Page 50 of The Murder Between Us
She whipped her furious gaze his way. Her glare was cutting, just like her mother’s. He almost flinched. “Did you ditch me last night so you could have sex?”
“What?”
“Did you send me to Evelyn’s so you could come home and have sex? Am I cramping your style living here, Dad? Am I butting in on all the sex you could be having?”
“Whoa! Whoa!” He held up his hands, a surrender and a “Back off” all in one. He frowned. “Katie, I did not send you away last night so I could have sex. We were working!”
She snorted.
“Wewereworking. This case is very scary. John was—” His throat closed. He looked down, spinning the pink fuzz around and around his index finger. “The killer targets young women. You’re younger than the victims, but I’m your father. And, from the very first girl he murdered, all the way until last night, there hasn’t been a night that’s gone by when I didn’t have a spike of fear that you could be—” His throat closed again, and this time, he couldn’t breathe. He turned away. His lungs burned. Visions of his nightmares, of Katie dead, Katie strangled, Katie lying with her arms and legs splayed out, that broken-doll twist of her neck—
“Dad…” Katie’s plaintive voice finally broke through the white noise. “I’m okay, Dad.”
“I’m always afraid for you, K-Bear. Always.”
He heard her sniff. “Yeah, well, you must likehimmore than you like me,” she groused. “You at least wanted to be with him.”
Noah groaned.
“How long have you been keeping this a secret from me?”
“This?”
She flung her hands out, her eyes wide. “This, Dad. You! Being gay!”
He flinched. The pink fuzz wrapped around and around until it snapped in half. “Katie, I barely figured it out myself.”
She stared. “What, you just woke up yesterday and suddenly decided you were gay?”
“No.” He swallowed. “I’ve… wondered for a while about myself. I had all these thoughts and these feelings, and I…” He shrugged, deflating. “I’m gay. I’m gay, Katie. And I just figured that out for sure recently.” He almost laughed. This was never how he thought he’d come out to his daughter. “Last night was the first time I—” His mouth snapped shut.
She blinked. “So, what, you meet Dr. Kennedy and then all of a sudden you’re sleeping with him?”
Oh boy. “Cole and I… We really hit it off.”
“Dr. Kennedy, Dad.” She shot him a look.
He shot one right back. “Cole—Dr. Kennedy—is a great guy. Whatever anger you have, however mad you are, that anger is for me. Not him. He didn’t do anything to you, K-Bear.”
She crossed her arms again and glared, her face scrunching up like she was desperately, desperately trying not to cry. “He’s done something to you!” she snapped. “You didn’t use to push me away, or send me away, or not want to spend time with me! You’ve never chosen anyone instead of me, but now, apparently all you want is him! You don’t even want me around anymore!”
“Katie!” He jumped to his feet. The pink monstrosity wheeled away, bouncing off her bedroom wall. “That’s not true at all! Jesus, that’s not true.” He strode to her, sitting on the edge of her bed. “There is nothing and no one in this world that is more important to me, or that I love more, than you. You are my life.” He reached for her. Wrapped his big hand around her wet, limp sweatshirt sleeve. “K-Bear, I wasn’t going to do anything. I wasn’t ever going to try to meet someone, or sleep with someone, or do anything, because I didn’t wantthisto happen. I never wanted to upset you. I never wanted to see you look at me like you’re looking at me right now. You areeverythingto me, Katherine. My whole entire world, and I was never, ever going to jeopardize that or put anything before you.”
Tears were rolling freely down her cheeks, fat, wet, heavy drops that rained from her quivering chin. “Then—” Her voice shook.
“I didn’t plan on meeting Cole,” he breathed. “It just happened.”
She cried, burying her face in her teddy bear.This is why you should never have tried. This is why you should never have left your hotel room. This is why you should never have wanted to know.
Eventually, Katie sat back, rubbing her running nose on her sleeve and sinking into the pillows behind her. “Does Mom know?”
He shook his head. “No one knows. No one except me, Cole, and now you.”
She took a deep breath. Her hair was braided, one long French braid for cheer practice that ran almost to the center of her back. She pulled the end over her shoulder and chewed on it, gnawing on the loose strands poking out of the hair tie. “Is this why you’re always depressed?”
He stared at her, speechless, for a moment. “I was unhappy with myself for a long time,” he said slowly. “It’s hard to pretend to be someone I’m not, to ignore how I was feeling. What I was wanting. But I’ve never been unhappy being your dad.”
“I wondered about you and Mom.” She shrugged, one shoulder rising and falling. “I mean, I saw it. You were miserable. She was angry. It was never happy in that house, you know? I was so relieved when you guys finally split.”
