The Common Thread (14 page)

Jet squeezed her hand but didn’t say anything further, so once again Katie had the freedom to direct the conversation.

“Okay, so we’ve covered drugs,” Katie said. “Let’s talk about men. You’ve never slept with any, and let’s just say I’ve got you beat.” Katie didn’t even want to think about the things she’d done, let alone find the words to describe them to Jet. She would if she needed to, but she hoped Jet’s general animosity toward male anatomy would squash any desire for details. “Any questions?”

Jet nodded. “Are you healthy? No diseases?”

“Yes, healthy. I’ve been checked for everything and it’s all good.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Yes, I know.” Her mood was suddenly somber as she remembered people she knew contracting incurable viruses like HIV and hepatitis.

“Okay, what else?”

Katie rubbed her temples as she thought about the laundry list of misdeeds she’d wanted to share. “Abortions. Two of them.”

“How’d that go?”

“What do you mean?”

Jet raised her eyebrows. “Well, Katie. You’re obviously a great mother and you adore your children. How did you feel about having an abortion? Two of them?”

“How did I feel? How do you feel?”

Jet shook her head. “You didn’t do anything to me, Katie. You did that to you.”

Katie leaned back into the couch and stared at the framed print on the wall opposite her. It was a copy of a Monet, one of the water lilies he’d done at Giverny, the soothing pastels intended to calm failing miserably at their task. It was one of her favorite prints, one that had hung in her childhood home, and she’d given a copy to Jet on her birthday. It seemed to have lost some of its magic.

How did she feel about that? She didn’t typically feel anything, because she didn’t allow herself to. That time of her life was filled with pain, and she’d chosen to bury those memories—the drugs, the men, and the consequences. The movie reel of her life held a huge gap where the teenage years had been edited, and keeping those clips on the cutting room floor was the secret to maintaining her sanity. Just telling Jet made a cold sweat cover her back and the polyester fabric of the dress cling to her with a sickening grip.

But it seemed Jet didn’t want details, and Katie’s relief was so powerful it made her weak. “Okay, then we don’t need to talk about it,” she murmured.

Seeming to sense Katie’s angst, Jet squeezed her hand. “Katie, we don’t need to do this.”

But Jet’s words, intended to rescue her, would only tighten the binds that shackled her. “Yes, we do,” she said.

Their eyes met and held, and Katie could see the love there. Jet nodded. She understood, as always. “Okay.”

Katie counted the beats of her heart, pounding in her chest, and when she reached twenty, she felt a little calmer. “All right, let me study my mental list. What’s next? Police record. I’ve been arrested about a dozen times. So many times I’ve lost track.”

Jet nodded. “Okay. For what?”

“Oh, let’s see. Burglary—that was at my father’s house. The pr…” Katie stopped and closed her eyes, letting out a deep breath to calm herself. Then she bit off a cuticle and nibbled on the nail. “That was bogus. When I moved in with Billy, I went to my dad’s to get some personal things from the attic. Some were mine, some were my mother’s. Pictures, a vase that had belonged to my grandmother—stuff like that. April called the police. Bullshit. Anyway, moving on. Drugs charges, most of them were drug charges. Prostitution, but that was dropped. I just got hauled in with some other girls. Theft. Drunk and disorderly. Assault. I think maybe that’s it.”

If any of this bothered Jet, she was good at hiding it. “Well, again, how long ago was all of this?”

“Most of it was on my juvenile record. I do have an adult record though, too. I think three arrests as an adult.”

“All before Chloe?”

“Oh, yes. Of course.”

“Okay, what else?”

Katie opened her mouth in mock surprise. “You want more? Haven’t I told you enough?”

“No more than I can handle.” She nailed Katie with a piercing gaze.

Katie locked eyes with her. “All right. You asked for it. Billy. He’s next. Many, many, many arrests. Most of them drug related. Some violence, too, though. Assault, mostly.” Katie looked at the question in Jet’s eyes and answered it before she could ask. “He saved me, Jet. I was never murdered on the streets, I didn’t die of an overdose, and I didn’t get AIDS, because when I was sixteen, he took me in. I had a place to sleep at night, so I didn’t have to sleep with strange men. I had food, so I didn’t have to steal to eat. I didn’t need drugs to help me cope, because suddenly, it wasn’t so bad. He never hit me. He treated me well and gave me my freedom when I asked for it. He did the best he could for me.” Katie wiped the tears that began falling again when she remembered Billy was dead.

Jet squeezed her hand, and Katie regained her composure. “He’s only been out of jail since Friday. I don’t know what he could have done in such a short time to piss Simon off enough to kill him!” Katie flashed back to her weekend at the beach, considering the possibility that Simon might be reacting to that. She’d seen him there, and he’d been surprised. Could that be why he’d shot Billy? It just didn’t make any sense.

“Who’s Simon?”

“The guy Billy works for.”

“And he killed him?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

Katie told her about hearing the shots, about jumping from the roof and running for her life. She knew Jet well enough to recognize the concern on her face. She’d never seen Jet angry or scared, but when dealing with frustrated patients or arguing staff at the clinic, she assumed an even calmer demeanor that indicated to Katie she was on her A game. Her erect posture and neutral expression, the flexed wrists with tented fingers that barely touched all gave her away.

“Where’s Simon now?”

Katie shrugged. “He took off when the police showed up. I thought he’d be lying low, but he showed up at the hospital.”

Jet leaned forward and her eyes flew open wide in panic. “What were you doing at the hospital? Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “No, no. I went there to get the kids.” Seeing Jet’s look of confusion, Katie remembered Jet hadn’t heard all the details of the evening. She quickly filled her in, and again Jet sat silently as Katie talked. Her hands weren’t quiet, though. They squeezed Katie’s for encouragement and tenderly touched her knee, pushed a stray bang from Katie’s eyes. And her eyes spoke volumes. Darkening to near black, they cried as they felt her pain and sorrow. Bright and clear, they showed strength and pride in Katie. Now, though, Katie saw something else there, a swirling darkness, and she didn’t think she liked it. It was disapproval.

Jet ran her fingers through her own hair, making her bed-head stand nearly straight up. Clasping her hands at the top of her head, she asked, “Katie, what are you thinking? A killer with a gun is looking for you! You shouldn’t be here. You should be under police guard.”

Katie pulled back, reeling from the sting of Jet’s words.” I’m sorry, Jet. I shouldn’t have come here. I’ve put you in danger, too. I’ll go.”

As Katie rose, Jet grabbed her arm and pulled her gently back to the couch. “Katie, Katie, calm down. It’s not that I’m afraid for me—I’m afraid for you. And for your kids. You have to call the police.”

Katie quivered with fear. She could outsmart Simon, and once she had the money from her trust fund, she’d find a place to live far away from Philadelphia where he’d never find her. He was a violent man, and in his little pond he was quite a big fish, but his power didn’t extend into the ocean. Katie would get lost out there, simply disappear, and he’d never find her.

The Philadelphia police were another matter. Unlike some criminals who grew resistant to the fear of jail, hers had actually grown stronger over the years. Perhaps it was because she had so much more to live for now, more to lose than her freedom. She feared the police and the power they held over her more than she feared the killer who’d just gunned down the father of her children.

Shaking her head as she once again looked into the dark pools of Jet’s eyes, she bit her lip. “You just don’t understand, Jet. I have a record. A drug dealer was killed in my apartment. The cops won’t care if they have the right killer for some poor dealer from a bad neighborhood. They’ll throw me in jail for the rest of my life, and then they’ll put my kids in foster care where God only knows what’ll happen to them. Don’t you see? There’s no justice for people like me.”

Jet turned to study Katie and saw nothing but goodness. She was an amazing human being who’d overcome tragedy and made a good life for her children. She saw a kind nurse, a hardworking woman as dedicated to her job as she was to her family. Obviously, Katie viewed herself in a light much different from the glowing one through which Jet saw her.

“Katie, what does that mean—‘people like you’? People like you are great parents. They play with their children and give them piano lessons. They get out of bed every day and go to work. They have solid careers and pay taxes and earn the respect and admiration of their coworkers. They have people like me who love them.”

Jet watched as Katie searched her face, looking for something undefined. Proof, perhaps? When a minute passed without a response from Katie, Jet closed her eyes, contemplating her own dark past. Did she dare dredge it up and lay her own soul bare as Katie had? Like Katie, she’d never shared her secrets, and for good reason. What she’d done was so awful, so unthinkable and unforgivable that she’d had no choice but to bury it. It surfaced, though, again and again, when she least expected it to. Now, though, the pain of her tragedy might serve some good. To help Katie, she’d take the risk.

“What do you think of me? About me?” Jet asked. “Am I a good person or a bad one?”

Katie didn’t hesitate to reply. “Good, Jet. No, great. You’re such a sweet woman. You have so much love in your heart. I see it and feel it every time you’re with my family. And I see it every time you’re taking care of a patient or rearranging the schedule to help the staff get a day off when they need it. You’re good, good, good.”

Jet ran her hand through her hair and looked at Katie as she sank into the couch. “Then let me tell you my sins, and we’ll see what you think of me then.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jet took Katie’s hand and squeezed it. “Katie, do you think you’re the only one with a past?” Jet shook her head at the eyes opened wide with wonder. “Well, you’re not. A lot of people have made mistakes. A lot of them have regrets. I have regrets.”

Katie’s smile was sweet, her eyes soft. “You could never have done anything to change the way I feel about you.”

Jet offered a weak smile. “Remember you asked be about that scar on my ankle? I blew you off. I didn’t want to talk about it. And remember how I blew you off when you pressed for details about my college basketball career?”

Katie nodded and Jet said, “Well, Katie, if you want to talk about fucking things up, I’ll tell you about that.” Jet bit her lips, then moistened them with her tongue. “I need a drink. Do you want something?”

“Yes, water would be great.”

Jet nearly jumped from the couch and ran to the kitchen, then returned with two glasses of water and sat next to Katie again. The long-buried pain had resurfaced. “I need a smoke,” she said as she turned to Katie.

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah, that bad.”

“Be strong.”

Jet studied the Monet for a moment and searched for her courage. “It was my junior year in college. Everything was going great—I had good grades, made the conference all-star team. It was all great.” She paused and studied the ceiling for flaws for a moment. “I’d begged my parents to let me have a car at college, and, unfortunately, they caved in. We had a break at the end of December, and I decided to drive to Vermont. There was a girl. I lied to my parents, told them I had to stay at school over the holiday because of basketball. Anyway, I met up with this girl and her friends at a ski lodge, and we all went out to a New Year’s Eve party at a rental house. Most of us were smashed, including me. One of the girls who wasn’t drinking was afraid to drive in the snow. Did I mention it was snowing?” Now Jet laughed, the bitter taste of her memories tainting the sound with sadness.

She turned her gaze to Katie, who met her with compassion-filled eyes, seeming to understand this story wouldn’t have a happy ending. “The other girl who wasn’t drinking didn’t wear her glasses to the party and couldn’t see to drive. So, I drove us home. I tried to, anyway. We never made it. I hit another car, head-on.”

Now Jet bit the inside of her cheek, a habit she reverted to in times of stress and deep contemplation. This was both. “Five of us were in the car, all of us hurt pretty badly. I was the worst. My ankle was shattered. I needed surgery. My season was done. My team was in first place when the accident happened. I was averaging more than twenty points a game and about ten rebounds. I was a leader. And then I was suspended for breaking a team rule. Not for drinking—they never proved that. I was out after one a.m.”

Jet paused and wet her lips with a sip of water. “I couldn’t play for the rest of the season. We lost the championship, didn’t make the NCAA tournament. I let my team down. I let my parents down. I let myself down. After a lot of painful rehab, my ankle improved, but I couldn’t play the way I could before. I didn’t have any lift, I was slower, and it honestly hurt to run. For a couple of years it hurt, so my senior year was a bust. I was on track to be the school record holder for scoring and a bunch of other things. My team should have won, but they needed that all-star at center—and I wasn’t her anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Jet.” Now Katie offered comfort with a hand placed gently on her knee.

“That’s not all, folks.” Again, she laughed, but it sounded haunted. “The other girls in my car were knocked around. Broken arms, broken legs, lacerations. They all healed, I suppose. But the kid in the other car—he died.”

Katie gasped and her free hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, God, Jet.”

“Five of us were in my car, all girls. None of us had ID. The hospital banded us without confirming identities and then drew alcohol levels. Three of us were drunk, two weren’t. My parents hired a good lawyer who argued that they couldn’t prove who was drunk and who wasn’t. I got off on the DUI charges. The kid who died, unfortunately, had his wallet in his pocket and was as drunk as I was. Based on the skid marks in the snow, the police said he veered into my lane. So he took the whole blame for the accident, and I walked away. No jail time. Just a short suspension from basketball and a long recovery.”