While You Were Dead (17 page)

Kat sprang into action. “I’ll be right there,” she called after him, and strode to the empty bed. If she upended the box, the files would then be on the top. She could remove them, repack the box and Max would never know.

Except he was right behind her. Kat swore softly, startled when his hand snaked out to finger one of his old shirts. “You kept all this stuff?”

“I–Yes, I did.” She played a futile game of tug-o-war with the shirt until it slid off the bed, dropping its hidden picture to the floor. Max was not only stronger than she, he was quicker too. Still holding the box she’d given him, he picked up the framed photograph and handed it back after just a glance at his younger, smiling self.

Kat plucked up the file folders. “Here,” she stuttered and shoved him out of the door. She put her shaking hands up to her hot cheeks and sucked in a deep breath. Then she realized he could return at any moment. One shirt, one photograph, not so bad. Twenty shirts, twenty photos. . . She jammed the box back over the pile, not caring that it wasn’t neat. The lid didn’t quite fit, but she shoved the whole mess back into the closet and then carefully closed first the closet door and then the bedroom door behind her on her way out to the living room.

Max still had the file folders in his hand, but he’d opened the other box anyway. Photos of Lizzie were in the top of that one–a huge threat not twelve hours ago. Now she shared gladly. Max, however, didn’t want her joining him in his stroll down memory lane. “Dinner?” he reminded with only a quick glance.

Kat nodded and backed away, tears welling up in her eyes. Why hadn’t Miriam told him? For that matter, why hadn’t she? She’d known immediately because he’d asked what she was doing in his niece’s bedroom. If she were honest, she’d admit shock at seeing him had stolen every thought of Lizzie from her mind. By the time she’d seen him again, at her house late that night, Lizzie was already gone. She quickly sliced green peppers, onions and mushrooms and set them to simmer. Chicken followed, in a separate pan. When she risked a glance back into the living room, Max still hadn’t touched the files.

Max hadn’t touched the files because he was too busy reliving Lizzie’s life with new eyes. Now that he knew the truth, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before. Kat was written all over her daughter. . .his daughter. In Lizzie’s flirtatious grin. In her whoop of delight when something wonderful caught her fancy. Even in her pout. Max closed his eyes, seeing both Kat’s bedroom closet, so tidily organized, and Lizzie’s wall of baseball caps. If you swapped one cap out for another, Lizard knew in an instant. Max knew, he’d tried it. Once. She just gave him that queer smile that he’d give anything to see again and immediately switched them back. Just like her mother. Kat used to love jigsaw puzzles. But only the first time. The second time she did the same puzzle, it took her one quarter of the time and she felt none of the joy of accomplishment. Lizzie was just like her. Why hadn’t he seen it? How could he have been so blind?

With a smothered groan, he pushed away the box of photos and opened the two pitifully thin file folders. He couldn’t even begin to understand what Kat’s father’s murder had to do with Lizzie’s kidnappers, but with Kat’s help, if there was an answer, they’d find it. First, though, he had to find a connection. Something. Anything.

Kat called that dinner was ready ten minutes later. The time was enough for him to review the few notes he’d gathered years before, mostly on the known, undisputed facts of the case. At 9:57 on the evening of Saturday, May 19, Kat’s mother called the police to report a stabbing. When the police arrived five minutes later, the prominent psychiatrist was dead, his wife was hysterical, their nine-year-old daughter was sound asleep on the couch, and blood literally dripped from the knife in Ellen’s hand.

Max left the table once during dinner, heading outside, returning just seconds later. When Kat sent him a question with her eyes, he just smiled and gave his head a slight shake. It was strange and unnerving, being inside her own house, having dinner at her own dining room table, not having the freedom to speak. He’d turned music on before he’d come to the table, possibly as a cover, but he only praised her cooking and wondered if she’d heard a weather report. Certainly not the conversation she wanted to have.

When she could no longer even pretend to eat, she took her virtually untouched plate into the kitchen and came back with a pen and a pad of paper. She wrote ‘what’ before Max covered her hand with his own, giving his head an almost imperceptible shake. Not write? Her eyes widened and she saw acknowledgment in his. Max suspected not just audio snooping, but video as well. Under his large palm, her hand trembled. He gave it a reassuring squeeze.

He cleared his throat and pushed his plate away, still not releasing her hand. “Got any ice cream?”

Ice cream? He wanted ice cream? “I—No.”

“Then let’s go out.”

Kat ran for her purse. Finally, seated across from him in a cozy booth at the back of a diner chosen because of its proximity to her house, she nailed him. “What’s going on?” He hadn’t allowed any conversation in her car, either.

“I’m waiting for a kit. Then I’ll be able to determine what, if any, surveillance equipment they’ve — “

”Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would they monitor me?”

He shrugged.

“This is crazy, Max.”

“Just because I haven’t found the connection yet, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“Sometimes coincidences are just that.”

“Sometimes,” he agreed calmly. “Not this time.”

How could he be so damn calm? “How do you know?”

“I just do. I’ll find the connection, but I need your help. Mitch is a completely unknown, integral piece at the moment. Let’s start at the beginning.”

“The beginning? Of the time line? Yesterday?” The questions popped out like staccato bursts from a machine gun. Kat clenched her hands together and closed her eyes.

Max covered her hands with one of his own. She hated to admit how much the contact soothed her frazzled nerves. “We’ve got the answer, baby. Somewhere, between the two of us, and we’ll find it. When we do, we’ll find the one’s who….“

She didn’t wait for his voice to trail off. Her eyes flashed open. “She’s alive, Max. We’re going to find her.”

For once he didn’t argue, but her impassioned speech hadn’t done a thing to convince him either. “What happened the night your father died? What do you remember?”

She felt a long-forgotten pang but shoved it away. There wasn’t time. “We had dinner. Watched TV. A cop woke me up.”

“What about your mother?”

“She was wild. Screaming, ‘What have I done?’, over and over. Blood was everywhere. On everything.” A tremor sounded in her voice and she cleared it. Focus! “The policeman who woke me up wanted me out of the room, but I fought him. I wanted to get to Mom. She had a knife—a nasty wicked looking thing, and she wouldn’t let it go. She didn’t let it go until three of them pulled guns on her.” Her voice was calm now, like she was reciting history lesson, not the event that tore her world apart. That was good. “Watching Mom freak out, and the cops pull the guns on her. . .it was surreal. I felt like I couldn’t get my mind to concentrate fully, to take it all in. There should have been something I could do, but it all happened too fast. The policeman finally upended me, took me upstairs to my room. He wouldn’t let me come out until Aunt Nell got there.”

“Your father’s sister,” Max clarified.

“She always hated Mom.” Kat gave a little smile. “Guess she had good reason to.”

“You’ve read the police and court reports.”

It wasn’t a question but she answered anyway. “More times than I care to remember.”

“What did the police do wrong?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t the police, it was her original attorney. Aunt Nell hired him. He never even looked at the issue of insanity. Mom told him not to, of course, but still. A normal loving wife doesn’t go berserk and murder her husband unless something is out of whack.”

“But she confessed?”

Kat nodded glumly. “’What have I done?’ was rather incriminating. She claims—now—that that’s not what she meant. Of course, she won’t explain what she did mean, if not that she’d stabbed him. She’ll only say it’s because she fell asleep.”

“She fell asleep, too? Did the police check for signs of a break-in? Was there any evidence to support that your dad put up a struggle?”

“Only stuff Mom knocked over fighting the cops. No break-in.”

“Then let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about dinner.”

“Roast pork, salad, red potatoes, peas and pearl onions.”

Max smiled when she glanced at him, acknowledging her memory. She shrugged but could feel her cheeks get hot. “Lizzie was just like that, you know. Never forgot a thing.” Kat winced at his use of past tense. Max kept firing questions. “What happened after dinner?”

“Dad went into his office to dictate some patient notes. Mom and I went into the den, ate chocolates and watched a movie. Terminator,” she supplied before he could ask. This time when he shook his head, she got defensive. “What? You know I like movies like that.”

“You’re not the only one. You said you ate chocolates. Was that unusual?”

“Very. Mom used to be a health fanatic. No sweets. No snacks. Dad had brought them home from a meeting earlier. Mom and I both pigged out.”

“What happened to the chocolates?”

“What do you mean?”

“They aren’t listed on any of the police reports.”

Kat smiled. “I think we ate them all. Mom probably threw out the box so she wouldn’t be reminded that we’d really eaten all of them.”

Max gave a little nod. “Was there anyone else in the house?”

“No.”

“Anyone you know of who didn’t like your father?”

“No. The police looked and didn’t find anyone either.”

“Any disgruntled employees?”

“One secretary. She was heartbroken when the police called her. She’d worked for him for years.”

“Were she and your dad. . . ?”

“No. She and Mom were friends--Dad used to send them off shopping together when they got on his nerves. Then he and I would go to the museum.”

“Secretary’s name?”

“Penny. Penny Jessup.”

“Did Penny ever stay for dinner?”

“Sometimes. If Dad had an after-dinner client, he’d ask her to stay.”

“How about that night?”

“No.”

“And there wasn’t anyone else in the house? Was your Dad seeing a client maybe?”

“No, just dictating. Penny asked him to catch it up--he was horrible at keeping his dictation current, and she didn’t want to work overtime the next week.”

“What was the condition of your dad’s office?”

The rapid-fire questions left her wondering about Max’s career choice. He’d make one hell of an attorney. “Everything was absolutely normal. The police had Penny come in to make sure. Aunt Nell and I were there—Aunt Nell insisted we be there so that nothing was taken.”

“As in stolen?”

“Yes.” Kat wrinkled her nose. “Vintage Aunt Nell. God rest her miserly, bitter old soul.”

“When did Penny go through the office?”

“The day after Dad died.”

“Tell me about Penny that day.”

“She was very upset. Shaky. Pale. Actually, she looked scared. Probably wondering where she was going to find another job. She went through the files, told the police everything looked just like she’d left it on Friday. She took some personal stuff--a few disks and some pictures--and then she left.”

“Know how to reach her?”

Kat shook her head. “We can’t. She died in a car accident the next week.”

Max’s eyebrows shot up.

“It was a hit and run, in a really seedy part of town, but they eventually caught the driver.”

“Was she married?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Not that anyone knew of. Her mother thought there might be someone, but no one ever came forward. She lived alone--only her stuff was found in her apartment. The police concluded there wasn’t any correlation. The driver was caught, convicted of vehicular homicide. I think he’s still serving time.”

“How about your dad’s clients? Any one suspicious?”

“You’d have to ask Del.”

For the first time, Max looked lost.

“Delmont Cartwright. He took over dad’s patients. Came and got all his files--there was a court order of some sort.” Kat shrugged again, an apology this time. “I didn’t really pay that much attention.”

“So you and your mom watched Arnold and pigged out on chocolate. Did your Dad join you at some point?”

“I guess. I was asleep by then.”

“And your mom really let you watch Terminator? At what? All of nine?”