ZERO HERO (The Kate Huntington Mystery series) (33 page)

            “Pete’s in the hospital.”

            “Say what?”

            “He slipped away from Manny this morning. We found him in the basement of Jimmy’s old building. It looked like he’d overdosed but–”

            Skip’s stomach tightened. The blood was pounding in his ears so badly he couldn’t hear her. “After all we’ve done for this jackass and he’s using again–”

            “He isn’t using. I told you it was a set-up. We found–”

            “We who?”

            “Rob and I–”

            “What the hell was Rob doing there?”

            “Pete called him. He was on the phone with him when somebody–”

            “I’m not doing this anymore. I’m done with this case.”

            Silence. “Skip, I’m trying to explain what happened.”

            “I don’t give a shit what happened. I’m done.”

            This time the silence sounded different. “Kate? Are you there?”

            More silence. Skip pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at the screen. It noted the time of disconnect and length of the call.

            “What’s the matter?” Dolph asked from the driver’s seat.

            “Lost the signal,” Skip muttered, still staring at his phone. He knew there’d be hell to pay when he got home. For the first time in their relationship, his wife had hung up on him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

            After relieving Maria of childcare duty, Kate kicked off her shoes and dropped onto the sofa. Across the room, Edie and Billy were playing a board game on the old rug Skip had dragged out of the attic to cover where the carpet had been removed. For once the kids weren’t squabbling.

            She shuddered at the memory of what had happened in that section of the room not quite a week ago.
The week from hell!

            Laying her head back and closing her eyes, she was determined not to think about Skip, Rob or Pete for the next few minutes.

            She heard a key turning in the front door lock and felt a draft of cool air as the door opened.

           
Crap!
She opened one eye. Skip was walking toward her, his gait a bit tentative. She closed her eye and let out a sigh.

            “Can we talk?” he asked.

            “No.”

            “What?”

            Eyes still closed, she said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea right now.”

            “Why not?”

            She opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly. Working hard to keep her voice even, she said, “Because I’m exhausted and you’re... tense. We’ll talk later.”

            He glanced toward the children, then walked over and sat in one of the overstuffed armchairs that faced the sofa.

            “Can you tell me what happened at least?”

            Kate sighed. “I tried to tell you what happened. You didn’t seem to be in the mood to listen.”

            “I’m listening now.”

            Her temper flared. She struggled to tamp it down. “And I’m exhausted now. We’ll talk later.”

            He sat for a moment, his jaw clenched. Then he pushed himself to a stand. “I’m gonna make coffee. You want some?”

            She stifled another sigh. It was a peace offering. After a beat, she said, “Sure. I’ll be there in a minute.”

            Skip headed for the kitchen.

            She dropped her head back against the sofa again. Reasonableness struggled against fatigue and anger. She was tired of being the reasonable one while everyone else seemed to be losing it.

            Okay, that was pretty damn holier than thou. Her reaction to this case was anything but reasonable. She’d lost her detachment and had broken almost all her own rules about compartmentalizing her work so it didn’t affect her private life and her family.

            With a flash of insight, she realized it wasn’t even Pete at the heart of all this for her. Yeah, he was a sweet guy and she felt bad for him. But she often felt bad for her clients. That didn’t usually make her jump into the middle of their lives and try to fix things for them.

            The next insight hit her with such force, her eyes flew open. Helplessness. She was always telling everyone how that was the worst feeling ever, how people would do just about anything to avoid or overcome it.

            Pete’s case had stirred up those old helpless feelings she’d felt on 9/11. Her unconscious fantasy had been that if she could make him better, then she’d somehow recover her sense of control over life that had been shaken so badly that day. And then shaken again a few years later when Eddie was killed.

            The fragrance of freshly-brewed coffee tickled her nose. Skip was waiting for her. She sighed and struggled to her feet.

            Amazingly, the kids were still playing nicely with each other. She’d have to check their temperatures later, make sure they weren’t coming down with something.

            In the kitchen, Skip had laid out spoons, sugar and cream on the table. Kate sat down. He brought two steaming mugs over.

            Kate took a sip of coffee to fortify herself, then told him where she and Manny had found Pete and the indicators that it was a set-up. “We need to put the other guard back on him. Manny said he could stay until this evening.”

            “So it was a set-up to look like an overdose,” Skip said. “That doesn’t change the fact that he slipped out on his guard to go looking for drugs.”

            She took a deep breath to tamp down her temper. She’d had a stressful day but so had he apparently. Neither one of them needed the added stress of an argument. “I don’t believe he was looking for drugs. He went looking for evidence, and from the sound of his call to Rob, he may have found some.”

            “Which is now gone.”

            “Yeah, but he thought to look in a place we hadn’t.”

            Skip looked away from her. His jaw was tight, never a good sign.

            “Look, sweetheart, I know this case has turned out to be a lot more stressful than we thought it would be–”

            “And dangerous,” he said, still without looking at her.

            “Yes, and dangerous. But I don’t feel like I can just abandon Pete at this point. Someone’s still trying to kill him and there’s the little matter of murder charges against him. But you got into this at my request. I’m totally fine with hiring somebody else to–”

            His head jerked back in her direction. He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

            “What?” Kate asked, her tone sharper than she’d intended.

            Skip blew out air, then ran long slender fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. I can’t seem to think straight.”

            Kate took a sip of her coffee, waiting. The last of her anger had evaporated. There was definitely something more going on here than just frustration with this case.

            Her stomach growled. She realized she’d never had any lunch. Glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall, she discovered it was after four. No wonder she was hungry. “Did you eat?”

            Skip shook his head.

            She got up and pulled cold cuts and condiments from the refrigerator. She intentionally kept her back to him as she started making sandwiches at the counter. Sometimes he could open up easier when she wasn’t looking at him.

            “I don’t know what’s got into me today,” Skip said. “I’ve been, I don’t know... off balance all day.”

            Kate nodded without turning around. She slathered mayonnaise on pieces of bread.

            “I was okay yesterday, pleased even that we had a new lead. Although I wasn’t looking forward to going downtown today. But ever since I got up this morning, I’ve...” His voice trailed off.

            Kate brought his plate to the table, then kissed his cheek before going back to the counter to finish making her own sandwich.

            “I told Dolph to turn around halfway there.”

            She turned to look at him. “You didn’t go downtown?”

            “No, we went. He ignored me. But we didn’t find out much for all our effort.”

            Kate sat down at the table and took a bite of her sandwich.

            “I’m sorry I went off on you like that, darlin’. Didn’t give you a chance to tell me what happened.”

            She chewed slowly, buying time, deciding what to say. “Skip, this isn’t like you. You’re so... reactive to this case.”

            He got up and paced a few steps away, then turned back toward her. “I know it’s not like me. I don’t get... what’s happening.”

            Kate’s chest ached at the confusion in his eyes, turned muddy brown from emotion. “It’s been a bad case. You’ve been shot at. Mac was hurt. I’ve been attacked. The kids have been in danger.”

            Skip was shaking his head. “I’ve been scared witless before because you and the kids were at risk. It hasn’t stopped me from functioning. I feel... I can’t focus.” He ran fingers through his hair again.

            He broke eye contact. While staring at the refrigerator, he said, “Today, before you called, I was thinking maybe I should stop doing field work.”

            Kate sucked in air. She hadn’t seen that coming.

            He glanced at her, then away again. “I... I’ve lost my nerve. As we were headed downtown today, my stomach was heaving at the mere thought of going back down there. Which makes no sense since it’s not really all that dangerous anymore, not with Frederico and his boys and Samuelson locked up.”

            Kate felt the familiar click she often experienced in her office, the sense of clarity and small surge of excitement as the psychological pieces fall into place. “Sit down, sweetheart. Let me run something past you.”

            He took his seat. She put her sandwich down and picked up one of his hands. “I think there’s two things going on here. One’s complicated and it’s affecting all of us to some degree. The other’s maybe a simple thing. I think you may have developed a phobia of going downtown.”

            He gave her an odd look. “That’s what I just said. I’m scared.”

            “Yes but phobias aren’t like other fears. They’re often quite irrational, based solely on conditioning. Our brains are programmed to make associations between things that happen together. You’ve had some nasty things happen when you were downtown so now going down there is associated with those unpleasant feelings. That’s not your natural territory. Maybe if those same things had happened out here in the county, well, you probably would’ve still reacted negatively to them. But not necessarily to the
place
where they happened.”

            His face brightened a little. “That makes sense.” He thought for a moment. “So now that I know what’s going on, will I be able to control it?”

            Kate really hated to tell him that it wasn’t quite
that
simple. “Understanding it will help, but conditioned associations don’t always respond to logic. The emotions have become hardwired to the situation. You may feel just as bad, just not be as thrown by it.”

            He squeezed her hand, then let go to pick up his sandwich. “It’s good to know I’m not going crazy, at least, or turning into a total coward.”

            “Hardly. There are a couple things that may help. One is to watch your self-talk, what you’re saying to yourself in your head. If you’re telling yourself it’s going to be horrible, then it will be.”

            “Which was what I was doing today, on our way down there.” Skip took a bite of his sandwich.

            “When you catch yourself thinking like that, change it to something like ‘This is no big deal’ or even ‘I’m Mr. Cool.’”

            Skip chuckled.

            “It may sound silly but it works, and if it amuses you so much the better. That will help you relax. So will taking a couple deep breaths. Again, it sounds overly simple. Deep breathing and tense muscles are mutually exclusive, so a deep breath will force your body to relax, for a few seconds at least.”

            “Is that why it’s hard to take a deep breath when you’re extremely tense?”

            “You know, I never thought about that before, but yeah, probably.”

            Skip grinned at her. “It
is
handy sometimes having a therapist in the house.”

            She laughed. “Makes up for the times when I annoy you with my analyzing everything to death.”

            Skip held out his hands, his sandwich in one of them. He moved them up and down as if he were weighing two objects. “Yup, pretty much balances out, I think.”

            They ate for a few minutes, Kate’s ear attuned to the living room for signs that the children’s truce had broken down. Sure enough, Edie’s voice was starting to rise. Her brother apparently wasn’t following the rules, in her opinion.

            “You said two things might be going on here. What’s the other one?” Skip asked.

            Kate decided to ignore the children for now. If she could hear them squabbling, then she knew where they were.

            “I don’t have it completely sorted out myself. I think this mess with Pete has brought all of us a little closer to burnout.” That was an understatement in Rob’s case, but she couldn’t violate his confidence. Rob would probably tell Skip about it eventually. They were friends in their own right. But it wasn’t her story to tell.

            “We’re all, in our own way, trying to help people, do our small part to make the world a better place. But ironically by trying to do that, we’re exposed all the time to the things that hurt people. Every day, I witness the harm dysfunctional families can do, plus disasters like 9/11 and all kinds of other trauma. Rob has to deal with... uncooperative bureaucracies. And you sometimes end up rubbing elbows–”

            “With scumbags like Frederico. I get where you’re going. We see too much of the ugly stuff.”

            “Way more than most people see, and also how the system doesn’t always help like it’s supposed to.”