Just Evil

by Vickie McKeehan

  Satisfied, Jake moved to get out of the car.

  In no hurry for a confrontation she’d had several times in the past, Kit took her time approaching Collin. She stopped long enough at the convertible to turn the key in the ignition, shutting off the engine and putting an end to the loud music.

  Together Jake and Kit moved closer to the steps and to Collin, a man about as tall as Kit with brooding eyes that went with black hair as dark as a moonless night.

  Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, navy shorts, and flip flops, Collin looked as though he’d just stepped off a tropical island with enough booze in him to drown a sailor.

  “Well, well, well.” Disheveled, with day-old stubble on his face, Collin held up his bottle of Scotch as if toasting the air and took a big gulp, not bothering to replace the cap on the bottle.

  “I find out at five o’clock this morning my dear sweet mother departed this earth and I come over here for a little comfort…just a little comfort, mind you, between two old friends. A friend that’s recently lost her mother. What’s it been, Kit-Kat, two days? And what do I find instead? I get to see Kit-Kat coming in from an all-night party with Mr. Software himself. And she’s not even wearing her own clothes. I didn’t know the two of you were an item.”

  He stared straight at Kit, accusingly. “I thought you were over this son of a bitch. Tells you how much I know. Been grieving Kit-Kat, over the loss of Mama? And you’ve found comfort in a most unlikely place.” Anger welled up inside the man as he took another gulp from the bottle.

  “Collin, you’re drunk. And you’re disturbing the peace, disturbing my neighbors. I’ll call you a cab; you aren’t fit to drive. You could hurt someone in your condition.”

  “Goddamn it, I don’t need a cab. I can drive. I just drove here, didn’t I?”

  Kit started to press the call button on her cell phone anyway to make the call, but the gesture set Collin off.

  He pointed at her and screamed, “Don’t you dare call me a fucking cab, you understand?” Collin leaned over in the direction of the two of them and lowered his voice, “But I am drunk, that much is true. Goddamn right I’m drunk. I find out my mother’s dead; I start drinking. What’s wrong with that? At least I took my mother’s death with some emotion. And we know my mother didn’t have a suicidal bone in her body. How about you, Kit-Kat? What emotion did you show? The police think you did it, you know. You’re a person of interest. That’s what the papers said this morning. They think you killed the wicked witch. Isn’t that what we used to call her, Kit-Kat? The wicked witch is dead.”

  He started laughing so hard at his own joke he almost stumbled down the steps. “Now they’re both dead.” He weaved over to one side before telling Kit, “I want to come in. I won’t disturb the neighbors, if you let me come inside. Ask me to come inside your house, Kit-Kat.”

  But Kit shook her head. “No, Collin. I have to get to work. And there’s still a restraining order against you.”

  With the bottle, he pointed to Jake accusingly. “Does he get to come in? He gets to come in and I don’t, is that it?” Taking that for granted, that fact only fueled his anger.

  Jake spoke up, “We’ll all stay outside until you leave.”

  “Like hell we will. I’m stayin’ right here until Kit-Kat asks me to come in. You let this son of a bitch inside your house, inside your panties, but not me? Is that it? You spend the night with him but not me. I was never good enough for you, but this guy is? For chrissakes, Kit-Kat, he killed his goddamned wife.”

  Calmly, Kit said, “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  “Embarrassing myself? I’m not the one wearing someone else’s clothes for chrissakes. I’m wearing my own clothes. You aren’t.” Proud that he’d pointed that out, aggression swam in the liquid pools of his eyes as he concluded, “I can pretty much guess what happened to your fucking clothes.”

  Collin swayed before heading further up the steep set of steps toward Kit’s front door. He was having a hard time keeping his balance when he turned, as if used to having his orders obeyed, pointed a finger at Jake, and demanded, “I want you to leave.” To Kit, he said, “And you, I want you to invite me inside the fucking house.”

  Matter-of-factly, Jake said, “We don’t always get what we want.” Rubbing his chin, he turned to Kit, half-joking, barely above a whisper and pointed out, “This might be a good time to mention that I haven’t been in a fight since junior high.”

  “Don’t shatter my illusion that you’re my hero. You’re bigger than he is; you’re sober, and frankly if you can’t take him in the state he’s in, then I’m going to be sorely disappointed. But whatever, I’m not letting him inside my house even if I have to kick his ass myself.”

  Turning serious, she added, “Two years ago I made the mistake of letting him in because he said he just wanted to talk and he practically…well…he got very…physical. I got away from him, called the police, and got a restraining order.”

  In a loud agitated voice, Collin ordered, “Stop that whispering. I want to come inside the goddamn house. Is that too much to ask? Is this any way to treat an old friend you’ve known since birth?”

  Jake looked at Collin, tried reason. “You’re upset about your mother. No one’s taking that away from you. But you can’t show up here drunk and take your frustration out on Kit. She’s already told you she wants you to leave.”

  The expression in his eyes turned violent. “Go fuck yourself, Boston. Or is my little Kit-Kat doing that?”

  Jake took a step closer. “You don’t talk about her like that.”

  “Don’t mess with me…” Collin started down the steps toward Jake.

  It all happened lightning fast.

  The moment Collin reached the bottom step, he grabbed for Kit’s arm. Jake reacted on instinct, spinning Collin around to face him. When Collin threw a punch to Jake’s head, Jake dodged, pivoted, and threw a solid left jab that connected with Collin’s nose.

  Blood oozed down Collin’s face as he staggered back. Regaining his balance, he realized his nose was broken. Stumbling, he made his way to his car in defeat. But before crawling behind the wheel, Collin turned back to both of them and yelled, “You’ll regret this, you son-of-a-bitch. You both will. Nobody messes with a Boyd.”

  When he’d driven away, Kit grinned at Jake. “Wow, my hero. How’s your hand?” With a twinkle of mischief sparkling in her eyes, she cracked, “Do you think he’ll sue?”

  Jake shook his left hand, flexed his fingers back and forth. “Probably.”

  Reaching out, she took the hand and inspected it. “You didn’t break anything did you?”

  “No, but maybe next time you’ll take me up on the offer and go sailing. We could have been halfway to Catalina by now.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “How long has Collin had this thing for Kit?”

  Gloria’s head snapped up. She was a ten-year younger version of Alana with short wispy platinum blonde hair, stunning green eyes and a tall, svelte figure. She sat more erect on the sofa in Jake’s office as she sipped a cup of herbal tea. “What do you mean? Collin knows better than to come around Kit after what happened last time.”

  “Really? I don’t think he got the message.” Jake paced back and forth in front of the bank of windows in his office, remembering the look of longing in Collin’s eyes. It made him edgy, and a tad jealous.

  “He showed up this morning drunk, maybe high, and left with a broken nose.” He turned to stare at the woman on the sofa he’d thought of like a second mother. “I need more information, Gloria. Why am I getting this feeling you’re holding back? If I’m going to help Kit, you need to be straight with me. I didn’t feel comfortable asking her a bunch of probing questions up front what with the police giving her a hard time. So I didn’t push it. But, now I’m asking you. Why did Kit consider The Enclave a second home when she was a kid?”

  “She said that?”

  A question for a question. Interesting. “It was because of the abuse, wasn’t i
t?”

  “You remember don’t you, how Morty and I lived in Maine before we moved to L.A.?”

  He took a deep breath for patience. What that had to do with anything at this point he wasn’t sure, but as calmly as he could, he replied, “Yeah, Gloria, I remember.”

  “We didn’t get to L.A. very often to see Kit back then because I lived three thousand miles away. Don’t you see I wasn’t here when she needed me the most? It’s true, as a child Kit spent a lot of time with the Boyds’ whenever Alana and Jessica disappeared for weeks at a time to fly off to some exotic location. Those two women were forever traipsing off some place, taking a vacation to some resort or spa. Whenever they traveled, they’d leave Jessica’s three sons and Kit in the care of Jessica’s nanny, Maya. By the time Kit turned three, she’d stayed with Maya so often that Kit took to calling the nanny Mommy Maya. That used to just break my heart to hear her say that over the phone and she’d…she’d sound so sad.” Her eyes filled with tears and with some trepidation she quietly added, “Not that Alana would have let me see her. She thought I was a bad influence, you see, kept telling me and anyone that would listen that I was crazy. She didn’t want me around Kit.”

  Jake handed her a box of Kleenex, waited for her to pull herself together enough to continue.

  Dabbing at her eyes, in a broken voice, she went on, “Kit’s visits to the Boyds’ were frequent, especially in the summertime, when she’d get dropped off for a stay that ranged anywhere from overnight to several weeks. When Kit got to be about six, I started pestering Alana to let her come and spend her summers with me. Alana used every excuse in the book not to let that child come visit me, though, even telling me at one point that Kit was just too much of a handful, and that the bed and breakfast I managed at the time might suffer because the guests wouldn’t want to put up with all the noise a child makes. But I knew that Kit wouldn’t have been a bother. I wanted so much to see her. But Alana wouldn’t allow it. I think maybe she thought I might just keep her, not send her back. But whatever the reason, Alana wouldn’t let Kit visit.

  “After a while, I got the idea that maybe we’d move, relocate, I’d get a job out here, Morty could sell his law practice. I used to dream about picking up and moving to L.A. so I’d be closer to Kit. I started to…to bug Morty about it. But his practice was thriving back then and the idea of moving three thousand miles away just didn’t work for him. Then at twelve, after…after Kit…turned twelve…Morty finally; he finally relented, he saw how serious I was about spending more time with Kit. By that time I’d bought the B & B I had managed.

  “After Kit...after Kit turned twelve, we sold it, sold the law practice too, and relocated here to L.A.” Gloria sniffed into the Kleenex Jake had given her. “We met you a couple of months later. You were right out of college then and Morty encouraged you to start your own company, develop your software. After that...Alana not only let Kit spend the summers with us, but I’d take care of Kit while Alana was off to Europe or wherever.

  “Once Morty and I made the move to L.A., Kit was no longer forced to stay with the Boyds. Then later of course Kit started working at the law firm, in the file room, just for something to do, to have a little spending money.” Gloria stopped talking and stared off into space. “It’s true when Kit was small she spent too much time at the Boyds’, it wasn’t her home. Most of the time, she had to feel like an outsider there. But there was one saving grace—at least she wasn’t with Alana.”

  That inference was clear enough. But Jake wanted to hear Gloria say it, so he pushed harder. “Exactly what issues did Kit have with her mother, Gloria?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  Jake’s instincts told him Gloria was volleying back and forth with him for some reason. It was rare for her not to be straight with him about anything.

  What was she so nervous about? “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Her relationship with Alana is at the very core of why St. John suspects her. He sees a daughter who doesn’t get along with her mother, doesn’t show enough emotion to suit him, and she’s got a built-in motive. Why, Gloria? Tell me straight.”

  Gloria sat there with a pained look on her face, silent as the dead. She searched every fiber in the carpet as if looking for the secret to life. But she never looked at him.

  Patience gone, he blew out a breath. “The cops are going to use the abuse as motive, Gloria.”

  “Oh…God, no.”

  “Gloria, Kit’s in serious trouble. The police are pursuing her as their main suspect and unless we can convince them otherwise, she’s in danger of being arrested. When the media finds out about the abuse, they’ll come after her as well. I need you to be up front with me, tell me anything you can to help Kit out of this mess.”

  “But she didn’t kill Alana.”

  “I know that and you know that, but Max St. John doesn’t give a damn about what we know, only what we can prove.”

  Later, when Gloria finally left Jake’s office and headed for her car, she was angry. And she rarely got this upset. Where Kit was concerned, however, she had a short fuse. As soon as she got to her car, she pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed a number in Malibu.

  When he answered his private line, his voice sounded gruff. “Sumner here.”

  “It’s good to know you haven’t changed your private number after all these years.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Gloria Gandis.”

  “It’s nice of you to call and express your condolences. How have you been, Gloria?”

  “This isn’t social, Sumner. I didn’t call to express anything except outrage. Your son is at it again. He’s been to see Kit.”

  “I don’t believe that. Collin knows better. I warned him to stay away from Kit after the last time. No, Collin promised me he wouldn’t do that.”

  “Sumner, I didn’t call to argue the point. Believe it. Ask him how he broke his nose. I’m tired of this. It can’t happen again. Do you understand? It seems every two years or so, Collin gets it in his head that Kit’s going to change her mind. She won’t. I don’t doubt you tried, but he’s got to be dense as a stump to do this again. I won’t put up with it, either. You care about Collin and I care about Kit, it’s as simple as that. If he ever crosses the line, I’ll see to it they lock him up and throw away the key. That much I can assure you. You aren’t the only one who knows people. Do you understand me? You get that son of yours to somehow understand that or put him under lock and key yourself. He’s dangerous where Kit is concerned and you know it. I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” As soon as he hung up, he dialed his youngest son’s cell phone number. When Collin picked up the phone, he heard his father say simply, “I want you here in ten minutes.”

  Collin made it in eight. When he’d answered his phone, saw it was his father’s number, he knew what to expect.

  As he walked into his father’s study, Collin braced himself for what he was sure would come. In a matter of seconds, he directed all of his fury at the woman responsible. As he stood there waiting for his reprimand, all he could think about was making Kit pay for the lecture he knew was coming.

  As soon as Sumner looked up and saw the bandage across his son’s nose, he swore. The veins in his neck popped to a bulge, his blood pressure rose, and his anger doubled. “Goddamn it, what the fuck were you thinking? The last time you pulled this stunt you spent the night in a holding cell. Evidently, you have a short memory.”

  “All I wanted to do was talk. I swear that’s all I wanted to do. I was upset about Mother. Every time I go near Kit, she overreacts. Typical female reaction if you ask me.”

  “No one’s asking you, Collin. When do you intend to stop this obsession with the woman? She’s made it clear she doesn’t want you; why can’t you leave it at that? I understand Kit is a beautiful, vibrant woman, but she isn’t the only skirt in town. You could have any woman you wanted, so why not leave her alone if she doesn’t show an interest?�
�

  “We grew up together. It wasn’t always like this. I can’t help it if I…I guess I’m in love with her.”

  Sumner already knew that and hearing it didn’t sit well. “Get the fuck over it. This feeling you have happens to be one-sided and one-sided never works. How many times do we have to have this conversation for you to understand that? You’re too old for this and you aren’t stupid, although apparently you aren’t as smart as I had hoped you were. If you don’t stop this, one day…one day…you’ll cross a line and I won’t be able to help you, no one will. You can’t keep doing this. For God’s sake, leave the woman alone. Do you understand me? You go near her again I’ll break more than your nose myself. You got that?”

  Kit and Baylee had been so swamped they’d barely had time to do more than grunt at each other. So as soon as the line died down, Kit pushed Baylee from behind the counter, telling her, “Go sit down. Take a break. Sarah will be awake soon.”

  While Baylee settled in at one of the tables, Kit poured both of them a fresh cup of amaretto coffee and listened to Baylee talk about her morning. “When I opened up, I had a line out the door and people grumbling about having to wait. I hadn’t even made the coffee yet. I sold out every pastry you had left over from yesterday by eight-thirty and then the customers got really bitchy.”

  “I’m sorry you had to open up.” In spite of her harried morning, Kit’s business acumen kicked in. “You sold the day-old pastry?”

  “Every crumb. Apparently these people will eat anything.” Baylee eyed the stack of papers on the counter that Kit had brought in with her. “What is all that?”

  “Connor Boyd sent over papers he wants me to sign about Alana’s estate. Can you believe that?” Kit missed the cautious glaze that settled in Baylee’s eyes at the mention of the oldest Boyd son. “He wants to make sure Alana Stevens Realty continues to run smoothly through the transition. He spent ten minutes telling me that Alana’s employees would continue to eat if I’d sign this, sign that. He wanted me to know I should be grateful I now own a business.” She rolled her eyes before picking up her mug to enjoy the coffee she’d poured.