Authors: Kassandra Lamb
Kate’s eyes stung. The next sentence was indeed bracketed by smiley faces.
Well just in case the kid’s right and I’m wrong, I’ve told Sphinx where I’m going
…
lol.
Kate sniffled, then handed the page to Skip. “Josie did tell Sphinx.” She told him and the lieutenant about the slip of paper attached to the dog’s collar. “The vet didn’t realize what it meant at the time she found it.”
Judith looked at Skip. “You should hire her. She’s a good detective.”
Kate took a deep breath. “No, I get too sucked in. For some reason I can listen to people’s trauma from the past and stay relatively detached, but when they’re in dire trouble in the present, I become obsessed.” She’d done it a couple of times before, but this time had been far worse. She had almost lost herself in the process of finding Josie’s killer. “I think I’ll stick to being a therapist. I’ve had more than enough murder and mayhem for a long time to come.”
“Amen to that,” Skip said with fervor. “What I don’t get is how the Catholic Church could transfer this guy to a girls’ high school after he was caught.”
Kate shook her head. “He no doubt swore that he’d never do anything like that again.”
“And they believed him?” Judith asked, her tone incredulous.
“No, but they would pretend they did. The Church authorities were all about covering things up back then. And they may have assumed that he was only interested in younger children.”
“Well, they could’ve been right about that,” Judith said. “All the pics except those of his wife were little kids.”
Skip looked up at Kate. “Do you think it’s the celibacy that sometimes makes priests turn to kids like that?”
Kate stifled a sigh. She’d fielded that question more than once since the Church sex abuse scandal had broken wide open. ”No, but I think that celibacy is attractive to men who realize on some level that their sexual proclivities are warped. They’re trying to suppress that warped sexuality and think that celibacy as a priest will help them do that.”
Judith nodded. “But it doesn’t work.”
“No,” Kate said, “the urges are too strong. It’s a compulsion they can’t resist, and now they’re in a position of authority with ready access to children.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Judith shudder.
“Well, I’d better get back to the precinct and start tying up loose ends.” Judith turned toward the door, then stopped. She pivoted around again. Her face softened as the cop mask dropped away. “I’m sorry you couldn’t reach me earlier. I was in meetings with the brass.”
Kate opened her mouth, then closed it again as it registered what those meetings were about. Judith had reported whoever had pressured her to not investigate Josie’s murder. Kate prayed that there would be no repercussions for blowing the whistle. She smiled at the lieutenant.
Judith tilted her head up and down in a subtle nod and returned her smile. “Skip, I’ll need to get a formal statement from you, when you’re feeling up to it.”
When he didn’t answer, Kate glanced over at him. His eyelids were drooping.
She looked back at the lieutenant and shrugged.
Judith nodded a farewell and moved toward the door.
It crashed open and Billy ran in. “Daddy!” He dove at the side of the bed, but it was too high for him to clamber onto it.
Skip’s head jerked up. He leaned over and grabbed for the boy, and almost fell out of bed. Kate braced herself against one of his shoulders.
Judith stepped to the side of the bed and grabbed the other. Together, they shoved Skip up onto the mattress.
He fell back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
Billy’s face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Daddy.”
“You didn’t,” Skip said, his eyes still closed. “I’m just a little dizzy.”
“I hate to tell you,” Kate said in a low voice, “but you’re not going to feel right, off and on, for a while. Rophynol has some nasty long-term side effects.”
Skip opened his eyes and grimaced. Then he rearranged his face into a smile for the kids’ sake.
Edie was hanging back, holding Maria’s hand.
“Come here, Pumkin,” Skip said. “Give me a hug.”
She let go of Maria and ran over. Kate helped the kids climb up on either side of the bed. “Sit still now. Daddy’s got a bad headache.”
Kate noticed that Judith had left. She’d forgotten to ask her about the message she’d left regarding Dr. Blake. She now regretted it, since the vet hadn’t been involved in Josie’s murder. But the woman had known what she was risking when she’d opened her practice without a license.
Kate shook her head slightly. She refused to waste any more of her life feeling guilty about other people’s actions.
Maria gestured from the doorway. Kate stepped over next to her.
“Ees okay I bring de kids in?” Maria whispered. “De nurse say he awake and could see them.”
“Yes, it’s fine,” Kate said, although she was worried about Edie. This whole experience had reinforced a somber streak in her personality that wasn’t part of her inherent cheerful nature.
Kate’s stomach knotted. Maybe Skip should consider a different line of work too.
She looked across the room at her husband listening intently to the children’s chatter. She doubted he would go along with a career change. At least the aftereffects of the Rophynol would keep him on desk duty for a little while.
She made a mental note to watch for signs of PTSD. Skip had experienced close calls before and had suffered no ill effects afterward. But being awake but drugged enough to not be able to do anything–those helpless feelings would still be festering in his psyche even though he couldn’t remember them consciously. She’d seen it before in rape survivors who’d been drugged with roofies.
Maria slipped her hand into Kate’s and squeezed. “He gonna be okay.” A statement, not a question.
The tension in Kate’s stomach relaxed as she watched her family–Edie beaming as she told her father about her day at school, Skip nodding and then turning his head to hide a wince, Billy interrupting his sister in a too-loud voice.
Yes, he would be okay. They would all be okay in time. She said a silent prayer that there would be no more dead bodies. She would be more than happy to confine her mystery-solving talents to jigsaw puzzles.
She smiled down at Maria. Her fingertips grazed something hard. She lifted Maria’s hand and stared at it. “You’re engaged?”
“Oh no.” Maria pulled her hand free, then rubbed the silver band with two tiny red stones embedded in it. “Eduardo call it a commitment ring. We have dat talk like you suggest. He say we start over and he court me again, as a lover, not as a man looking for a
madre
for his children.”
“And how do you feel about that?” Kate asked.
Maria flashed her a bright smile. “I tink ees very good idea.”
~~~~~~<>~~~~~~
Author’s Notes
If you enjoyed this book
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We at
misterio press
pride ourselves on producing top quality mysteries. Each book is proofread several times by several sets of eyes. But proofreaders are human. If you found errors in this book, please e-mail me at
[email protected]
and let me know.
First let me say a big thank you to you, my readers! You are Kate’s lifeblood. Without you, she and her friends and family would die a slow death in my hard drive. But every time you read one of her adventures, she and the gang come to life again.
Also I owe so much gratitude to my beta readers–Gina, Ralph, Angi and Sue–and to my critique partners at misterio press–Shannon Esposito and Kathy Owen. You all made this story better.
And my writing would not be at the level of quality that it is without my wonderful editor, Marcy Kennedy. I am so grateful that I found you, Marcy!
I’d better not leave out my long-suffering husband who is my final proofreader. Any errors you may have found are probably because I couldn’t resist tinkering with the story a bit more after he’d proofread it.
And now for an apology–to the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore. To the best of my knowledge there wasn’t a major abuse scandal or a cover-up in that particular diocese, although I know of a few isolated cases of abuse by priests there. I am fairly familiar with one of those cases. When the abuse came to light years after it had happened, the church authorities reacted appropriately. The priest was required to attend an inpatient sex addiction recovery program and was removed from any position where he would be likely to be around children or teens.
The people who knew this priest personally, myself included, were dumbfounded by the accusations. Those close to such priests often are. This is because these priests usually are quite sincere in their calling to the priesthood and are caring toward their parishioners.
But a part of their motivation for pursuing a vocation in the church, often operating out of conscious awareness, is a desire to suppress their warped sexuality via celibacy. This rarely works. The compulsion to act out is too strong.
This compulsion comes from the abusers’ own childhood abuse. Part of the dynamic is the need to reclaim the power that was taken from them by their abusers. Now as the abuser, they are in control again. This need for power is associated with sexual arousal and the urge is often quite strong.
Abuse is also twisted up with love for many abusers. This further stymies and confuses those who know these abusive priests. “But he loves kids. He was always so involved with the youth group.” Yes, he does love kids; unfortunately, in his case, that love is associated with sexual urges.
Okay, enough of that grim subject. *shudder*
I have an announcement to make. I’m starting a new mystery series!!
Now, before you get worried, I’m not abandoning Kate. But I figured she could use a little bit of a break from stumbling over dead bodies. I do have another Vacation novella planned, this one set in Hawaii (see blurb below). Hopefully I will have that out in late winter/early spring, 2016. And there will be more full-length Kate novels as well.
I’m really excited about this new series. The protagonist is…
Wait! I’ll let her introduce herself. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of the first book in the series:
I’m a normal person. Granted I have a somewhat unusual vocation. I train service animals for PTSD sufferers–mostly combat vets.
But other than that, I’m just a small-town, thirty-something divorcee. About as average as one can get.
My name is Marcia Banks–pronounced Mar-see-a, not Marsha. Okay, so I don’t have a totally normal name.
I live in what has recently become the third largest state, population-wise, in the country. I reside in one of its least populated areas, however, in a little town called Mayfair, Florida, population 758 (and a half–Agnes Baker is pregnant. Again).
Mayfair is in central Florida, on the outskirts of the Ocala National Forest, a forty-five-minute drive inland from I-75, which runs along the western side of the state.
The town sprang up in the late 1960's when old Mr. Mayfair started an alligator farm there. (Rumor has it that he poached the alligators from the Forest.) He plastered billboards all over the newly minted I-75 corridor, and a few on I-95 on the other side of the state, and soon vacationing families were stopping here to witness the wonders of alligator wrestling and to buy cheap alligator belts and handbags as gifts for their relatives the following Christmas.
The Mayfair Motel was built. A gas station, a small diner, some tacky souvenir shops and a ma-and-pa grocery store rounded out the town.
Sadly, the alligator farm’s success was short lived. It went under in the mid-seventies, no longer able to lure tourists once Walt Disney had plopped his mega-amusement park down next to another sleepy little Florida town–Orlando.
Mayfair had come close to ghost town status, but it’s now experiencing a resurgence. People like myself, who work in jobs that don’t require one’s physical presence in an office somewhere, are moving here for the peace and quiet and the climate.
It’s mildly chilly here in January and February, quite pleasant in March and April and again in November and December, and stinking hot the rest of the year. But to northerners like myself, the ability to throw away our snow shovels and heavy parkas makes it heaven on earth.
I moved here four years ago, right after the demise of my short and disastrous marriage to a concert pianist in the Baltimore Symphony. It’s a great place to train service animals because everybody knows everybody. So it didn’t take long for the residents to learn the rules. Never, ever pet the dogs I train unless I say it’s okay. That’s the main rule.
The one exception is my Black Lab-Rottie mix, Buddy,
if
he’s the only dog I’m walking at the time. He’s now my mentor dog and my best friend. He was my first trainee, and how he came back into my possession was the beginning of my not so normal avocation–unwilling amateur sleuth.
And here’s a synopsis of the next Kate on Vacation adventure,
Missing on Maui
:
Days before Kate Huntington is scheduled to leave for her niece’s wedding on Maui, she receives a desperate call from said niece. Kate’s rather intense sister-in-law, Amy’s mother, is at it again–alienating the groom’s family, members of the wedding party and even the disgusted wedding planner. Can Aunt Kate come early and run interference?