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Three years before Kay had been born, Jonas Solomon Castigan had been arrested for the fourth time, for the murder of his battered wife and two small children, two little girls ages four and seven. The dates of death were several days after the incident report; at the time of the arrest, he’d been charged with domestic abuse, assault, and battery. Somehow, he’d managed to post bail and had since vanished. The warrants had been changed to murder in all three counts, after his wife and little girls succumbed to their injuries. And no one had seen him since.
Heart pounding in her chest, she stared at the screen, speechless, lost in a trance, until she felt Doc Whitmore’s hand squeezing her shoulder.
She’d learned nothing new, except a name that didn’t mean anything to her. If she hadn’t pulled that trigger eighteen years ago, another woman and her two children would’ve probably shared that same fate.
With a quick, lopsided smile, she looked at Doc Whitmore before deleting the search. He nodded. She clicked the mouse button, and the screen cleared.
And with it, whatever remained of her guilty conscience.
FORTY-NINE
SPILLED
Kay had spent the entire day on Sunday pressing telecom providers to send the records she’d requested. It being a day off for most people, she didn’t achieve anything but to have left several messages in an uncompromising tone of voice, and aggravate a few others. The best she could hope for was tomorrow, by lunch at the latest. She’d heard that before, through Denise Farrell, and they’d already broken that promise.
Frustrated and exhausted after what had proven to be an emotional rollercoaster of a week, she declined Elliot’s invitation to dinner, wondering how come his Miranda was putting up with those kind of absences from home. But it wasn’t any of her business what that woman did or didn’t do; the simple fact that she existed had thrown everything off track.
Had it really been on a track? She and Elliot? Or was it all in her imagination? How could she have gotten her signals crossed so badly? Wishful thinking, that must’ve been it. The way she felt when he touched her hand. The way he looked at her and smiled. The heart-swelling closeness she’d felt whenever he was near.
“Motivated perception,” she mumbled, kicking off her shoes in her deserted kitchen and turning on the lights.That’s what it was, nothing else, she told herself, thinking she’d lost nothing, because she’d had nothing to begin with, just misinterpreted friendship from her partner. Then why did she feel an unbearable burden of sadness that weighed on her chest until she couldn’t breathe?
Jacob was out on one of his regular dates with his girlfriend, a young woman who was going to become his wife if he knew what was good for him. He was head over heels for her, but, in typical macho fashion, didn’t stop to acknowledge it and count his blessings. He’d probably be gone for the rest of the evening, a good opportunity to get something done in that kitchen. Like painting it.
Eyeing the patched walls with the fixed stare of a predator ready to pounce, she wondered if she had it in her to finish it by herself, instead of waiting for Jacob. He’d taken the afternoon off on Tuesday to help her, but what was she supposed to do? Watch TV?
She changed into the painter’s outfit, the stained T-shirt and matching shorts, then brought the paint roller kit she’d picked up at the hardware store where Renaldo used to work. After laying everything out neatly on the kitchen table, she grabbed the gallon of lemon meringue yellow latex with a matte finish, and struggled a little to get the lid open with the putty knife. Then she stirred the paint thoroughly, per the precise instructions of Renaldo’s former boss, old Mr. Harry’s Hardware Store himself.
Careful not to drop the heavy paint bucket, she tilted it slightly and poured some paint into the tray. Then she wiped the bucket rim and put the lid back on. Next she rotated the paint roller thoroughly, and tried her hand on a section of wall that would soon be covered by the fridge. Just in case she got it wrong.
The door swung open behind her, but she didn’t react, thinking it was Jacob. “Just in time to get dirty,” she quipped, admiring her handiwork.
“Just in time to get something straight, bitch. No way Rennie’s snitching on me.”
The paint roller dropped from her hand, clattering on the floor and sending droplets of lemon meringue yellow on her legs.
Startled, she turned on her heel to find herself staring down the barrel of a gun. Richard Gaskell grinned at her with a lascivious yet hate-filled look in his eyes. She could feel his lewd, sticky stare traveling up and down her body, her bare legs, her cleavage.
Instinctively, she felt her side for her weapon, but it wasn’t there. She’d put it in the drawer as she always did when she got home.
“Yeah, nice try. Don’t you think you and I should have a talk?” He gestured with the gun toward a chair. Kay continued to stand, calculating her moves. “Sit,” he shouted.
Kay thrust her chin forward in a gesture of open defiance she was sure the emerging power rapist wouldn’t tolerate. “Are you ready for the chair, Richard? Because that’s what you’re getting for killing a cop. No lawyer in the world can save you from that. Not even your daddy.”
A glimmer of fear dilated his pupils. The hand holding the gun hesitated a little. Kay seized the opportunity and lunged, grabbing his right arm with both her hands and pushing it up, to get the gun pointed at the ceiling instead of her chest.
A football player, Richard was much stronger and taller than her. He grabbed her hair with his left hand and at the same time his knee found her stomach. Her arms flailed as she fell, taking down the putty knife and bucket of paint, sending them clattering to the floor. The lid came off and lemon meringue yellow spilled in a gushing river of latex, covering the newspapers she’d set down.
She landed hard on her side and curled in a ball with pain, gasping for air. Inches away from her face, Richard’s feet almost touched the fallen putty knife. Coughing, she wriggled closer to the knife and grabbed it, holding it tight and hiding it under her body.
He grabbed her arm and pulled up. She let herself weigh heavy, inert. “Get up,” he commanded.
When she didn’t obey, he raised his right foot to step aside or kick her into compliance, but she was ready. Lightning fast, she drove the putty knife straight into the Achilles tendon of his left foot.
He screamed and fell to the ground splashing and slipping in the spilled paint, shouting disarticulated oaths in a broken, raspy voice and holding his ankle with both his hands. His fingers quickly took the color of the blood dripping from his wound. Near where he writhed in pain, lemon meringue yellow borrowed shades of crimson red.
The gun had slid under the table, and Kay didn’t hesitate. She crawled under there and grabbed the weapon, then pointed it at Richard, pushing herself farther away from him with her feet. When she could finally stand, she walked over to him, careful not to slip and fall on the slick surface.
The pain in her stomach had ebbed to a dull throb, and she held her arm over her belly as if that could soothe it somehow. Looking at Richard, at the size of his biceps, she was astonished she’d managed to bring him down.
