Just Evil

by Vickie McKeehan

  Kit explained to the dispatcher that she’d thought a customer was in trouble but that now he seemed to be fine. When she hung up, she noticed the man continued to stare at the painting. Watching him, Kit grew more uncomfortable. Bizarre was the word running through her mind as she mentally measured the distance to the front door.

  “Do you know the woman in the painting, Ms. Griffin?”

  This particular painting had been hanging in the apartment she’d shared with Baylee and Quinn for several years before she’d moved here.

  Quinn’s mother had given the three girls the painting as a housewarming gift. But when Kit had moved out, Quinn had insisted she take it with her to hang in the shop. Eyeing the man’s face, Kit decided he’d made a connection to this piece. He deserved to know its history. “The painting was a gift from the artist. Are you familiar with Ella’s work?”

  He shook his head. “Does the artist—does she look like the woman in the painting?”

  “Why…no, it isn’t a self-portrait.”

  “Was she ever in Ireland?”

  “Ireland. Well, of course! That’s where Ella met Quinn’s father, Nick Tyler.” When she saw absolutely no recognition at the name on the man’s face she added, “Nick Tyler, the lead singer for Shatter, the Irish rock band. As I understand it, Ella lived there for several years. Quinn was born there. Ella used to be quite the artist.” When she wasn’t on drugs, Kit thought, seeing no reason to share that little tidbit or the fact that Ella no longer bothered with painting and hadn’t for years.

  When she noticed the man still hadn’t taken his eyes off the canvas and simply sat as if in a trance, she went with instinct and asked, “By any chance, do you recognize the woman in the painting?”

  “She looks—there was someone once. She looks—like my wife.” As he made mental notes, his mind whirled with possibilities. The artist had lived in Ireland. Was it possible? “Do you know where in Ireland?”

  “I have no idea, but Quinn could tell you.”

  “When did she live there? What was the timeframe?”

  She racked her brain, throwing out the date. She knew for sure Ella had been there during the height of the band’s popularity when she was Nick Tyler’s girlfriend. But beyond that, Quinn’s early years were sketchy at best, even Quinn didn’t know details.

  His brow tightened. If true, the timing was right. How could he tell her what having this painting meant to him?

  He was staring at her and acting strange again, Kit thought when their eyes met. She saw the pain in his eyes. “This isn’t just a connection to a painting, is it? You actually believe the subject of the painting might have been your wife.”

  “Aye.”

  Obviously, this man had loved her very much. His reaction to the painting was one of the most remarkable responses to a work of art she’d ever experienced firsthand.

  Talk about art reaching out to a person, Kit thought, and not ten minutes earlier this man had come into her shop with a bit of an attitude, insulting her, and now sat in the chair as if he’d undergone some sort of epiphany, or at the very least a change in personality.

  Tentatively she asked, “Would you like the painting?”

  The man simply nodded. Another difference in his attitude, thought Kit. Just a few minutes ago he’d been making fun of her store, the town.

  “Okay. I’ll wrap it up for you.” She put Sarah down inside the Pack ’N Play without a fuss then walked a few feet away to the closet and dragged out the step ladder. When she’d climbed up a couple of steps to reach the painting, she heard Pepper give a low growl and turned to see that the man had finally moved out of the chair and was standing over Sarah at the Pack ’N Play.

  Kit panicked. “What are you doing?”

  “I…I was just looking at the baby.”

  An uneasy feeling hit her. She thought of him now not as a customer, but a complete stranger who’d walked in off the street pretending to want a painting she’d had hanging on the wall for four years. And she’d been stupid enough to fall for his story. She knew nothing about this man, this odd-behaving man who for all she knew could be Baylee’s long-held secret, Sarah’s father, who was here in the store to distract her while he kidnapped Sarah and took her off to God knows where.

  While Pepper continued to hold the man at bay with his low guttural snarling, she walked slowly down the ladder one step at a time, hitting the floor with heavy feet. She inched closer to the portable phone on the counter she’d held only minutes earlier. “Well, well, she’s…fine. She doesn’t need you to be…that close.”

  The man looked up and immediately saw the panic in the woman’s eyes. He stepped back from the baby. Closing the distance between them to within a few feet of where she was standing, he stopped short when he realized it wasn’t just panic he saw in her eyes, but genuine fear.

  Wanting to correct her misconception, he told her, “I meant no harm…to the baby. I…”

  Kit watched him rub at his forehead and close his eyes. Watching his increasingly odd behavior, the uneasiness quivering within her grew to major red flags. She heard herself telling him, “Maybe we should do this another time.”

  He nodded, opened the door to the coffee shop, and was gone.

  When he was all the way out of the store, Kit ran to the door and turned the lock. Then ran to the front door of the bookstore, did the same thing there. She leaned her back against the door and tried to stop shaking.

  It wasn’t until she’d settled down and had gathered Sarah in her arms that she replayed the scene. As she stood there clutching the baby to her chest, she remembered he’d called her Ms. Griffin. She was pretty sure they hadn’t taken the time to exchange names.

  And that, she thought, made the whole incident even more unsettling and creepy.

  CHAPTER 11

  It was after seven when Kit heard a car pull into her driveway. It was all she could do not to run out of the house and act like that awkward teen she’d once been.

  She had to take a couple of deep cleansing breaths to force herself to continue chopping veggies for the salad she was making.

  As she dried her hands on a dish towel, she cast a please-help-me glance toward baby Sarah who sat in her swing gnawing on a fist. “You’re my buffer tonight, Sarah. I won’t let my hormones rule while you’re here. And hey, I’m no longer that goofy girl I once was. You’re going to prevent me from doing anything really stupid tonight. Aren’t you, pretty girl?”

  When the doorbell finally rang, Kit picked up her support system from the swing and made the baby gurgle at getting free of her confinement. As Kit wiped drool from Sarah’s chin, she smoothed out the baby’s yellow romper, purposely taking her time getting to the door.

  It wasn’t easy, but Kit managed to let him cool his jets on the front stoop a couple of seconds longer than was absolutely necessary, giving her some much needed time to appear more composed than she actually felt. But she made the mistake of looking through the door’s peephole. At the sight of him standing on her porch with a bottle of wine in his hand, her heart jumped. She clutched the baby tighter, leaned her forehead on the door, trying to ignore the flash of heat she felt in her lower belly.

  How could she possibly feel this glad to see a man she’d left mere hours earlier? Lord, help her, but she wanted so badly to jump the man’s bones. This feeling was worse than any she’d ever had at fifteen. After taking another set of cleansing breaths she got herself more under control, opened the door, and gave silent thanks to Sarah’s presence.

  Jake shot her that killer grin, held up the wine and hedged, “Please tell me fifteen minutes after doesn’t mean I’m late. Traffic was terrible.” Eyeing the baby in her arms, he asked jovially, “Are we babysitting?”

  “No, you aren’t late, and yes, we’re babysitting. Baylee had something she needed to do tonight and as it turns out it was at the last minute. I wasn’t really sure if you’d make it. The crisis must not have been that critical.”

  He had no intent
ions of telling her that he’d verbally kicked Chuck’s ass for waiting to the last minute to make corrections to a contract that should have been finished two weeks ago. Then, to the surprise of everyone within shouting distance of his office, he’d delegated the rewording of the contract to Dylan and left him to deal with the Eastman contract. It had been a first, but he hadn’t wanted to risk getting bogged down in the minute details and consequently be late for dinner.

  He followed them from the tiled entryway through the long, open rectangular living room into the small but homey kitchen. He watched Kit put Sarah in the swing without a fuss and hand the baby a bright yellow plastic teething ring to play with before turning back to the counter to start work on a marinade. Noticing the wine he was holding, Kit asked, “Does that wine need to breathe or chill or something? Despite helping you polish off three bottles last night I’m not a wine connoisseur.”

  He chuckled as he shrugged out of his suit jacket, draped it over a kitchen chair. “A beer sounds good.”

  She dug into a drawer for the corkscrew before reaching into the fridge for a beer.

  “And this is an Australian Shiraz 2004 that goes well with just about anything, and since I wasn’t sure what was on the menu, I thought it was a safe bet.”

  In one motion, she twisted off the cap to the beer and handed him the bottle. “It’s such a nice evening, why don’t we throw some steaks on the grill, eat outside, and enjoy the view from the deck?”

  She took down two wine glasses from the cabinet and carried them outside to the table already set for two. When she got back inside, she found him watching the baby as if Sarah were an alien with several heads.

  When he caught her looking at him, he turned his attention to the view beyond the open French doors, enjoying the picture-perfect sight of shimmering water merging with a crystal blue spring sky.

  For a few moments he stared out at the ocean until his eyes drifted back to where the baby sat prettily in the swing. Curious, he leaned down in front of the swing and asked Kit, “How old is Sarah?”

  At the mention of her name, Sarah chortled and cooed and tried hard to throw the teething ring in Jake’s direction. The thing landed at his feet. Jake reached down, picked it up off the floor, and handed it back.

  As Kit poured the marinade over the steaks, she acknowledged proudly, “She’ll be five months Sunday. And she got her first tooth this morning.” Turning from the counter, she caught their exchange. “Oh look, she’s trying to give you the toy. You obviously have a way with babies. Go ahead, reach out your hands. See if she’ll come to you.”

  “Come to me?” He’d played with a niece or two at this age. The idea that she might actually want him to pick her up intrigued him so much he held both hands out to the baby.

  In response, Sarah went to kicking out her little legs and cooing again. Willing to oblige, he reached out, scooped her up with his big hands, and brought her up to his shoulder like an old pro. Patting her gingerly on the back, he issued a couple of soothing words until Sarah gurgled and waved her little arms in the air.

  Kit stood there amazed. She had no idea he’d actually pick her up. Well, who knew? Weren’t most men scared to death to handle a baby? The man obviously had a way with children. Kit watched as Jake headed outside to the deck, bouncing the baby in his arms while carrying on an animated conversation, talking to her about the ocean, the sky, and the setting sun.

  After about fifteen minutes of sightseeing though, he brought Sarah back inside just as she started to fuss. “I think she’s getting tired. She’s starting to—make noise.”

  Kit wiped her hands on a dish towel before turning to take the baby from him. “Well, aren’t you just the best-kept secret since daycare?”

  “I’m an uncle several times over. I have nieces. My oldest sister Sophia has two girls, six and five. Hannah has a little two-year-old girl and she’s expecting another.” As if that explained everything, he grinned.

  Testing his good mood, Kit asked, “In that case, with all that experience under your belt, maybe you’d like to change her diaper, give her a bath, or get her ready for bed? Pick one.”

  The man visibly paled. “I’ve never changed a diaper in my life. I have, however, taken the garden hose and wet down a couple of sticky little girls before letting them set foot in the house. But something tells me that isn’t what you had in mind.”

  She stalled in mid-step and turned to look at him. “Well, no. A garden hose?”

  He grinned and grabbed his beer. “It seemed like the most practical way to get rid of several layers of caked on dirt since they were making mud pies all afternoon.”

  “Somehow I can’t picture you caring for two little girls.”

  “Piece of cake as long as there are no diapers to change.”

  When Sarah began to cry for real, Kit reached into the depths of a gigantic diaper bag until she found a pair of lavender pajamas and a fresh diaper. For good measure, she searched again, finally pulled out a little red rubber duck she could use for Sarah’s sponge bath. “Be right back,” she yelled as she turned the corner and disappeared.

  When he heard water running, he took his beer and stepped back outside to stand at the rail.

  He stared at the waves, watched the people strolling on the beach and the sinking sun. Pepper ambled up to him, and he reached down to pet the dog and let this purely domestic scene envelope him like a warm, fuzzy glove.

  He stood there listening to the waves and let the day’s events just melt away. The encounter with Collin forgotten, as well as the problems with the Eastman contract and dealing with Chuck, peace settled over him and the day’s tensions fled.

  He began to relax. Instincts told him this was the something he’d been missing. Kit. It occurred to him that even with her difficult childhood, her innate sweetness would make her one hell of a mother someday.

  Were kids and marital bliss really in his future? he wondered.

  Thinking like that had a nasty tasting fear inching its way up his throat. He’d wanted kids once. And look how that had turned out. But Kit wasn’t Claire, he reminded himself. The two women were polar opposites in every way.

  That settled him down.

  When he heard Kit come back into the kitchen, he went inside to get another beer and met her at the fridge. Kit grabbed the baby’s bottle of milk, he a beer. Their eyes met and held.

  Suddenly, Kit offered Sarah out to him and asked, “Will you hold her a minute while I heat up the bottle in the microwave?”

  Once again, he held Sarah in his arms, breathing in her powder-and-lotion, her baby smell, while he watched Kit punch in the time on the microwave. While the bottle heated, she dug into the deep interior of the diaper bag and came up with the baby monitor.

  When a tired Sarah began to wriggle in Jake’s arms and fuss in earnest, Kit took the milk from the microwave, tested the temperature, and handed off the bottle to Jake, who promptly stuck it into Sarah’s eager mouth.

  While she nursed, making little sucking noises, Kit motioned for Jake to follow her into a minuscule bedroom immediately off the living area. “I have to hook this thing up and get it working before I put her down so we can hear her while we’re outside.”

  When Kit had trouble getting the monitor hooked up, the geek in him couldn’t stand watching her struggle with it and finally volunteered, “Let me do it.”

  Grateful for the offer, they switched duties. Kit took the baby and began to rock her gently in her arms. With each back-and-forth movement, the baby’s eyelids fluttered with sleep and soon closed.

  While Jake worked on the monitor, the room fell silent. Instead of feeling awkward, it settled into a comfortable atmosphere where the two of them were engrossed in nothing more than getting the baby down. Soon Jake had the monitor up and running and Sarah was fast asleep.

  As they walked back to the kitchen, Jake admitted, “That was fairly painless.”

  “She’s a good baby.”

  “I take it Baylee’s on her
own.”

  Kit nodded as she tossed the salad. “I wasn’t kidding earlier. Baylee’s clammed up. She disappeared about the same time you did last year and showed up Christmas Eve with Sarah. I don’t even know who Sarah’s father is.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Baylee. No idea what happened?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Changing the subject, he offered, “What can I do to help?”

  She handed him the platter with the steaks and said, “You can get these started.”

  As he went outside to put the steaks on the grill, something kept rolling around in his mind. Baylee had to know Kit’s past. And knowing that, some relief tore through him that at least she’d had someone to confide in, someone to turn to. But then just as quickly, that relief vanished when he decided that turning to another kid wouldn’t have been much help in Kit’s situation. What she’d needed was for her father to step in and get her out of there.

  But he hadn’t done that.

  Kit joined him at the railing just in time to see the remnants of the sun drop into the water. “Ever thought of having one of your own? A baby, I mean.”

  In spite of his earlier thoughts, her direct question caught him off guard. Kit merely shrugged. “Hey, last night I bared my soul. Tonight’s your turn. I’ve never asked you about Claire; never wanted to go there.”

  Much like she’d felt the night before, he didn’t want to dwell on his past, didn’t want to talk about it. But if they were headed toward a relationship, and he thought they were, it was better to get things out in the open.

  He took a pull on his beer. Kit watched as he swallowed the liquid, gathering his thoughts. He finally set the bottle down on the table. “I knew from the start I’d made a huge mistake. When you marry someone based on a lie, there’s no other direction to go but down when the truth comes out.”

  That was the last thing she expected him to say. A tug of sympathy formed in her heart. “Why’d you marry her then?”

  With the tips of his fingers he rubbed both eyes before drawing out a sigh. “She told me she was pregnant. But two weeks after the wedding I walked into the bathroom, caught her taking a birth control pill out of her pill pack. She tried to make me believe that she’d miscarried, but I wasn’t quite that stupid. She’d lied and got caught, simple as that. There were plenty of red flags before we were married that spoke volumes about what kind of person she was, but like an idiot, I ignored them all. I thought once we were married, she’d change.”