Chapter Fourteen
Kate and her mother spent most of the day holed up in the den and the kitchen since both rooms obscured them from the reporters loitering in front of the house. Thankfully, by the afternoon all the reporters had cleared out. Kate hoped a more stimulating event than a psychic working on a kidnapping case would take her out of the limelight as soon as possible. When her mom got home, Darlene made it clear to the reporters present that they wouldn’t be talking to anyone about the case. After a couple of hours, Kate had plugged in the house phone briefly, but disconnected the line again when it began ringing off the hook. She wanted to scour the Internet to see if other stories were being published, but her mother insisted it would be better to remain in the dark. Who knew what type of skewed facts had been given to the press?
The highlight was when her mother had called Jared and tore him a new asshole. She demanded to know why Kate’s name and picture were plastered all over Franklin. She could tell by her mother’s end, Jared was contrite, but her mother was hearing none of it. Before she hung up, she said something like he’d be lucky to own the clothes still on his back once their lawyers got through with him.
Her mother looked on the verge of a stroke, which prompted Kate to diffuse some of the tension in the room. “Mom, maybe I should be flattered I was in that paper. A lot of girls I went to high school with aspire to be. I mean their goal is to be the page six half-naked pin-up, but a girl has to start somewhere.”
“Ha-ha, but tell me seriously, are you alright?”
“Of course this is far from ideal, but there’s nothing I can really to do about it now. I’ll deal with the fallout and hopefully move on after laying low for a bit.”
Her phone chirped. Kate felt nauseous as she read the text message from Julie. Is it true what the papers are saying? I thought we were best friends! How could you keep something like this from me?
Kate looked over at her mother. “Julie just sent me a message. She’s mad I didn’t tell her about all the psychic stuff. What should I say?”
“Tell her the truth. Maybe she’ll understand why you felt like you had to keep it secret,” her mother advised. Instead of messaging her back, Kate decided to phone her and air things out.
Without a greeting, Julie said, “I don’t even know why I’m picking up.”
Kate continued on despite the chill in her friend’s voice. “Julie, please don’t be angry. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“Well, why the hell haven’t you? I have to find out from everyone else that my best friend is psychic.”
“I’m sorry. I was embarrassed by the whole thing. I didn’t want you to think I was a freak,” she said meekly.
“Not good enough, Kate. It’s insulting you think so little of me that you assumed that’s how I would’ve reacted. Every time someone brought up the old story about you, I defended you and told them to back off.”
“I wasn’t sure how anyone would react. I didn’t let a single person know the truth, not even my mother. I had the vision of Matt and then they kept coming.” Kate persisted, “You don’t know how hard it’s been not only keeping it a secret, but witnessing people’s memories and thoughts. I’ve seen things that’ll haunt me the rest of my life.”
“I knew you didn’t want to talk about the whole Matt thing, so I left it alone. I never thought in a million years you were lying and still saw things. I just don’t get if it was hard on you, why didn’t you come to me? I tell you everything.”
It was true, Julie did share everything. Even things Kate wished she kept to herself—like the time Gage drunkenly suggested to Julie they ask Kate if she’d be interested in a three-way make-out session. Vomit.
“You have to forgive me, Julie. I promise I’ll never keep anything from you again.”
Julie let out a lengthy groan. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not super mad at you, just really hurt you felt you couldn’t confide in me. I mean, how can I say you’re my best friend when there’s this whole other part of your life I knew nothing about?” Julie paused.
Before Kate could answer, Julie pressed on, “Listen, Gage just got here, I’ll call you later.”
Kate sensed the blow off, but said nothing. She was obviously right and Kate hoped with time she would offer up absolution. Julie put up with a lot of crap in order to be Kate’s friend and she prayed this wouldn’t be the last straw.
She hung up and looked at her mother helplessly. Before she could launch into a lengthy dissection of the conversation she’d had with Julie, the phone rang in her hand. “Oh Lord, here we go,” she muttered, looking at the caller ID.
“Hi Dad, what’s up?” she asked, attempting to use her most chipper sounding voice. She produced an eye roll for her mother’s benefit.
“What’s up? Why don’t you tell me? How about explaining the reason I’ve received about a dozen calls today about my daughter, the psychic?” he demanded without bothering with a greeting. “By the way, your Aunt Irene wants to know if you could contact your Uncle Larry from the grave and ask him where he put the keys to their Cadillac.” His patronizing tone dripped with anger. Kate realized she should’ve known the news would have reached him one way or another.
“Tell her the keys are in the third drawer of the toolbox in the garage.” When her Dad did not laugh, she responded weakly, “Just kidding.”
“Glad you can find anything remotely funny here. What’s going on? Apparently, you’re involved in some sort of abduction…”
Kate interjected, “You make me sound like a co-conspirator.”
“I have no idea what you’re thinking. What are you gaining by telling these people you know where this little girl is? Is it money? Are you looking for attention?”
She could imagine how her father looked at the moment. Salt and pepper hair and blue eyes probably filled with exasperation. It had been three months since she last saw him and she wondered if he had changed in that time. Was his paunch more pronounced? More gray throughout his hair? He had made plans with her over the past couple of months, but something always seemed to come up. He blamed it on his investment firm keeping him swamped. If he was putting off the visit to avoid telling her about Carly, she should save him the trouble and admit she was already aware of his girlfriend.
“That’s what you think this is? It never occurred to you it may only be about me wanting to help someone?”
“Kate, I don’t fully comprehend what happened when you revealed where the police could find Matt. There’s probably a logical explanation we haven’t realized yet. Nevertheless, you’re not going to sit here and make me believe you’re psychic. If you were, why wouldn’t you be making millions in the stock market? Or selecting the correct lottery numbers?”
“Seriously Dad? That’s your big argument against it?” She covered the phone and whispered to her mother. “Dad doesn’t believe I’m psychic because I haven’t won the lottery.” Her mom shot her an exasperated look and Kate could tell it was killing her to overhear parts of the conversation and bite her tongue.
“Kate, you’ve been overindulged for too long. You’re twenty-one and it’s time for you to grow up,” he said with steel in his tone.
“Overindulged? What do I have a trust fund I don’t know about? Last time I checked I have a part-time job and go to college,” she snapped back.
Things had always been pretty easygoing between her and her father. Even in high school, she avoided the wild parties and bad boys most of her friends seemed so fond of. Her grades were good and she had worked since she was old enough to drive and wanted her own set of wheels. Her dad rarely felt the need to break out the “why, god, did I get stuck with such a degenerate?” voice he was currently using on her.
“You need to begin facing reality and learn how to take responsibility for your actions. Your mother has allowed you to stay hidden away in the house and catered to your every whim. From what I can see, you two have had a codependent relationship for some time. I think it wo
uld be best for everyone if you left Franklin for awhile and moved in with me. You’ll be out of the media spotlight and we can set out to get you back on track.” The thought of living with her father and his new squeeze was almost enough to make her puke up the contents of her lunch in her mouth.
“No,” she said simply.
“It wasn’t a request, Katie.” Her father’s voice was hard and firm.
“Dad, like you said I’m twenty-one, you can hardly tell me what to do. My life is here and I’m not leaving.” She couldn’t help, but add, “I’m not you, Dad—I actually have a hard time deserting my family.”
Her mother saw her becoming distraught and walked over to her. “Do you want me to speak with him?”
Kate shook her head in response. Her father had been partially right. For too long, she had depended on her mother entirely. She needed to learn how to start standing up for herself and not leaving her mother to do all her dirty work. Although her mom would do anything for her, Kate couldn’t always exploit that side to her advantage. Her emotional growth had been stunted since the day she left the hospital. It was time for her to play catch up and begin acting her age. This was especially important if she wanted her father to respect her and accept her decisions.
“That’s out of line, Kate…”
“What’s out of line is I haven’t seen you in months even though you live an hour away! Or how about the fact you have a secret girlfriend I’m supposed to know nothing about? If you want me to grow up and act like an adult, stop treating me like a child and be honest with me.” She left her father speechless and she knew their conversation was taking a quick downturn. “Dad, we’ll talk another time. I have to deal with this story breaking and don’t want to fight with you on top of it. Love you, bye.”
She did not wait for his reply and instead disconnected the call. Her mother gave her a questioning look. Kate moaned, “Looks like I completely alienated my limited circle of friends and family.”
“Your father will come around. He’s not a bad man. I don’t agree with everything he does, but I know he loves you and is only trying to protect you. But you were right to hold your ground and explain to him that you are an adult and can manage your own life. When things cool down, arrange to have dinner and talk about everything,” her mother advised.
Agreeing wholeheartedly, Kate decided she was going to tackle everything in her life head on from now on. For months, she’d been tiptoeing around these feelings about her dad and it felt good to tell him exactly how upset she really was with him. It made her realize that she needed to apply this doctrine to the rest of her life and it would help her avoid a lot of problems.