The girl turned and yelled, “Mom!” over her shoulder. “There’s some man to see you!” With that, the girl turned and disappeared up the stairs.
Shep stepped into the foyer from where he could see the massive living room under a huge vaulted ceiling. Everything was done in whites, grays and tans from the rugs to the fireplace to the furniture. The only splash of color came from the Christmas tree standing twenty-five feet tall at the other end of the room. An assortment of white balls and feathers adorned the limbs twinkling with tiny white lights. There were so many presents already under the tree that they spilled out onto the white furry rug.
It took a few moments before Kat appeared. Like her daughter, she wore holey jeans with only a lightweight sweater that accentuated her slim body. He had to look closely to see that she’d aged at all from her wedding photo fifteen years ago. But on closer inspection, she appeared to be fighting aging with every procedure available.
“Yes?” She didn’t look happy to see this stranger who’d come into her house and closed the front door behind him. He was sure her daughter would hear about it for having let him in.
Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure how to approach the woman. “My name’s Westly Shepherd.” He decided to dive right in. “I’m here about your daughter.”
Kat frowned. “My daughter?” She glanced toward the stairs before turning back to him. “Cara?”
He assumed Cara was the one who’d opened the door. “No, Lindy.”
Kat swayed slightly and frowned. “Lindy?”
“If you could spare a few minutes?” He had taken off his Stetson and now wiped his feet on the foyer rug before he took a step toward her.
She didn’t move, holding her ground. “Why would you want to talk to me about Lindy?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing. “You’re not a reporter, are you?”
“No, ma’am.” It was clear he wasn’t going to be offered a seat on her expensive white furniture. “I’m a friend of Charlie Farmington’s.”
The name instantly soured her expression. “I really have nothing to—”
“You haven’t seen Charlie since the...incident.”
“Incident?” she snapped. “My daughter was brutally murdered.”
“And your husband was killed and you were injured. Still, I’m curious why you never reached out to Charlie. She was your stepdaughter.”
Her voice sounded strangled when she spoke. “As you said, I was injured and in the hospital for—” She stopped herself. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, whoever you are. I lost my daughter.”
“But not your stepdaughter.”
She shook her head, anger flaming her cheeks. “Not a hair on Charlie’s head was touched, was it? I’ve never been able to get anyone to tell me exactly how that happened when the two of them were supposed to be in the house together. How my daughter died and Charlie survived. She didn’t even know that my Lindy was outside lying in a pool of blood.”
If Shep had wondered how Kat felt toward Charlie, he knew now. “When was the last time you saw Charlie?”
She looked surprised by the question and then angry. “The night my daughter was murdered. I left Lindy in the house with her and look how that turned out.”
It was hard to hide his dislike for this woman. She wanted to blame Charlie? A fourteen-year-old whose mother had died and whose father had forsaken her for his new wife? He made a show of taking in the house with his gaze. “You seem to have done all right since then though.”
Just as he anticipated, her anger reached the boiling point. She pointed toward the door. “Get out! You have no idea what my life has been like. How dare you judge me! That girl did nothing but cause problems in my marriage. She resented me and was jealous of Lindy and did everything she could to get her into trouble.”
She was like a machine gun of resentment and bitterness. It was as if she couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “Charlie.” She said the name like a curse. “I want nothing to do with her or her...friends. Now get out before I call the police.”
“Not a problem,” Shep said calmly as he started for the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the daughter, Cara. She’d come to the top of the stairs. “Now I have a pretty good idea what the problem was in that house.”
Breathing as if she’d run a marathon, Kat seemed to have difficulty speaking. “People wanted to blame me. That old bag down the block saying I was never home, that I let the girls run wild, that I was a bad mother.” She choked on the spilled words for a moment before she got control again. “As if they knew anything about what went on in that house.”
“Did you?” He couldn’t help himself. He opened the door to leave but turned back to Kat, feeling his own anger bubble over. “Did Charlie’s father really know what was going on? Charlie was fourteen. She’d just lost her mother. And all the while, your daughter was tormenting her, making her life miserable to get back at you, I suspect. And you want to blame Charlie? Is that why you’re stalking her now?”
“What? I’m not stalking anyone, certainly not Charlie. I haven’t given that girl a thought in fifteen years. How dare you come to my house and accuse me.” Kat jabbed a shaking finger at the door as she pulled out her phone. “I’m calling the police. If you ever come back here...” Her voice broke. “Or if Charlie ever comes here...”
“Why would she?” With that, he turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him. He heard her rush to the door and lock it.
* * *
CHARLIE COULDN’T BELIEVE how well her design presentation had gone. She had breathed a huge sigh of relief when Greg had given her a thumbs-up at her conclusion. The client had loved it. She’d left Greg to finish the deal and had gone back to her cubicle, feeling as if her feet weren’t touching the ground.
“How did it go?” Tara asked and then grinned. “Never mind, you look like the cat who ate the canary. You wowed them, didn’t you?”
“I think it went well.”
Her friend laughed. “Play it down, like you always do. What are you going to do to celebrate?”
Charlie hadn’t even considered celebrating. Shep was staying in her house. Daniel was barely talking to her. Her dead stepsister was haunting her.
Before she could answer, Greg appeared next to her desk. “I’m taking you to lunch,” he announced. “You knocked that one out of the park, Charlie. Come on, it’s a little early but we’ll avoid the rush.”
Charlie hadn’t realized that Amanda was right behind him until the woman said, “We need to take her somewhere special.” Greg even seemed surprised that Amanda was tagging along.