Just Evil

by Vickie McKeehan

  A light wind off the ocean hit her cheeks as she glanced upward, deliberately turning her attention to a noisy flock of seagulls that flew overhead and landed just on the other side of the rocks jutting out into the ocean. The clouds so thick and full earlier had parted and left huge holes in the sky so that the stars glittered. She spotted the full moon and sat down in her good dress.

  “How about if we sit here for a while?” Looking up at Jake, she patted the sand, knowing he was reluctant to sit down in his good clothes. “It’s not that damp.”

  He sensed she somehow thought he was hesitant to sit down and muss up his clothes, so he followed her lead.

  But he couldn’t believe she’d just plop down on beach sand in that sexy black dress. Claire would have been downright offended if he’d suggested such a thing. But then he smiled, propped his hands on his knees.

  Kit was nothing like Claire.

  She took in several deep breaths of ocean air, dug her bare feet into the cold, damp sand and gazed out into the water, listening to the sound of the waves.

  Jake sensed the break was significant, that she’d stopped talking for some reason other than to watch the surf, avoiding the fact that her father hadn’t fought harder for custody. That much he got from her demeanor now. But he kept quiet and said nothing, waiting for her to regain some composure.

  When she began talking her voice was so hushed he had trouble hearing her over the sound of the surf.

  “I remember almost every one of his visits. There weren’t that many really when you add them up over fourteen years.”

  The fact that she’d gone in a completely different direction wasn’t lost on Jake. He wasn’t going to find out tonight why her father hadn’t fought harder for custody. Hell, maybe she didn’t even know why.

  “He’d often drop by unannounced to take me to the Santa Monica Pier for a ride on the carousel or the Ferris wheel, or for long walks on the beach. Alana would be furious that he hadn’t called first. I think he did it to piss her off. And of course it did. But he always had a good excuse or story at the ready. The man excelled at telling a story. He always made whatever story he came up with sound so real, so believable. But I was a child and kids tend to believe every word their parents tell them; that is, until they don’t. I know I fell for his stories and his excuses on more than one occasion.”

  She thought back to the father-daughter Valentine’s Day banquet at school when she’d been eight. She’d dressed up in her red dress and waited for him in the foyer for two hours to show up before realizing he wasn’t coming. She’d cried her heart out for two days. The memory had her remembering his telephone call several days later and the excuse he’d used. Some work thing had come up, some movie thing or television thing that always seemed to come before his daughter.

  But in spite of that, she needed to make Jake understand. “But dad would spend time with me doing the things I’d never get from Alana. Stuff like teaching me how to ride a horse. He’d take me hiking at Malibu Lagoon, or camping at Lake Arrowhead, or skiing up at Big Bear. When I turned eight, he bought me a surfboard and taught me how to ride a wave. And when I wanted to play volleyball and softball, he supported my efforts. While Alana grumbled and refused to sign the permission slip, he’d do it behind her back, which would, of course, piss her off to no end.”

  “Lots of girls play sports. My sisters played tennis, ran track.”

  She laughed. “Alana thought sports were for boys. When I made the varsity volleyball team in high school, it embarrassed her so much she bitched about it the entire time.” Even now she remembered the argument, the accusations.

  “Once I got to college she had no say in the matter. I made the varsity volleyball team as a freshman, got to play all four years. For once I could play without the thought that she might show up during the game and embarrass me. Dad never got to see me play though.” Even in the growing twilight, Jake could see the pitiful look on her face, the sad eyes. He’d thought he had his feelings pegged, but his heart turned over. And she didn’t have a clue.

  “Then there was my love of art. I’ve always loved to draw and paint. As a child it was my only outlet…at times…when…” She caught herself. “Dad encouraged me. You see, I didn’t do very well in school. It seems I always had to play catch up for one reason or another. The usual subjects like math and English didn’t interest me much, but I knew I had a talent for drawing and painting. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough for Alana. She didn’t think I was talented enough to make a living at it so it wasn’t worth my time.

  “Mainly what Alana wanted was a carbon copy of Alana, girly through and through. It didn’t matter that my interests weren’t in those things. No daughter of Alana’s was going to be a tomboy. What she didn’t count on was the fact that when she wanted me to do something, anything at all, I usually did the opposite, especially as I got older, and deliberately headed in the other direction from what she wanted.

  “When she couldn’t mold me into what she so obviously wanted…” She took a deep breath and just blurted it out, “She tried beating it into me at an early age. But I was headstrong. I battled her at every turn even when I was small. I paid for that stubbornness, but as I got older, either she drew the battle lines in the sand, or I did. It was a tossup. I fought her so often it became a way of life until I moved out.”

  “Aw, honey.” He reached out and put his arm around her. Hearing it now, Jake was sure his earlier instinct had been right; that St. John would see that as motive. But tonight he refused to go down that path. Even though his heart went out to her, he wanted specifics, and was determined to get the answers. “Kit, how many broken bones did you have as a kid?”

  At first the question startled her, but then she looked away. “My right arm was broken at three, left leg at four, my left arm at five. Those were her rage years. I mostly just tried to stay out of the woman’s way. But when I was little, she was a force to be reckoned with and sometimes it was difficult to avoid her. She was so much…bigger.”

  Jake swore. “How could she hurt you like that, something so beautiful?”

  “I’m pretty sure Alana didn’t think of me as beautiful, most of the time she was just pissed about something and I got in the way.”

  If he’d known she’d had such a lousy childhood, maybe he’d have…what? What could he have done about it back then? It was Jake’s turn to fall silent.

  As if Kit sensed his mood, she purposely pushed the memories away. Enough, why did it always seem like she embarrassed herself with him?

  She took in several gulps of ocean air, welcoming the slight breeze that fanned her face. All the wine she’d had over dinner made her flush. She took another deep breath and filled her lungs with the moist ocean air before going on, “By the time Gloria and Morty moved out to L.A., dad’s letters with postmarks from places like Africa or Spain came less frequently and then one day stopped coming altogether. When I was fourteen, Alana told me he died in Europe and that was that. John Griffin disappeared from my life. I never saw him again.”

  Jake squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head. “Kit, I’m sorry I made you go through all that again.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I better get used to it. I’m afraid it’s like you told Baylee, with the abuse, the police will jump to an even larger conclusion that I had a motive. Even though it doesn’t make much sense that I’d wait so many years later and do…that. I swear I didn’t killed her.”

  “No one who knows you could possibly think you killed Alana.” But he was pretty sure Max St. John wouldn’t let up until he got all the gritty details. He pictured the man’s face, the tough-talking, no-nonsense detective.

  Jake inwardly winced. He knew St. John would run with past abuse as the motive. And what about the media, what would happen when they got wind of it?

  Jake watched as she distractedly picked at several broken pieces of purple and black fan shells. She looked deep in thought. But in one swift motion, she tucked her dress aro
und her so she could bring her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs and with her fingers, absentmindedly started playing with her feet, then her toes, brushing the sand away. She rocked back and forth watching the waves. “You’ve never once said what you thought of Alana.”

  “Vain, materialistic, a piranha in business. Right after I started the company, I needed venture capital, needed investors to keep it going. I was young. Banks weren’t exactly lining up to make loans to a fledgling software business. Gloria and Morty pointed me in Alana’s direction, thought she might be interested in providing some capital. Alana offered me the entire amount. Taking her money would have solved my cash flow problems, but she wanted controlling interest.”

  He paused, thinking back to the encounter. He didn’t mention that Alana had also tried to get him into bed. He’d been twenty-four. The memory had him even now feeling nauseated, especially at learning what Kit had gone through. He turned to look out at the water. “That isn’t unusual for a venture capitalist to expect controlling interest if they invest heavily, but it was the way she conducted the meeting that bothered me. When I declined the offer, she threatened me, said she’d personally see to it that no one in Southern California did business with me. I eventually got most of the money I needed from Morty in the form of a loan. I would have shut the doors before I let that woman take control of my company.”

  When Kit heard that, she stopped playing with her toes. Her lips curved in a wide smile. Suddenly, she changed her sitting position to a kneeling one and set about patting wet sand between her hands, shaping and molding the wet stuff into sand creatures. Soon the sand took on various shapes of animals, creating a menagerie of sorts.

  When he recognized the shape of a crab, he said, “You’re very creative.”

  “You create an expensive software program worth millions and you think I’m creative with sand? You’re a riot. Why don’t you try it though? Working with your hands can be very cathartic.”

  In the light from the moon, he looked over and saw the sparkle in her jade green eyes as they went from dark to light depending on her movement. When she caught him staring, he got busy rolling the wet sand into a ball then forming it into clusters of shapes.

  They sat there, two adults, grimy up to their knees in their good clothes, playing in wet sand.

  After several artistically ingenious minutes with the sand, Kit proudly displayed her collection. “My animals look better than yours.”

  “That’s how much you know; I’m not making animals.”

  “Good, because whatever you’re making, you aren’t doing a very good job.”

  “Such a critic, you obviously have no appreciation for abstract art.”

  “Oh, I appreciate the abstract, but that doesn’t look like any art I’ve ever seen. Besides, my elephant is going to flatten your abstract art.” With a devilish look in her eye, her elephant-shaped sand creature swooped down to obliterate his artwork.

  He fired back, “That’s war.” Immediately going on the offense, he hovered for a moment over her sand creatures before blasting them with handfuls of sandy artwork.

  Both on their feet, the battle raged on as they threw handfuls of sand back and forth at each other, dodging each other’s aim and trying to avoid defeat.

  At one point, attempting to evade Jake’s constant bombardment, Kit ventured out a little too far into the surf, got carried away by the current, and ended up floating, albeit momentarily, out to sea.

  Gallantly, Jake tried to fish her out, but with the constant tide, the current strong, she easily pulled him down into the water with her. Together they struggled mightily to regain their footing. Like two ten-year olds, they played and splashed around in the water, as if it were an everyday occurrence.

  Once out of the water, back on sandy shore, they sat down trying to catch their breath. But it didn’t take long sitting in wet clothes before it grew colder. Jake took one look at Kit and declared, “You’ve ruined that dress. Come on, let’s walk over to the boat and dry off.”

  They headed toward the marina. As they trudged through sand, she chose her words carefully. “I know you lived on the boat after Claire…because you couldn’t go back to the house. What’s it like living on a boat?”

  “You learn to make use of every inch of space, learn to downsize. Have you ever sailed?”

  She looked out over the water again. “Once. Dad took me out to Catalina Island for the day when I was a child, so long ago it seems like a dream.” She thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, maybe it never actually happened. Maybe I just dreamed he took me to Catalina.”

  Jake noticed the sadness in her voice and once again wanted to cheer her up. “We’ll definitely put sailing on the agenda then. Get you out of port and on the open sea first chance we get.”

  She smiled and Jake’s heart double-clutched in a feeling so foreign his knees wanted to buckle.

  Hand-in-hand they walked across the wooden bridge to the pier until they came to a row of boats, where he stopped in front of one with the name Sea Warrior emblazoned on the side.

  He helped her onto the starboard side of the sleek fifty-foot French-built sloop. She immediately felt the first indication she’d left land, a nice sway and give, a motion she got used to in spite of all the wine she’d had with dinner.

  Still wet from the beach, Jake guided her below deck, rubbing her chilled arms as he went. “Let’s get you out of the cold.” He gave her a quick tour, pointing out things like the galley and the engine room on the way to a large bedroom, or stateroom, where he dug into a bin for towels.

  As she accepted a large beach towel and began to dry her hair, she looked around the master stateroom, saw the queen-sized bed, and suddenly wondered how many women he’d had in this floating love nest. She knew she had no right to think that way, but all the resentment over the past bubbled to the surface, leaving her feeling ridiculous standing in his bedroom.

  Would she ever learn? Hadn’t she figuratively been right here, in this same spot, the year before? Not on the boat of course, she silently corrected, as she did her best to get into the spirit of the tour.

  By the time they ended up back in the salon, however, Kit’s ridiculous feeling had turned into a slow boil directed at her stupidity. She watched rather impatiently as he played with a panel, and went over all the things it controlled, a stereo system, a DVD player, a television. With a cell phone, a laptop computer, and Internet access, he pointed out he had all the comforts of home, or as she decided, enough toys on board to keep any grown man content as he sailed off into the sunset.

  Kit took a seat on an L-shaped sofa, feeling suddenly exhausted. But instinctively, her eyes drifted to the wall lined with photographs. Scanning the pictures, she noted none were of Claire, but rather photos of friends and family.

  There were pictures of a much younger Jake skiing with his friends Dylan and Reese, several others that showed a group of people wearing UC Berkeley shirts, obviously taken during college tailgating at one of the football games. Good times, Kit thought, times of his life she’d had no part of. The slow boil of anger simmered to belated resignation. She had to face facts. There was a huge chunk of his life she’d had no part in and never would.

  Jake noticed her staring at the pictures on the wall and then saw the sad look in her eyes. “You look tired.”

  She closed her eyes, leaned her head back on the sofa. But, as if she’d memorized the photos, she said quietly, “You have such a terrific, supportive family, Jake. I always envied that.”

  “They were great through all of it, the accusations, the embarrassment, the media blitz. It was hard on them. But their support never wavered. Dylan and Reese hung in there, just like Baylee and Quinn will for you.”

  “But at least you had family.”

  “Gloria’s your family. And I know Baylee and Quinn are like family to you.”

  She opened her eyes. Green speared blue. “Why are you here, Jake? If it’s because Gloria called
you…”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Then why?”

  He leaned over, tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear. “I want to help you get through this. You don’t have to go through it alone”

  But that had her sitting up straighter. “And just like that, I’m supposed to forget you left for Japan like you did? Another night, just like this one, we were taking that first step, or the next step, something different. Then you panicked. You must think I’m incredibly stupid and naïve to believe you now. Naïve Kit, she’ll believe anything you tell her. How can I trust you to be here tomorrow or the day after?”

  He stroked her hair before pulling her to him. The minute his lips touched hers, he felt her body go loose, melt against him. He let himself enjoy the taste, the tingle. He took the kiss deeper. And then suddenly she broke off. “You son-of-a-bitch. You’re doing it again. Will you be here in the morning, Jake, or will you find some place to run, some reason to slither out of town because you’ve had second thoughts? You always seemed to have second thoughts where I’m concerned.”

  Jake got to his feet. “You’re exhausted and saying things you haven’t thought through. I’ve told you I’m back to stay. How many times do you want me to say it?” He ran his hands through his hair. “And you’re the one who keeps using the word friends.” His sigh filled the small space. “Look, I’ll go jump in the shower, get out of these wet clothes, and take you home.”

  When she didn’t say anything, Jake stormed off down the hallway.

  Soon she heard water running, and she sunk back into the sofa. Feeling drained; the fight went out of her. The wine from dinner kicked in and she went from buzz to exhaustion in a heartbeat. In her damp dress she was chilly, so she tucked her bare feet under her legs and looked around for a blanket. Spotting an afghan draped on the back of the sofa, she wrapped herself up like a cocoon and curled up in a ball. Before settling in, she instinctively released the barrette holding the twisted knot of hair at the back of her head. It felt good to free her hair from the clasp. For some reason her head hurt. But soon drowsiness overtook her and she fell asleep.