A Kiss in Winter Read online

  Instead she asked a question, “Do you think medication would have prevented it?”

  The expression on his face showed that her question surprised him. He looked almost… grateful. He blew out a shuddering breath. “Hard to say. Even if I had prescribed something in the second week, most of those drugs need time to work. Finding the right one can take a while, trial and error.” He fell quiet for a moment, then went on, almost as if speaking to himself. “All that rage. Something fed it. Violent outbursts like that don’t happen without a catalyst.”

  “Like what?” She knew less than nothing about psychiatry, but that wasn’t why she asked. She asked because of the way he’d locked this away in his soul, the way he’d held his guilt close and protected it like a child—a response to everyone’s assurances that he wasn’t at fault. Keeping it inside was his punishment. He’d been punished enough.

  “Could be one of many,” he said thoughtfully. “Physical abuse. Sexual abuse. Violent bullying. He’d been a victim—something made him feel helpless and angry. That much rage takes some time to build. The longer it’s repressed, the more violent the eruption.”

  “The police didn’t try to establish something like this in their investigation?”

  “The boy’s parents were very prominent people with lots of connections. The sooner this died away, the better. After the initial questioning, I never heard from the investigators again. The kid made a plea agreement.” He lifted a shoulder. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t bring those people back to life.”

  “No,” she said, “but it might have relieved some of your sense of responsibility to have it exposed.”

  “They brought their son to me for help. I didn’t uncover it in time.”

  “Good God, Mick, you’d only seen him three times! Three hours to unearth what this kid had buried so deeply his parents, his friends, his teachers—people who were with him daily—didn’t see it. You couldn’t have known he was going to explode like that.”

  Clenching his teeth, he closed his eyes and nodded rapidly. “Oh, but I could have.” His eyes came open and the misery she saw in them made her heart ache. Looking directly into her eyes, he said, “You see, he called me before he did it.”

  She put her hand under his chin and directed him to look at her. His eyes were two pools of pain. “He called you and told you he was going to kill them?”

  “He called and said he was afraid.”

  “That could have meant anything.”

  “I should have insisted on meeting him someplace. I should have informed his parents. I should have called 911. Instead, I asked him if he had thoughts of harming himself.”

  Caroline saw the glisten of unshed tears in his eyes.

  “He said he would never kill himself. I should have known. I should have known by the way he formed his response! I talked to him for about twenty minutes. In the end, he told me he saw things more clearly and thanked me for talking to him. I told him I’d see him at my office first thing in the morning.

  “By then, he was in the Cook County jail and three people were in the morgue.”

  “Mick, do you really think another psychiatrist would have done things differently?”

  He acted like he hadn’t heard her. “The very worst part is… Maybe I said something that pushed him in that direction! ‘Thank you, Dr. Larsen, I see things clearly now. I feel much better,’” he mimicked a teenage voice. “Doesn’t that say to you that I’d just confirmed his plan for him?”

  She pulled her hand from his and slid nearer to him. Leaning close, she framed his face with her hands. “If I told you that I was responsible for my father’s death because I was the one who needed him to come home from the hospital so I could go to a 4-H meeting, what would you tell me?”

  “That is entirely different.”

  “How? Something I said made my father do something that resulted in his death. How is that different?”

  “It was my responsibility to care for that boy. He gave me a chance to stop him, and I failed. My instinct failed. My judgment failed. I never should have been practicing in the first place.”

  She kissed his forehead. “It was his parents’ responsibility, too, yet you don’t blame them. You expect too much of yourself. Shit happens. And you’re only human.”

  She didn’t take him in her arms and murmur words of forgiveness, because that was not what he needed. Instead, she lay down on her side with her back to him and pulled his arm in front of her, clasping his hand over her heart. She closed her eyes and whispered, “I believe in you.”

  Chapter 19

  Caroline lay with Mick’s body spooned against hers. He hadn’t said a word since she’d turned her back to him. She wasn’t certain that he was still awake, although his breathing had not fallen into a deep, restful cadence. Her own heart fluttered like a moth against a lighted window. What if her words had only delivered more pain?

  Finally, she felt him inhale deeply. He pressed himself closer to her, lifting his head until his lips were beside her ear.

  He whispered, “Thank you.”

  His first kiss was on the rim of her ear. Then he worked his way around to the lobe. There he tasted her fully as one hand moved to cup her breast. Bright sparks showered her body, awakening every cell to his touch.

  With slow deliberation, with gentle hands and teasing mouth, he explored down her back. By the time he started moving up her front, she was ready to beg for mercy.

  Mick was as giving a lover as he was in every other aspect of his life. He was gentle and considerate, in tune with her desires. They rose together as one, soaring to heights that robbed Caroline of her will and her breath.

  As they lay tangled together afterward, she realized this was much more than physical. Mick had found a way to touch her inner self, to show that he really cared about the woman that she was.

  Tucking his hand closer to her chest, her heart ached for him. He thought so little of himself—a belief that had no base in reality. He was a victim of circumstance and a desperately ill boy, every bit as much as that girl and her parents were.

  It occurred to her that Mick’s father had a large hand in Mick’s skewed self-image. Maybe we’re all just victims of our parents’ shortcomings in the end, she thought. Mick’s father either didn’t see or didn’t care that Mick’s heart was not in the future his father had chosen for him. It was all she could do to not jump out of bed, throw on her clothes, drive straight to the elder Larsen’s house, and deliver a tirade that just might open the old man’s eyes.

  With those vengeful thoughts, her own dose of reality rushed up and bit her on the ass. Who was she to criticize? Look how she’d screwed up with Sam, and what a mess she was currently making with Macie.

  With an inward groan, she shook her head to dislodge thoughts that threatened to ruin the perfect peace Mick had just given her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Maybe that groan hadn’t been so inward. “I was just thinking how easy it is to mess up raising a child.”

  He passed his fingers across her lips in a caress. “That’s an odd thing to worry about, since you said you’re not having any.”

  “I don’t need to have any. I’ve already ruined my share.” She told him about Sam, how he’d been riding the razor’s edge while he was under her care, and how in just a few weeks away he had become a model citizen.

  He chuckled softly.

  “It’s not funny. Now I’m messing Macie up. She was fine up until Sam left—and Caleb came. Suddenly, the wheels are falling off. I might be halfway around the world this time next year. Who’ll pick up the pieces then? It scares the crap out of me.”

  “First of all, you didn’t mess Sam up. It’s because of the good foundation you gave him that he’s coping so well on his own.”

  “Ha!”

  He twisted to look in her face. “You’d rather he be drowning in trouble at school?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “Caroline, it’s clear
he didn’t want to go to college. He pulled that stunt that landed him in jail just to try to get out of it.”

  She started to protest; then she remembered Sam’s first comment when she’d seen him at the jail: “Sorry, sis. I’ll go next semester.” And she hadn’t even brought up school.

  Mick went on, “You made him go because you felt it was best for him. He could have really spiraled out of control, but you’d laid good groundwork. You’ve given him what he needed to make the right choices.”

  Her conscience had been needling her since she’d laid eyes on Sam’s magnificent piece of legal artwork. With Mick’s words, that uncomfortable prickling began to subside. “I might believe what you say—if I felt you believed in your own judgment.”

  He pinched her and she jumped.

  “Hey,” she said, “you can’t have it both ways. You can’t tell me your judgment is crap, then expect me to believe you when you tell me I did well with Sam.”

  “You did well with Sam,” he reiterated, but that was as far as his acknowledgment went. “As for Macie, I think the only thing you have to worry about there is that she might just drive herself into the ground trying to be perfect. She’s preparing for a transition. She’s striving to live up to academic expectations. The boyfriend might be her only sanctuary right now.”

  Her breathing hitched, locked somewhere between lungs and throat. She’d worried that Macie’s acquiescent nature had turned to pleasing Caleb. But what Mick suggested was that Caleb was the only place Macie felt like she didn’t have to perform, to please. It was certainly something to think about. It was hard to look at her relationship with her sister from such an objective viewpoint. She wanted Macie to be happy, to live up to her potential. Had she pushed too hard?

  With a kiss on her forehead, he said, “I’m starved. Let’s make some eggs.”

  It was eleven-thirty when they sat down at the kitchen table. The mugs of now-cold chocolate sat where they’d abandoned them in favor of going to bed. Caroline smiled slightly as she moved hers out of the way so she could place her plate in front of her.

  When she’d come here, the last thing on her mind had been sex. And for the past couple of hours, it had been filled with nothing but.

  She looked at the glossy brochure, facedown on the table. She could almost hear it whispering its hateful message. Her carnal euphoria evaporated.

  “Mick, what made you think that the vandalism was because of me personally?”

  He laid down the fork he’d just picked up. “Nothing else made any sense. You’re the only thing that is constant, the only connection. It wasn’t enough to just vandalize the subjects; it had to be in the order you placed them in the calendar. The guy drove back and forth across the state to accomplish it.” He settled his elbows on either side of his plate and folded his hands in front of his chin. “Art is a very personal thing. It shows the artist’s unique view of the world. And Caroline, your photographs aren’t just pretty pictures; they elicit deep emotion. They’re your individual and exclusive perspective.”

  She leaned back in her chair, appetite gone. “How are we going to find him before—”

  “By going to the police.”

  “So they can protect Macie the way they protected the people at the reenactment today?” The sound of the explosion still reverberated in her head. The vision of bloodied bodies being loaded into ambulances appeared when she blinked her eyes.

  Before he could respond she said, “And which police? Redbud Mill police won’t have anything to do with the next target, the bridge in Flemingsburg. I doubt the Fleming County sheriff’ll put a twenty-four-hour stakeout on the covered bridge for the entire month of November. And that’ll be the best bet—catching him in the act. And who’ll devote detective man-hours to investigating? The Morgan County sheriff? They haven’t got a clue who vandalized the courthouse, and they’re not going to use resources to figure out another county’s vandalism. I’ve already seen firsthand the jurisdiction problems with these being all over the place.”

  “We’ll have to make sure everyone is communicating. The state police can be the link, or we could contact the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation. Either one will have the resources to pull it all together. And now that we’re certain it’s personal, maybe they’ll be able to build a profile—”

  “All right,” she said. “I agree. But I think you and I can do a better job of that. Mick, you know how people’s minds work. There has to be a reason he’s chosen me. I trust you to figure it out far more than I trust some bureaucrat who doesn’t have anything at stake. Not only is Macie in December, so is this house. He could come after it instead.”

  “Or he could come after both,” Mick said gravely. “That’s why we need someone competent working on this. There’s too much at risk.”

  “You’re the one who figured out it’s personal. You, Mick, not the police.”

  With a head shake, he said, “That part was easy.”

  “So you say. I didn’t hear Chief Marker or the state police telling me to watch my back.”

  “Caroline,” he said and took her hand, “I cannot live with another tragedy on my conscience.”

  Jumping to her feet and pulling her hand away, she said, “Bullshit! You know as well as I do, you’re already in this. You proved it by coming to Perryville today. It’s against your nature to turn your back on someone who needs you.” She knelt on the floor beside him. “We’ll go to the police and tell them everything we know. But I believe in you. You’re the one who’s going to figure this out in time.”

  For a long while, he stared silently into her eyes. Then his shoulders slumped in resignation. “Eat your eggs. We’ve got a long night ahead of picking through your past.”

  New hope surged through her veins, banishing her exhaustion. She started eating as quickly as she could. Minutes suddenly counted. November was two weeks away. December, six. They were going to outwit this guy before he did any more damage.

  After Mick started a fire in the fireplace, he sat beside Caroline on the couch with a yellow legal pad and a pencil. He didn’t deserve the trust Caroline put in his abilities. But he did figure the more they had to hand over to the police, the better.

  “We won’t know what’s important, so we’re going to write down everything,” he said. “First we list the photos, what happened and when.”

  She recited what she knew so far, and he made notes. She said, “There are still five past months I don’t know about yet. January and March might take a road trip—I don’t really know how else to check. June, I’m waiting for a call back from Lexington. April and July, I can probably track down through the parks department, but it might take time and luck because I don’t have any idea what I’m looking for.”

  Noting the subject next to the month, he then left a blank space for the type of vandalism once they discovered it.

  “You remember them all?” she asked, surprise in her voice.

  “Of course.” He’d studied each one long and hard, trying to see how she managed to create such a unique perspective. “It’s important to find out what was done to each of them and confirm that they were all done in the month of the picture.”

  “Why is it important to know what he did to each of them?”

  “Because September and October were a lot more violent than February when he just spray-painted and broke a few windows in the barn. September and October put people at risk. The Ferris wheel… well, we don’t really know what his ultimate goal was, or if he achieved it. I want to see if it’s coincidence, or if he’s—”

  “Escalating,” she finished, horror in her voice.

  “Yes.” He put a hand on her leg, not knowing if it was because he wanted to calm her, or if it was because he needed to feel connected.

  He was afraid. Afraid of Caroline’s blind trust in him. Afraid he would miss something vital that would be the key to finding this guy. Afraid the bridge in Flemingsburg would be vandalized before he had it figured out. Afraid for Macie.
>
  But what sent a shaft of cold right through his heart was his certainty that Macie was not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal, the prize this crazy bastard wanted to claim, was Caroline. The rest was all a prelude to getting to her. Mick’s guess was that the guy didn’t know if his in-your-face appearance at the football game had made its point, so he’d taken the more direct approach. He wanted her to know he was coming.

  Tamping down his fear, he concentrated on step one in figuring out his identity. “Since it’s an attack on your work, let’s assume for a moment that this is someone who has some professional connection with you. Professional jealousy maybe?”

  Her laugh was quick and cynical. “Seriously. What, you think maybe some resentful wedding photographer, or senior portrait rival? I hardly have a career worth getting worked up over.”

  “Oh, but you’re selling yourself short. You’re able to support yourself with your work. That in itself sets you apart. Plus, you photograph for the newspaper—highly visible.” He stopped for a moment, thinking. “Newspaper… visible and local. That might narrow the field of search some.” He scratched down a couple of notes. “Then there’s the obvious, the calendar. And didn’t you say you were doing something for the state?”

  She nodded. “Department of Tourism—for their brochures, Web site, and such.”

  “Who knows about it?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Nobody. You, Sam, Macie. That’s about it.”

  He grunted. Not as much as he’d hoped for.

  “Any projects that you beat someone out on?”

  She snickered. “Like lowballing a wedding bid after getting inside information? Maybe crossing a photographers union picket line?”

  “Hey, I don’t know how this works. And I don’t know everything you’ve done professionally. Maybe we need to back up. Where did your professional career begin?”

  “Gosh, how far back do you want to go?” she asked. “I mean, I hardly consider myself a professional yet.”