The sensations built and built, but Danny didn’t let up. “Look at me, Sky,” he said in rough, commanding voice that was hardly recognizable as his. And then he drove into her, so hard, so fast, so mercilessly that she was unable to stop herself from shattering. She cried out. Finding her hands, his fingers twined with hers, and then, surging forward, he poured into her while she came and came and came.
That’s when the stars disappeared.
Falling asleep with stardust beaming over them, all that was evil in the world fell away.
Sky didn’t know how much time had passed when her mind began to sharpen, and the world outside of Danny’s arms layered back into her consciousness. Nothing had changed, and yet she felt different. Above her, stars blinked in the heavens. Beside her, a musical ribbon tethered her to earth—Danny’s snoring. She clasped his hand to her heart, and he threw a long leg across her hips. She thought about rolling to face him, but her muscles had turned to water, so she just lay there under his big leg, drifting…and grateful.
So grateful.
It was as if she’d opened her front door and stepped outside after a monsoon storm had swooped in and changed the landscape. The world was new. And here was the difference: She was glad to be alive.
“Thank you,” she whispered, to a sleeping Danny, and thought she heard his foot whisper back. Not whisper—vibrate. Localizing the sound, she felt around near their feet and found its source. “Danny, wake up.” She tugged his fingers.
“What?”
“Your cell’s vibrating.”
“It’ll stop.”
Untangling herself from his arms, she said, “It could be important.”
He opened one eye. “Don’t. Care.”
As she eased the phone into his hand, the vibrating stopped, then started up again. Danny let out a resigned grunt, flipped open the case and squinted. The caller must’ve been deemed worthy, because he brought the phone to his ear. “What?” And then, already reaching for his pants, “Stay calm. I’m on my way.”
Chapter Sixteen
With detail as crystalline as the frost that laced the windshield of Danny’s Mustang, Sky recalled the emotions that had shifted over his face that awful morning at Jolene’s. She remembered exactly how he’d looked just moments before he’d jumped an armed gunman, later, when he’d fired the shots that ended the gunman’s life, and then again as Danny took a bullet to the chest and crumpled to the ground. She could still see the muscles convulsing in his jaw, the steely grip with which he held his gun, the fire in his eyes. He’d looked determined, brave, unstoppable. The images were indelibly burned into her brain. And yet it was now, in this quiet moment, sitting in a car on a peaceful winter night, that she first saw fear mute the intensity of his fierce brown eyes. Reaching her hand out, she let it drop onto his knee.
He pulled the car into his driveway and slammed it into park. A light snow dusted the juniper tree in the front yard. Draining through the windshield, moonlight slashed across Danny’s profile. He touched his forehead to the steering wheel, and released a troubled sigh. “I’m losing her,” he said. “I’m losing Katie, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Kids experiment. It’s part of growing up.” Lightly, and she hoped reassuringly, she squeezed his knee. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you may be overreacting. Why not take a few deep breaths and then figure out a reasonable course of action…before you walk through your front door.”
A hardened glare wiped away all traces of vulnerability in his eyes. His grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he turned his face toward her. “Thanks for the advice, Doc, but since you don’t have kids, what say you let me handle this my way?”
Still he made no move to get out of the car, and she knew a distraught parent when she saw one. Ignoring his jab, she said, “You just said you don’t know what to do, and I’ve helped lots of parents deal with their children’s drug and alcohol problems.”
“So now Katie’s got a ‘problem’? A second ago you said she was just experimenting.”
He’d twisted her words, and her feelings were a bit roughed up by the dismissive tone in his voice, but this wasn’t about her or her feelings. This was about a father struggling to do the right thing by his daughter—and not knowing how. Danny was clearly in over his head…negotiating with hardened criminals was easy for him, talking to his thirteen-year-old daughter about her life, not so much. “I didn’t say she has a problem. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. Is this the first time she’s gotten drunk?”
The umbra of fear darkening his eyes returned. “Far as I know. But…you’re right. I suppose it might not be the first time. It’s not like she’d tell me if it wasn’t.”
“She might. If…you ask her. Danny, you need to talk to her.”
“I have talked to her. I’ve told her a hundred times to stay away from this shit. And it’s not like she’s unaware of how deadly alcohol and drugs can be. Yeah, maybe other kids ‘experiment’, but Katie’s different. She knows better. And yet, she and her friends bring liquor into my own house, and she gets drunk right under her aunt Faith’s nose. Slumber party my ass—more like a goddamn rave. And she had to realize she was gonna get caught. This is out and out defiance of my rules. A goddamn slap in the face.”
“I’m thinking it’s much more than a slap in the face,” she said gently.
Danny brushed her hand from his thigh. “Okay, a kick in the teeth.”
Refusing to let him shut her out, she put her hand back. “A plea for attention, for help.”
“She doesn’t want any more of my attention. She’s always telling me to get off her case. To leave her alone.”
“So what are you going to believe, her words or her behavior? You said it yourself. She knew she’d get caught, knew this would get to you. Why do you think she’d do that?”
Through gritted teeth, he growled, “I’ll tell you what I know. I know I better not find any of her friends still here or they’re going to get my Scared Straight lecture right along with Katie. I told Faith to send all the girls home, and for their sakes, I hope they hightailed it.”
She hoped so too. One intoxicated thirteen-year-old appeared to be more than enough to impair Danny’s judgment. His parenting reflexes were out of whack, and she had a feeling he was likely to mow down anyone who came across his path. “Scared Straight lecture? I know you’re a cop, but—”
“But what?” His defensive posture, the clench of his jaw, warned her to back off.
Too bad.
“Cop talk is not what Katie needs right now. What she needs is her father.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. She could feel the tension humming off his body, reverberating through the thin air that grew colder by the minute. He was holding something back.
“A second ago you said Katie’s not like other kids, that she knows better. What am I missing? What makes Katie so different.”
Lifting his head from the steering wheel, he hit the garage door opener and re-started the engine, pulled into the garage. As the door squeaked shut behind them, he killed the ignition.
“Danny?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s so different about Katie? Why should she know any more than other kids her age to stay away from drugs and alcohol?”
Squeezing his eyes shut, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Her hand still rested on his knee, and when he laid his hand atop hers she felt a tremble, barely perceptible, but real.
“Katie knows better because of her mom.”
Their fingers laced, and he lifted her palm to his lips and pressed a kiss into it. Releasing her hand, he met her eyes. “I never told you how my wife died because I didn’t want you to focus on that, on anything, but taking care of yourself. But here it is: Grace killed herself, and she used booze and pills to do the job. So yeah, I guess I am hyper-vigilant about Katie, or anyone I love when it comes to substance abuse. With Grace, the doctors said it was postpartum depression that led to the drinking
, and ultimately to her suicide. I hadn’t heard of it back then, but I should’ve been there for her. A man should know how to take care of his wife…a man should know how to take care of his daughter.”
Sky’s hand pressed his knee.
He gulped down air. “You’re right, Katie doesn’t need a lecture.” His voice cracked into harsh, icy strands. “What she needs is her mom.”
There was so much information in the speech he’d made, and not just in his words. It was clear from his body language, he not only blamed himself for his wife’s suicide, he was terrified Katie might travel down the same road. Sky hardly knew how to respond. But she sensed an expression of sympathy would be both futile and, at the moment, unwelcome. She decided to stick to the issue at hand. “You’re a good dad. I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
“Katie has you, and she has Faith.”
“And we’re doing a bang up job with her, right? That’s why she’s failing geometry even though her achievement tests show she’s gifted in math. That’s why she goes around dressed like a punk rock version of Johnny Cash. Whenever I see that spiked collar around her neck, I swear, it’s all I can do not to rip it off her. Yesterday she asked me if she could get an iPhone—because it’s black.” His words were curt, but his voice had lost its angry edge.
“That’s not a bad idea,” she ventured cautiously.
“You want me to get her an iPhone as a reward for getting drunk?”
“No. I want you to ground her for getting drunk. But an iPhone would be a great incentive for bringing up her grades. Maybe if she does well on her geometry midterm or something, you could…”
Danny was looking at her like she’d just gone around the bend.
She plowed forward. “Kids need to be punished when they do wrong. I’ve got no quarrel with that. But they need to know what they’re doing right, too. Punishment only gives negative information. If you want to teach her—”
Danny dragged his hand across his face and shook his head. “No black iPhone.”
“They come in white too. And they have GPS.”
One sable eyebrow rose with interest.
“You’d never have to worry about where she was. As long as she had her iPhone with her, you could track her movements.”
The furrows across his brow relaxed. “Track her. Why didn’t I think of that? Katie’s geometry midterm is on Monday morning. If she does well, she’s getting an iPhone Monday afternoon…but it’s gonna be a white one.”
His shoulders unrolled, and his posture opened up. Maybe now would be the time… “Danny,” she said. “I’m sorry about Grace.”
He leaned toward her and tilted his forehead against hers. “And I’m sorry for going off on you like that. I know I can be thickheaded sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t value your advice. Anytime you want to chime in with parenting advice, I’m ready to listen.” As he kissed her fingertips one by one, he continued, “Tonight was…well, it was something else. And I’m sorry I dragged you out of that cabin and into this mess without telling you so.”
Reaching across her, he opened her door from the inside. “I’ll have a serious conversation with Katie in the morning. But right now I’m so pissed at her, I’m afraid I’d only make things worse. Will you do me a huge favor?”
He pulled her against him, and her body instantly responded with a softening ache, already conditioned to arouse at his slightest touch. Swallowing around the lump in her throat, she managed a hoarse, “Anything.”
Landing a chaste kiss on her forehead he went on, “Have a woman-to-woman talk with Katie while I drive Faith home.”
After her persistent knocking went unanswered, Sky cracked open the door to Katie’s bedroom. “May I come in?”
“May I come in? May I come in?” Katie chanted in a singsong voice. She sprawled on her bed, long black dress flowing around her, elbows tucked to her sides, delicate hands lifted toward heaven. Red hair flamed against white skin, and Katie’s deep green eyes were wild and disoriented. She might’ve been Ophelia, if only the “sweets” strewn about her body had been flowers instead of teddy bears. No wonder Danny was frightened for his daughter. Ophelia was a dangerous role to play. And Sky understood, as Danny clearly did, that her mother’s suicide put Katie at greater risk than the average teen for depression, and worse.
Sky tiptoed across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. Katie’s outstretched hands cried out for someone to hold them, so she did. Exerting a gentle traction, she pulled Katie into a sitting position.
“Where’s my dad?” Katie jerked her hands free and tugged her lower lip between her teeth. The singsong quality had drained out of her voice, and her eyes had lost their wildness. The unmistakable sweetness of liquor on her breath left no doubt that Katie had been drinking, but the rest of it…she thought might be an act. Was Katie really three sheets to the wind, or had she staged this little scene for her father’s benefit? The bereft but alert expression on Katie’s face as she gazed past Sky into the empty hallway suggested as much.
“Your father’s taking your aunt Faith home. But he’ll be back soon. And I’m here if you need anything.”
“How about a drinkie poo?” Apparently deciding to take up her dramatic role once more, Katie giggled like a bedlamite until a burp interrupted her efforts.
“Sure,” Sky answered unruffled. “What would you like? I can fix you some tea or warm milk. If you’re hungry, I can make sandwiches.”
“You’re not going to yell at me, are you?” Katie asked hopefully.
“Not my job.” Sky smoothed her hands over the covers, smiled. “I’ll save that for your father.”
“Like he cares,” Katie said, the moroseness in her voice genuine, the drunk act discarded in the absence of an appreciative audience.
Sky caught the bone Katie had tossed her. “I’m certain he cares very much.”
“How would you know?”
“He told me so. But even if he hadn’t, it’s perfectly obvious.”
“Not to me.” Katie grabbed a teddy bear and hugged it to her chest.
“Then maybe you should pay more attention to the little things he does for you. For instance, where did all these stuffed animals come from?”
Katie held the bear out in front of her. “Well, this one’s from my uncle Christian. But most of them, my dad won at the county fair.”
Sweeping her arms wide to indicate the extent of the scattered loot, Sky asked, “Your father won all these in one trip to the fair?”
“Of course not. We go…we go every year.” Katie puffed her lips into a stubborn pout. “But that doesn’t mean he cares about me. It just mean he likes going to the fair.”
“But he takes you every year. Does he take a date, or just you?”
Katie stacked her arms across her chest. “Usually just me. But sometimes Grams comes too.”
“Sounds to me like he likes going to the fair with you. But maybe that was a bad example. Maybe spending time together doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to him. In fact, he mentioned specifically that you prefer to be left alone.”
“He bugs me sometimes. He’s big on rules.”
“Don’t the rules show he cares?”
Katie picked at her nails and stiffened her body defensively.
She waited. Katie’s walls had been built high and strong and no heart to heart with a near-stranger was going to tear them down in a day. But there had to be a break in that wall somewhere, and right now she’d settle for finding even a hairline fracture. Searching the room for something, anything, that would help her chisel away the girl’s defenses, her eyes landed on a photograph of Katie and Danny—at Chase Field. The baseball park. Bingo.
Not bothering to squelch her triumphant grin, Sky said, “He makes you waffles.”
Katie’s shoulders softened as she peeked up from under the hank of brilliant red hair that had fallen across her face. “He does. And I don’t. Not really.”
“Don
’t what? Don’t like to spend time with your father or don’t like waffles or…”
“I don’t like to be left alone. But my dad, he’s gone a lot. Sometimes his cases take him out-of-town, and I have to spend the night at Aunt Faith’s. I’ve told him lots of times it scares me when he’s working on a case. I’m scared something bad will happen to him. But he doesn’t listen. He just says there’s nothing to be afraid of.” Katie’s lips paled to the same shade of white as her skin, and her chin began to tremble. “But there is. I know there is.”
This was no act. This was real. Here was a young girl who’d lost too much already. A young girl who loved her father desperately and couldn’t bear to lose him too. Feeling a sudden kinship with Katie, she stretched her arms wide. Katie inched forward on the bed and dropped her head onto Sky’s chest.
Outside, drifting flakes hardened into driving hail, and the wind raked a branch against the bedroom window. Inside, Katie’s tears began to fall, slowly at first, but then gusted into long shuddering sobs as unrelenting as the storm. Sky held on and kept holding on, but a deep chill burrowed into her marrow because Katie was right—there really was something to be afraid of.
Chapter Seventeen
At long last, it was Monday. Monday night at eight o’clock, to be precise. Everyone at the clinic had gone home to their families.
Everyone except her.
There was no reason for self-recrimination, Garth thought, as he used his key to unlock the side door that led to the hallway that led to the file room. Really, it was Sky, more than he, who’d set the plan in motion. She was the one who’d teamed up with Benson against him. She was the one who’d brought the girl into the clinic and tasked her with finding the medical records of Amanda Cavanaugh, Livy Petersen, and Henrietta Trueblood. All he’d needed to do was offer Nevaeh overtime to stay late and exact her promise not to inform Sky of his beneficence. Truly, his sister had laid things out so neatly for him, he’d have been remiss not to take advantage.
First Do No Evil: Blood Secrets, Book 1 Page 17
