Wicked Tempest: A Kate Waters Mystery (Kate Waters Mysteries Book 2) by Erin Cole Read Free Book Online Page B

eerie glow in the room.
    “Wicked,” Bruce said. He looked at her with eyes intensified. “It’s like Storm of the Century, where that crazy Devil guy with a cane came down and made all the people in the town kill themselves before he tried to steal their first-born children.”             
    “Jesus, Bruce. You watch too much television,” Aaron said.
    “It’s Stephen King. That’s a classic, man.”
    Kate stared at him, thinking how Bruce’s imagination paralleled Thea’s theory.
    Bruce studied her. “What?”
    “I should introduce you to my friend, Thea, sometime.”
    ***
    Wells rounded the corner of Julie’s apartment complex, South Park Heights, and crossed the manicured lawn with a keen eye. A cool night breeze rolled in with the next storm. Wells had his own storm brewing in his mind and wished like hell on giving any boys loafing around Julie’s apartment a piece of it and then some. Julie had insisted he didn’t need to search the property, but Wells had argued it was something every father would want to do, regardless if they were detectives or not.
    He checked the dim stairwell, climbing the three flights to Julie’s place. The echo of his boots clapped through the tunnel of concrete and fluorescents and brought his thoughts around to the emptiness in his own life. Seeing Shelia again reminded him of how much he missed having someone special to go home to. A confidante at the end of troubling days. To be needed and wanted. Loved. This would pass, he told himself. The longing was only because Shelia had left a void, and eventually, life would fill it with other matters and people. Besides, living alone was a good thing. He could do whatever he wanted, without having to check in or explain himself.
    At the door to the third floor, he pushed through and left the vulnerable parts of himself behind in the dark stairwells. Wells knocked on her door, and Julie unlocked the deadbolt. At least she was listening to him, he thought. She wore sweats and an over-sized gray sweater.
    “Daaad, I’m fine, really, you don’t have to be here. I don’t need a babysitter.”
    Wells frowned at the stitches on her brow. “Can’t a father protect his own daughter?” He walked past her and into the living room. “At least give me that much.”
    “I just don’t want to be one of your cases.” Julie sat down on the couch.
    “Fine.” Wells sat in the chair next to her. He folded his hands in his lap. “But why won’t you file a report with someone else?”
    Julie picked up her cup of tea and twirled the pouch around in the mug, watching wisps of warm air rise and swirl. “It will only make things worse.”
    “So you’re going to let him do this to another girl?”
    “Dad, if I speak out, he’ll hurt me again, or worse, someone I care about. Besides, it’s not my duty to protect others, it’s yours.”
    The double-edged knife sliced at him once more. He was wrong if he tried to help and wrong when he didn’t. There was no winning with teenagers. Shelia had told him once that Julie resented him for always being there for everyone else and not for them when they had needed him, but now that he was, she didn’t want his help. Maybe it was too late.
    “Julie, in order to protect you and others, I need your cooperation. How am I supposed to keep the streets safe if nobody ever files charges?”
    Julie hung her face into the mug as she drank her tea.
    Wells sat back in his chair and sighed. “Sooner or later, he’s going to hurt someone else. Maybe he already did, and maybe that girl didn’t file charges either.”
    That caught her attention. She looked up at him with hollowed eyes, then blinked away. “It was just a rowdy party, that’s all.”
    But Wells had seen something cross her face, something akin to fear.
    “I’m not even interested in talking to those people again.”
    Wells leaned forward. “But they’ve already taken an interest in you, Julie. That’s the reality of it,