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  He sat down heavily and tried to slow his heart rate. “She was— She would have only been five,” he managed in a weak voice.

  “And he was a crazy old bastard who was perpetually drunk. God only knows why Mom left us with him that night. She never forgave herself for it, and Katie certainly never forgave her. Everyone knew he hated Katie, but we never knew why.”

  “My God. Carol, why didn’t you ever tell me this?” he demanded, frustrated with the lack of this intimate knowledge for so many years.

  “It’s not exactly the type of thing you talk about at a party,” she snapped at him.

  Keith cringed. “No. I didn’t mean—” He sighed. “Could someone have told Kyle about your grandfather?”

  “No. No one would ever do that.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course. No one loved that old man, Keith. And after— Who would admit to him?”

  “You have no idea why Tiberius hated Katie?”

  She sighed. “Katie wasn’t like me. She was a fiery little girl who was noisy and outspoken and imaginative. Not much different than she is now, I guess, though she was better behaved then.”

  “And he didn’t like that?” he questioned.

  “I don’t remember him. I’ll be honest with you here. All I have is what I’ve been told or overheard. He hated her stories. He hated her imaginary playmate. He—”

  “Imaginary playmate? Katie had one, too?”

  “Sure. Her name was Sarah.”

  “What was wrong with that?”

  “Sarah—told her things, things Katie couldn’t have known, maybe things she shouldn’t have known? I don’t really know. I think, now, that Sarah was Katie’s way of dealing with her gifts.”

  “Do you think Sarah told her things about Tiberius that she shouldn’t have known?”

  “Possibly. Look, all I have is old family gossip.”

  “Maybe, I should ask Katie,” he mused.

  “No,” Carol gasped. “What’s the point? She can’t tell you anyway.”

  “What do you mean she can’t tell me? You mean she won’t.”

  “No, I mean she can’t, unless something has changed she hasn’t told me about. She can’t remember most of what happened. She’s never has been able to.” She sighed. “So, what is the point of asking and getting her upset?”

  “For Kyle? Probably nothing. For Katie? I’m not so sure. She was traumatized this morning. You didn’t see her—shaking, crying, and making no sense. I’m not surprised that she took off on me.”

  “Can you do something about this or is it just wishful thinking?”

  “I hope it’s not just wishful thinking. I’m already being unorthodox in this case. I might as well throw the rule book out the window, right?”

  * * *

  Mac gave up trying to call Katheryn by Monday morning. Her car was there. He knew that much, but she wasn’t answering the phone. Giving her all day Sunday to collect herself was almost more than he could handle. He went to the house prepared to break down the door if it was necessary.

  It wasn’t necessary. Katheryn answered the door, looking tired, both physically and emotionally. She wore a long-sleeved T-shirt over a cut-off pair of jeans, and her hair was pulled back but appeared unbrushed.

  She moved back and swept her hand in invitation. “Can I get you anything?” she asked immediately.

  “No thanks.” He surveyed the room. It was cleaner and less cluttered than Dianna kept it, but it seemed darker somehow than it should. He wondered if he was just projecting Katheryn’s mood into it.

  Katheryn nodded and turned toward the wall. Not surprisingly, she made a beeline for her father’s chair and sank into it, wrapping her arms around her bare legs and drawing her knees up under her chin. “So, what’s up, Mac?”

  “Making sure you’re okay after yesterday. Your car was here, but you weren’t answering the phone.”

  “I’m fine. There’s no need to break down the door.”

  “I didn’t. I even gave you twenty-four before I reported you missing to myself. I gave you the benefit of the doubt.”

  She smiled weakly.

  He looked at the bruising and cuts marking her knees. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked pointedly.

  Katheryn surveyed the damage critically. “I’ve had worse,” she decided. “And yes—I washed it out. It’ll heal.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I am,” she answered a little too brightly. “I’m starved. Can I interest you in some coffeecake from Greb’s? It’s still fairly fresh.”

  Mac nodded and forced on a smile to hide his suspicion. “I’d love some. Got any coffee to go with it?”

  He moved to follow as she padded down the hall to the kitchen on bare feet and long legs, looking like a teenager again. He wondered if her evening with Dr. Randall had anything to do with the change in her appearance but decided not to ask. Admitting that he was keeping tabs on her that closely would only lead to trouble.

  “I can make some,” she offered.

  “Sounds good. Can I help?”

  “Sure. Fill the coffee filter while I get the water. Everything’s in the cabinet above the machine.”

  Mac nodded. She hadn’t changed that about her mother’s organization, he noticed. “How much?” he asked.

  “Half pot. Two and a half scoops.”

  Mac got the filter and coffee in place while she filled the pot halfway with water. She liked her coffee stronger than her mother did. That was for sure. Of course, Katheryn seemed to live on caffeine and sugar as far as Mac had seen.

  Katheryn started dumping the water into the reservoir of the machine. She had pushed her sleeves up to her elbows at the sink to keep her shirt dry, and he looked at her forearm in shock. Five perfectly spaced welts marred the pale skin of her arm.

  Mac grabbed her wrist much rougher than he should have, and she lost her grip on the pot. It clattered to the countertop, and Katheryn cringed, waiting for it to shatter. When it didn’t, her shock dissolved into anger and she turned on him.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. Katheryn tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but he held tight.

  “Where did you get these? How did you?” he growled.

  Katheryn looked at her arm, and her eyes narrowed. “I got them yesterday,” she challenged. “Why?”

  Mac bit his tongue for a moment. He couldn’t tell her about the victims. That was one of the things they were keeping under wraps in case they needed it. Still, if he was right, she had the one piece of information he needed, and she wasn’t about to hide it from him. “How?” he demanded again.

  “I don’t know,” she insisted.

  “Bullshit, Katheryn! Tell me how.”

  “I don’t know,” she thundered. “Everything happened at once. I threw my arms around Kyle. He was flailing, because we were both going over the edge. Keith grabbed us and pulled us back, and we landed in a heap. It could have been Keith or Kyle. For all I know, I could have scratched myself trying to get a good grip on Kyle. I don’t know.” She moved her arm, testing his grip lightly. “Now, will you let me go—please?” she asked quietly.

  Mac looked at his hand, and his anger dissolved into regret. He softened his grip and rubbed his hands over the red marks he caused. “I’m sorry, Katheryn,” he whispered. He was afraid. After all these years, Mac was still afraid of losing her.

  Katheryn nodded uncertainly. “What was that all about?” she asked in relief.

  “Nothing,” he lied. He couldn’t tell her that. It went against all the rules.

  “That’s bullshit, Mac,” she whispered. “Peter and Monica?” she guessed.

  “And your mother,” he confirmed, hoping that she’d confide in him if he laid it all out for her. After all, she was the only one who survived whatever was going on so far.

  Katheryn met his eyes and a single tear ran down her cheek. She buried her face in his shoulder. Mac folded his arms around her. This was his place, the
place he should have taken when she was a teenager and needed him so badly.

  He knew she believed that Michael had taken on that scumbag she dumped so vehemently in high school. The truth was that Michael hadn’t even realized that there was a problem until Sherry came home shaking in fear and anger at the threats he made against the girls. Mac knew all about Mr. Roberts. He knew that at least some of what the little twerp said was true, but that wasn’t the point. He hurt Katheryn, and no one was ever allowed to hurt her like that.

  Katheryn had balked at Mac’s place then, but she needed him now and she wasn’t balking anymore. He would have to do whatever he could for her.

  Mac sighed. He would if she would simply trust him enough to fill in the blanks. “How did it happen, Katheryn?” he asked gently.

  “I wish I knew, Mac. I really wish I knew.” She sounded so desperate, it was heartbreaking. All her life, she had the same basic problem, but would knowing be better or worse?

  * * *

  Katie didn’t call Keith on Monday, and she wasn’t answering her phone. When Tuesday came and went without hearing from her, Keith decided that he couldn’t wait for her any longer. He took Wednesday off and drove to her house early in the morning. She could hardly duck him that way.

  Keith had heard about her sister’s strange sleeping patterns many times from Carol. Katie answered the door in a heavy robe, seemingly confirming the stories for him.

  Expecting a rebuff, Keith was leaning on the storm door with a smile on his face, swinging her panties gently on his fingertip. “You left something at my place the other morning,” he commented with a raised eyebrow and his most rakish smile.

  A touch of a smile lifted the edge of her lips. Katie backed away from the door, and he walked to the far wall. He watched as she locked the door and stretched the panties suggestively as she turned back to him. Katie sauntered across the room and plucked them from his hand.

  She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him with as much pent-up excitement as he was harboring. “It’s too early to be out of bed,” she complained in a fake whine.

  “Really?” he asked.

  Katie nodded with a sly smile.

  “Well, I guess I should remedy this situation.”

  Keith swung her up into his arms and looked around. He was a gallant fool who had never seen the inside of the house. He had no idea where the bedroom was. Katie pointed the way, and he practically ran there.

  He laid her on the bed and slid in next to her. Katie was giggling, and her face was flushed from it. Keith leaned over her and silenced her with a kiss. Her amusement forgotten, she ran her hands over the muscles of his back to his shoulders then down to the buttons on his shirt.

  “I hope you remembered something,” she murmured wistfully.

  Keith laughed as he reached into his inside jacket pocket. A handful of condoms landed on the bedside table. “That should last the day,” he joked, glancing at the dozen or so he stuffed in his jacket on the way out the door. “I’ll buy a box for here eventually.”

  Katie pulled his shirt out of his jeans and opened the last few buttons. She ran kisses down the bare expanse of his chest to the top of his jeans. “I like a man who has high aspirations,” she breathed.

  Keith shuddered as her hands went to work on his jeans. He dragged his coat and shirt off his shoulders and dropped them on the floor, panting at her nails dragging along the length of him as she undid his zipper. Katie reached inside to stroke him gently, and he collapsed to the bed beside her.

  Her hands were glorious, and her mouth was like liquid Heaven. Keith groaned as Katie took him inside her mouth, teasing with her tongue until he thought he’d die if she didn’t let him finish. He went taut beneath her and growled out a curse as he pulled her away. Hands on her shoulders, he brought her mouth to his own and sealed his mouth to hers in a demanding kiss. He moaned in pleasure as he felt Katie rolling the condom down him.

  Without a word, Katie shifted her mouth over his and lowered herself onto him smoothly. Her mouth left his as she cried out, and his hands moved to the belt of her robe. He wanted to see her, every inch of her. She rocked over him while he pulled the robe from her shoulders.

  His hands found her nipples and he moaned as he drew one into his mouth. “If I would have known you were naked underneath, it would have been the couch,” he promised.

  Katie pushed herself upright to drop her hips to him fully. His hands moved to her waist as he started matching her movements. Her cry of pleasure was his undoing. Any thoughts he had of making this last forever were banished. He needed her, immediately and desperately.

  Keith pulled Katie to his chest and rolled her beneath him, thankful for a king-size bed. Then, he pushed up on his knees to take better advantage of her position. Her legs were still spread wide around his hips with her knees up near his ribs. She was laid open to him completely, and he savored the sensation of it as he planted his hands on her knees and took her fast and hard.

  His name was on her lips as her climax began, and he was just behind her. As he screamed her name out, Keith realized how right it sounded. He started to pull away, afraid that his weight on her would be uncomfortable in the position she was in, but Katie wrapped her legs around him and locked her arms around his shoulders to hold him to her.

  “Not yet,” she pleaded quietly. “Don’t leave me yet.”

  The quiet desperation caught his attention. Keith sank over her and kissed her slowly. “I won’t leave you,” he promised. “I’ll stay forever if you want.”

  Despite that, there was one thing he had to fumble to accomplish. If he didn’t, things could get complicated very quickly. Keith marveled at the thought that he wouldn’t mind that complication. It was one he never wanted before, but he wasn’t surprised that Katie was the one he wanted it with. He loved kids. In his line of work, he had to. He dealt with some that were truly hard to like.

  Katie didn’t protest the move, and he felt an odd sense of loss at that. He almost wished she would protest it, but she had to be ready for it, too. Keith cursed himself inwardly for such a selfish thought. Worse, he worried that he was fantasizing some crazy scheme to possess her.

  What he planned to do next might end it, and the thought terrified him. A baby wouldn’t save it if Katie rejected him, no matter what daydreams Keith allowed himself. He would be left with either the certainty that she would abort or that he would be left with nothing more than her civility while he came to take their child for his court-allowed visitations. The thought was sobering.

  Finally, Katie relaxed her grip and looked at him sheepishly. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “That was childish. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Not at all. I’m an expert on childish,” he assured her.

  A smile twitched her lips up. “Still, I’m not usually the needy type.”

  Keith buried his lips in the hollow of her throat and laid a lingering kiss there. “Need me anytime. Need me often. Don’t make me beg, please.”

  Her hand ran over his hair lovingly, and he decided that this could be a day well spent even if this was all they got accomplished. The past be damned. For the moment, he was just where he wanted to be, sated and in the arms of the woman he wanted nothing more than to lay like this forever with.

  Katie’s next comment stopped him cold. “Ask, Keith. You know you have to do this.”

  He swung his head up and studied her expression carefully. Katie had a pensive look on her face, and she was staring at a spot on the wall to her left. Keith cupped her chin and turned her toward him. Her eyes were wide and sad.

  “You talked to Carol?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. But you did, didn’t you?”

  Keith sighed deeply. “Yes, I did,” he admitted. A rational voice buried deep in his mind told him that he should ease off of her. Maybe take this out of bed entirely, but some deeper place in him begged him never to let her go.

  “You couldn’t let it go, could you?” It
wasn’t a demand. There was a note of hopelessness to her question.

  He stroked her cheek gently. “No. Not where you’re concerned. Tell me. Please, for the love of God, tell me.”

  “Tell you what? What are you looking for?”

  “Tiberius,” he answered simply. “Tell me about your grandfather, Katie.”

  She shuddered, and he wrapped his arms around her.

  “He was a manipulative, intemperate, controlling old bastard who made life a living hell for anyone he could.”

  “Why did he focus on you?”

  “I wasn’t easy to control. I wasn’t like the others.”

  “Others?”

  “My mother and grandmother, my sister, his business partners. Everyone else, I imagine. They were all under his thumb. I wasn’t.”

  “You were wild? Unmanageable? Destructive?” he asked for clarification.

  She shook her head again. “No. Nothing like that. He just didn’t—control me.” Katie seemed frustrated at the lack of explanation she was providing.

  “You weren’t afraid of him like they were?” Keith guessed.

  “I was terrified. He was a horrible person, and I knew it. I think I always knew it.”

  “Then, I really don’t understand—”

  “I told you already, I can’t explain it.” She rubbed her hands over her eyes. “I was five. How much could I really understand?”

  “A lot,” he mused. “Probably a lot more than you appreciate right now.” Keith decided to switch gears. “Why did he hurt you the night he died? What was his reason for it?”

  She looked away again. “I don’t remember.”

  Keith sighed. He had expected that. It was probably easier for her not to remember, but he wondered if it was still the trauma or if she had chosen to forget. “Was it Sarah? Did she tell you something about Tiberius that made him angry?”

  Her eyes shot back to his, and he registered something that he thought was fear before Katie covered it smoothly.

  “No. Why would you think that? Sarah was an imaginary playmate. I hadn’t even remembered her until you just reminded me. She wasn’t real, Keith. She was just a part of me—maybe to escape Tiberius.” She shrugged.