SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mystery Series Book 8)
Authors: Kassandra Lamb
SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS
A Kate Huntington Mystery
by
Kassandra Lamb
a
misterio press
publication
The Kate Huntington Mystery Series:
MULTIPLE MOTIVES
ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS
FAMILY FALLACIES
CELEBRITY STATUS
COLLATERAL CASUALTIES
ZERO HERO
FATAL FORTY-EIGHT
SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS
~~~
The Kate on Vacation Novellas:
An Unsaintly Season in St. Augustine
Cruel Capers on the Caribbean
Ten-Gallon Tensions in Texas
Missing on Maui
(coming Spring, 2016)
~~~
ECHOES, A Story of Suspense
(A stand-alone mystery/ghost story)
Published by
misterio press
Cover art by Melinda VanLone,
Book Cover Corner
E-book design by Kirsten Weiss
.
Copyright © 2015 by Kassandra Lamb
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used, transmitted, stored, distributed or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the author’s written permission, except very short excerpts for reviews. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the publisher’s/authors’ express permission is illegal and punishable by law.
Suicidal Suspicions
is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events, and most places are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or the events in their lives is entirely coincidental. Some real places are used fictitiously.
The publisher has no control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites and their content.
This book is dedicated to my readers.
Thank you so much for your support!
PROLOGUE
Josie jolted upright, blood pounding in her ears. A vise squeezed her chest. Her hands fisted around clumps of damp, rumpled sheets.
The shadows shifted, morphing into the dark outlines of her bedroom furniture. The vise loosened. She sucked in air.
“Crap!”
She’d had the damn dream again. And just when she was starting to feel better.
She shuddered. The dream often foreshadowed the beginning of another bout of depression. Which would be so freaking unfair, since she was just coming out of one. The lows didn’t usually come so close together.
There’d be no going back to sleep right away. The best thing to banish the dream, she’d discovered by trial and error, was to read for a while. She turned on her side and reached toward the lamp on her nightstand.
No! No lights!
The stern, male voice from the dream.
Adrenaline shot through her. She’d never heard the voice while awake before. She fumbled for the switch on the lamp, almost knocking it off the little table. It rocked wildly. Finally she got her hand wrapped around its neck. Her thumb found the switch.
Light flooded the room.
No lights!
the voice screamed in her head.
Her heart pounded, threatening to explode in her chest. She leaned back against the headboard and tried to take a calming breath, like Kate had taught her.
That usually helped. But this time the anxiety wasn’t subsiding, not even a little bit. She was about to jump out of her skin. Fear closed her throat. She tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry.
No more voices yelled at her, but she had the gut sense that she wasn’t going to feel better until she turned the light off. She did so with a shaky hand. Her eyes darted nervously around in the blinding darkness. But the rest of her began to relax, her body shifting from full-alert terrified to moderate jitters.
Maybe she should call Kate. What time was it? She didn’t have an alarm clock. The natural one in her head always woke her when she needed to be up.
She felt around on the nightstand for her watch, found it, and pressed the tiny button that backlit its face. She held her breath, waiting for the voice to object.
Silence.
It was two-thirty in the morning. She couldn’t call Kate. If she was suicidal, yeah, but not over a stupid dream. And she’d have to give the whole background on the dreams–dreams she’d never mentioned to Kate before because they hadn’t come all that often in recent years.
And because a previous therapist had told her the dreams were symbolic of some kind of unconscious wish fulfillment. How could her psyche be secretly wishing to be scared witless?
Of course, that therapist had turned out to be a jerk, so why had she believed him about the dreams? She would tell Kate about them during their next session.
The fear raged back, flooding her system.
No, you can’t tell anyone!
The disembodied male voice again.
Why couldn’t she tell Kate about the dreams?
The vise returned, squeezing her lungs. Panic was building in her head. Voice or no voice, she had to have light.
She threw the covers back and dropped her feet to the floor. In the darkness, she fumbled her way down the hall to the bathroom and flipped the light on.
The voice in her head was silent. Apparently bathroom lights were okay.
The puppy rustled in his crate in the living room, letting out a low growl.
“Shh, it’s okay, boy. Mom just had a bad dream.”
More rustling, then he settled down again.
Josie ran water into a glass and popped a Xanax, wishing she had taken one at bedtime. Maybe then she wouldn’t have had the dream.
And now she would be groggy in the morning.
Leaving the bathroom light on so she could see in the dim hallway, she headed back to her bedroom. Her feet stopped of their own volition next to the linen closet door. On a shelf behind that door lay the Mickey Mouse nightlight she’d bought when one of her college friends had come to visit, along with her three-year-old daughter.
Heat rose in her cheeks.
I’m such a wuss.
Nonetheless, she opened the closet door and located the object of her shame. She took it into the bedroom and plugged it into an outlet near her bed. The light shone softly, revealing a silently laughing Mickey.
No objections from the voice.
Suddenly she was exhausted, too tired even to contemplate reading. She laid down on the bed, praying to a God she sometimes doubted existed that she would be able to go back to sleep.
Sure enough she started to feel drifty.
Huh. There is a God after all.
She snuggled deeper into her pillow and sighed.
Gotta remember to tell Kate about the dreams.
Her body tensed.
No.
The voice was a whisper, so low she was probably imagining it.
You can’t tell. You can’t remember.
The Xanax was kicking in. Her eyes drooped despite the tension in her body. All she wanted to do was sleep.
Okay, okay, I won’t tell.
You can’t remember.
The slightest breath in her ear.
You can’t remember.
She was drifting.
Okay, I won’t remember.
Good girl! Go to sleep now, little one.
Warmth spread through her body, relaxing her muscles. She was a good girl.
CHAPTER ONE
Kate watched the confusion of emotions play across Josie Hartin’s face, and mentally held her breath. Two weeks ago, the combination of the young woman’s bipolar disorder and her controlling mother had conspired to throw Josie into another bout of depression. Kate hoped the analogy she’d just suggested would reframe Josie’s perspective on her mother.
The client’s eyes lit up and a soft smile spread across her face.
Kate continued to wait silently, a well-practiced expression of warm neutrality on her own face. She wasn’t quite ready to breathe a sigh of relief yet.
“I can do that.” With a slender finger, Josie hooked a strand of dark blonde hair behind her ear and then nodded. “I can love Mom the way I loved Buster.”
Buster had been Josie’s dog as a teenager, a rescued mutt who had no doubt been abused. He’d had a tendency to resort to growling and snapping at the slightest provocation. But even as a teen, Josie had understood he did so out of fear.
Josie had loved the dog fiercely, and his reciprocal adoration had been her salvation during a particularly rough adolescence. He’d been dead for eight years, and the young woman still talked about him as if they had romped in the yard just yesterday. Indeed, she talked more about Buster than she did about her current canine companion, a Great Dane-Black Labrador mix she’d named Sphinx.
“I felt a little hurt sometimes when Buster snapped at me,” Josie said, “but I always realized that he was just scared.” She tilted her head again in a small nod. “Yup, I think I can do this. Thanks, Kate.”
A quick glance at the clock on the wall told Kate that they had five minutes left in the session. Earlier, Josie had mentioned she’d been having some recurring dreams. Then she’d become agitated and changed the subject back to her mother.
Kate had let it go, making a mental note to come back to the topic. But now, with so little time left, was it prudent to bring the dreams up? Maybe it would be better to end on a happy note.
Josie made the decision for her. She jumped out of her chair.
Kate also stood. At five-seven, she was no shorty, but Josie’s lean body towered over her by several inches.
Josie launched herself across the space between them and gave Kate a big hug. “I’m so glad I found you.” The young woman’s exuberance indicated she was now moving toward the other end of the bipolar spectrum.
Kate smiled. “I’m glad you did too. I enjoy working with you.”
“Really? I’m not a pain?”
“Not at all. You’re a delight.” And Kate meant it. Josie didn’t have many friends. Her intense mood swings could be off-putting. But Kate found her charming. Her downs were sometimes scary, but when she was up, she bubbled with enthusiasm for life.
The ups also fueled her creativity. During her manic episodes, she produced brightly colored abstracts and Impressionistic-type landscapes that Kate loved. Of course she was no judge of art. But the owner of the small gallery in Baltimore–where Josie worked part-time–was willing to display them.
Kate ushered her client to the door.
Josie stopped to give her another quick hug. “See you next Monday.”
~~~~~~~~
On Tuesday, Kate checked her office voicemail after her last client had left. Despite her end-of-the-day fatigue, she smiled at the sound of Josie’s cheery voice.
“Kate, you’re the best therapist ever. I just got off the phone with my mother. She was harping again about my, quote, ‘silly little job.’ And what you suggested, it worked! I let her words roll on by, ’cause I know it’s just her way. It’s all she knows, as you’ve said so many times. Oh, I need to change my appointment for next week. Marilyn needs me at the gallery on Monday. Do you have anything else open next week?” She rattled off her phone number.
Kate looked at her watch and groaned softly. Josie definitely sounded like she was heading into a manic episode, or was already there. And that meant it could be difficult to get her off the phone.
Would she feel rejected if Kate didn’t call her back tonight? Maybe. She tended to be hypersensitive at times.
And she was making progress. Kate didn’t want to jeopardize that.
Taking a deep breath, she punched Josie’s home number into her desk phone. Three rings and it kicked over to voicemail. She relaxed. She was going to get away with leaving a message.
A beep in her ear. “Josie, this is Kate. I’m afraid I don’t have any openings next week. I’m booked solid. If you’re still feeling good, would you be okay with waiting until your regular Monday time the following week? But if you start to feel the least bit down or anxious, let me know. I’ll juggle things around and get you in sooner. Call me back and let me know if that’s okay.”