers. He knew she wouldn’t do it, and warning her he was about to shoot could be fatal.

            “They were like my father. He was a charmer. All the women loved him.” Cherise’s voice dropped, her eyes softening into a far-away look. “I adored him when I was a kid. My big, handsome, funny daddy.” Skip’s hand edged a little higher.

            “Until he destroyed my mother.” Her eyes were still staring past Skip’s shoulder, but now they were full of anger. “She was weak,” Cherise spat out. “She just kept letting him hurt her.”

            “So that’s why you won’t put up with men hurting you,” Skip said softly.

            “No, I won’t. I’m not weak like her. She let him destroy her. And then he left me with her, that shell of a woman who had once been my mother.” Her eyes refocused on his face. “That’s why I need you to promise me, Skip, promise you’ll never leave me.”

            Skip opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say the words, not even as a lie to keep her talking. He edged his pistol a bit higher and snugged his finger against the trigger.

            His voice gentle, he said, “I already made that promise, Cherise, to my wife.”

            Her face contorted with hurt and fury, as her hands tightened around her gun.

            The back screen door slammed. “Ms. Martin?” Manny’s voice. Footsteps on the kitchen’s hardwood floor.

            Cherise’s eyes skittered toward the doorway between the two rooms.

            Skip prepared to drop to the floor as he squeezed the trigger. Two shots roared in rapid succession.

            Manny came around the corner fast, his gun drawn. “Shit!” he yelled, then ran across the living room to disarm Cherise.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

            Rose stood by the fax machine waiting for it to spit out the last pages of the follow-up story on the Cherise Martin case. The police department in Walton County, Georgia, according to the article, had reopened the investigation into the house fire that had killed Cherise’s mother. The fire marshal had apparently suspected arson at the time, but hadn’t been able to prove it.

            Rose looked across the bullpen. It was cluttered with desks and chairs, used by the bodyguards and investigators when they were in the office, but on a Saturday morning, she was alone.

            Her eyes landed on the desk in the corner, where Ben had sat to fill out reports and his time sheets. Manny Ortiz had shared it with him. On Thursday, Manny had quietly removed his own things from the drawers, and put them in another desk.

            Rose swallowed hard. She grabbed the last page and tucked the article under her arm, then glanced at her watch. She was running a bit late. Kate was coming home from the hospital today and the kids had planned a little party for her, complete with a homemade ‘We luv u, Mommy’ banner and cupcakes Maria had helped them bake.

            They wanted their Aunt Rose and Uncle Mac to be there. Those kids had been through enough lately. Rose wasn’t about to disappoint them.

* * *

            Kate was being wheeled out of the hospital. She tried to distract herself from the dull ache in her chest, despite the 800 milligrams of Motrin in her system. She had resisted the stronger pain killer the nurse had offered, not wanting to be doped up in front of the kids.

            Her mind veered toward thoughts of Ben and tears welled in her eyes. Best not to go there. She focused instead on the question of why hospitals made discharged patients ride to their cars in wheelchairs. There was nothing wrong with her legs.

            The automatic doors swished open. Liz jumped out of the driver’s seat of the Expedition and came around to open the passenger door.

            But the man pushing Kate’s wheelchair beat her to it. “Where’s Rob?” he asked, pausing with the door halfway open.

            Liz tilted her head toward the driveway leading down the hill to Charles Street, where the Franklins’ car was idling. “We were going to follow you back to the house. Help you get the patient settled.”

            “That’d be great. It’s not gonna be fun running the gauntlet of reporters in front of the house.”

            Liz snorted. “This time it’s real news at least, not some invented fantasy.”

            “Thanks for bringing the truck around,” Skip said.

            Kate had been looking up at them, swiveling her head back and forth. “Somebody going to help me out of this contraption?” she asked, struggling to push herself upright with one hand, the footrest making it difficult to find the ground with her feet. “Or are you two going to chat all day while I get a crick in my neck?”

            Liz smiled down at her. “The patient is grumpy.” She sketched a little wave at them, then jogged off toward Rob’s car, calling back over her shoulder, “See you at the house.”

            Once Kate was settled in the passenger seat and Skip had successfully threaded the seat belt under the sling on her left arm, she turned and grinned at him. “I wasn’t real sure which of my husbands I was going to be riding with today?” she teased.

            He grinned back at her as he started down the drive, Rob and Liz falling in behind them. “I’m not sure we’ve gotten that mess straightened out yet.”

            Kate snickered a little, then sobered. There was something she needed to get off her chest before they got home, where it would be hard to talk privately for awhile. “Skip, you broke a promise to me.”

            “I did? Not that I know of,” he answered, turning onto Charles Street. “What promise?”

            “The last time you had to use your gun...” She hesitated, not wanting to bring up any more old misery than necessary. The last time he’d fired his gun at a human being, he’d been forced to kill with it, and it had torn him apart inside for months. “You promised me, afterward, that you wouldn’t hesitate to use it again, to protect yourself.”

            He glanced her way as he made the right turn onto Towsontown Boulevard. She was looking at him with worry in her eyes.

            He took one hand off the wheel to pat her knee. “Darlin’, I remember the promise but other than that, I have no clue what you’re talking about.”