Dear Santa Part 4

Katherine glanced at Vic. He'd put on black leather gloves, which held the steering wheel now in an easy grip. His eyes were on the road ahead, his expression neutral. She didn't get the impression he was pumping her out of idle curiosity. Something in his manner made her believe he was offering just what he claimed, a listening ear. Katherine sighed.

"Yes. That," she said.

She'd known she would have to talk about this eventually. She'd never guessed till this very minute that she would ever dream of doing so with Victor Maltese in his hot-rod car.

"Coyote reminds me of a boy named Daniel," she said. She was surprised by how steadily she could speak the words and by the relief she felt at having them spoken. "He was my stepson. He died."

Chapter Five Vic felt rather than heard the grief beneath her attempt at a matter-of-fact tone. His first instinct was to pull the car over to the side of the road and take her in his arms. He kept on driving. He sensed that she needed him to maintain an even keel here and not do anything while she got out what she had to say.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod once. "Daniel was nine-and-a-half," she said.

"He had leukemia. They couldn't find a blood match for a bone marrow transplant. Eventually, his body just gave out."

"You said he was your stepson. Were the two of you close?"

"Yes. I loved him very much."

She turned to took out the window on her side of the car. Vic let the silence between them play out as long as she needed it to. He could feel her sadness as if it was his own, but she didn't cry, at least not so he could notice. Several moments pa.s.sed before she turned back from the window again.

"This is the first time I've told anyone here in Albany about Daniel," she said. She'd managed to put her matter-of-fact tone back together again.

"I haven't even talked to Megan about him. I hope you don't mind my dumping such a heavy load on you when we hardly know each other."

"I don't mind at all. Sometimes it's easier to say hard things to somebody you don't know so well."

"Hard, hurtful things."

Vic nodded but didn't reply. There was no answer to real sadness, especially the sadness of los ing a child. He would have liked to ask about Daniel's father. He knew he probably should be talking to her about something elsea"the fact that she was identifying too personally with the Coyote Bellaway case. But Vic generally let the shrinks and social workers worry about things like that. He saw even less reason than usual for changing that policy now. They drove in silence the rest of the way to the school.

"COYOTE BELL AWAY has been absent for the past three days."

Vic had suspected something like that even before he and Katherine were escorted to the vice princ.i.p.al's office.

"Ordinarily, we wouldn't pay much attention to that short an absence," Stefan Piatka was saying.

"But Coyote has had perfect attendance up till now, and his grades have been exemplary."

Vic had worked with Stefan consulting about other students who hung out at the center. Not very often were their school records anywhere near as favorable as what Stefan was describing now.

"Are you saying Coyote's a good student and he's never been in trouble before this that you know of?" Vic asked. "Not that I know of."

To Vic, that meant, if Coyote was takin ga wrong direction for some reason, he was definitely worth turning around "Of course, his sister is another story," Stefan went on.

"Coyote has a sister?" Katherine asked.

"Yes, he does," Stefan said.

"She's two grades behind him. They call her Sprite."

"Has she been out of school for the past three days, too?" Katherine asked.

"No, she hasn't. That's another reason we've been concerned about Coyote.

He and his sister are usually inseparable. They come to school together. They go home together. Coyote even asked to have the same lunch hour as his sister so he could keep an eye on her.

Unfortunately, she does need that kind of extra supervision. "

"The sister's a behavior problem?" Vic asked.

"She has been this semester."

"Have you asked Sprite why her brother has been out of school?"

Katherine asked.

"She says she doesn't know, but Sprite tends to be uncooperative."

"Do you think we might ask her again?"

"Maybe we're jumping the gun here," Vic broke in. He had the feeling that Katherine was running away with this interview and he shouldn't be letting that happen.

"I agree with Ms. Fairchild," Stefan said.

"I sense something wrong here. Maybe Sprite can help us find out what that is. I'm going to bring her here to my office. She might have an easier time talking in a neutral s.p.a.ce out of sight of the cla.s.sroom."

"Thank you, Mr. Piatka," Katherine said.

Her smile couldn't help but light up Vic's heart. The rest of her did the same in a curious way he didn't quite understand. When she'd pulled her winter cap off earlier, her hair had sprung free into tendrils around her face. A spot of rosy color bloomed at the center of each of her cheeks, maybe from the school's overheated rooms, maybe from the-high tension of this visit. One thing Vic knew with absolute certaintya"right at this minute, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. As the princ.i.p.al left the office, Katherine turned to face Vic, and that beauty hit him full force, straight out of the brightness in her blue-gray eyes.

"What I'm going to tell you may seem odd," she said, "but ever since Daniel was so sick and died, I seem to have tuned in to danger where children are concerned. And I feel that Coyote Bellaway's in serious trouble."

Her eyes weren't only bright. They were glittering. Vic's captivation with her beauty gave way to something closer to uneasiness.

"Are you telling me that you think you have a sense the rest of us don't have?" he asked.

"It's a kind of psychic sense. But I think anyone who has gone through what I went through with Daniel could have the same strong intuitive ness Vic only nodded. He was suddenly very aware of how little he knew about Katherine Fairchild. She'd been a real whiz at organizing the Arbor Hill Children's Center, but those were administrative issues.

They didn't have anything to do with the kids at the center and their problems in real life. Now that Katherine was entering that much more emotional territory, she was acting like she might be out of control. She'd already told him about the death of her stepson. Vic could tell how deeply she'd been affected by that tragedy. Maybe she'd been more than just affected. Maybe she wasn't quite right mentally as a result. He'd known people who were derailed by less powerful losses than the one Katherine had obviously experienced.

"Why don't you let me take the lead when Stefan brings the little girl back here?" Vic suggested. He was careful to speak gently.

"Don't worry," Katherine said.

"I do know what I'm doing. I've taken courses in social work. I'm thinking about going back to get my master's degree."

Vic nodded again but didn't say anything. He'd always believed that the kind of work he and others at the center did, and especially the knack for that work, had to be learned somewhere other than in the cla.s.sroom. He stared out the window, which was all but covered by paper cutout decorations for Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza. Vic couldn't help but wonder if he might have made a big mistake by bringing Katherine here.

KATHERINE COULD TELL that Vic thought she might be a little bit out of her mind. She probably shouldn't have mentioned the psychic connection with children she'd found herself experiencing for more than the last two years, ever since the doctors told them how sick Daniel really was. Psychic connection wasn't the correct thing to call it, anyway. That sounded a little too loony even to her. She'd simply attuned herself so closely to Daniel in those long months of his steady decline that she could almost feel his pain and antic.i.p.ate his needs. That attunement extended beyond Daniel eventually, till she could look at t child and tell almost immediately if that child was in distress. That was what had actually drawn her to the job at the children's center, more than what she had told Megan about saying yes to new opportunities. Katherine had wanted to be of help.

Still, what she'd said to Megan about keeping at arm's length, at least from the hurtful things, was true. That had been Katherine's most deliberate intention up to and including most of yesterday. Now, here she was, about to wade knee-deep into the trauma of two children's lives. Katherine was not a person to let such uncharacteristic behavior on her part go unexamined. Oddly enough, she couldn't get over the feeling that all of this had a lot to do with Victor Maltese. It was as if last night when he grabbed her arm in the icy parking lot at the center, he had jolted her back to life somehow.

Starting with the anger his arrogance had stirred in her then, she had experienced more emotion in the past several hours thaa she'd allowed herself to feel in all the months since the day of Daniel's death. She'd deadened herself along with him, in a way, in order to be able to stand the pain of his loss. That shadow was lifting now.

She could almost feel the weight of it rising from her shoulders. For reasons she couldn't yet entirely explain, she had Vic to thank for that---or, perhaps, to blame.

As the office door opened and Stefan Piatka led Sprite Bellaway by the hand into the room, Katherine could hardly have been more aware of her own newly opened heart. The little girl's eyes were large and blue. Her hair was curly and almost blonde, much like Katherine's, though Sprite's curls were more relaxed. With her fair skin and small bones, the child could have been Katherine's own. Maybe that was part of the reason she found herself responding so strongly. She had to ball her hands into fists and press them against her sides.

Otherwise, she would have wrapped her arms around the little girl and rocked her gently till the worried expression left those wide, blue eyes and they shone clear again. But that might startle the child, and it would certainly shock Vic Maltese.

Meanwhile, Sprite was obviously doing her best to look belligerent.

Her lips pouted and her chin thrust out, but all Katherine saw was the worry in Sprite's eyes. Katherine could tell that much of what should be carefree about childhood had already been stolen from this child. She was thinner than she should be, and Katherine guessed that wasn't from neglect. Sprite's clothes were simple and not new, but they were clean, as was the rest of her. Her thinness had to be yet another sign of the burden she carried. That burden was obviously far heavier than her child's shoulders were meant to bear, no matter how tightly she shrugged them together beneath the faded cotton of her T-shirt.

Vic stepped forward at almost the same moment the little girl shrank away. He would want to comfort Sprite just as Katherine did. She'd heard how much he cared for the children at the center. That morning, she'd seen proof of that caring in his gentle firmness with Coyote and had heard it in the voice Vic used then. But his size could be imposing. She had felt that herself last night in the parking lot.

His impact would be all the more intimidating for a little girl as fragile as Sprite. Fragile but fierce was the thought that flashed in Katherine's mind. Like herself again. She was also too thin from tension and worrying. She also, once in a while, felt like a heavily burdened little girl.

Katherine touched Vic's arm gently and without making any quick movements. When he halted, she lowered herself, just as slowly and carefully, till her eyes were level with Sprite's. The little girl's hand had travelled to her mouth. She pressed her thumb knuckle there, maybe in memory of the comfort that thumb had once given her. Her eyes were wide open above her fist, and Katherine could hear breathing that had speeded up from fear.

"h.e.l.lo, Sprite," Katherine said in an even voice. She spoke almost as slowly as she had moved.

"My name is Katherine. I've been wanting to meet you."

The little girl had tensed visibly, ready to pull her small chest back even more tightly between her rigid shoulders. She didn't exactly relax at the sound of Katherine's soothing words, but she did stop shrinking away long enough for Katherine to sense the change and recognize it as a signal to proceed, though very cautiously, still.

kC, "I met your brother this morning. You look a lot like him," Katherine continued at the same slow, calming pace. "He's taller than me," Sprite said from behind her fist. "Yes, but you'll catch up before long."

"I don't want to catch up. I want to stay small." Sprite's quick comeback was as belligerent as the set of her chin, but Katherine could hear the tremble in her voice. She avoided the temptation to press for a reason for Sprite's statement. The little girl needed relief now, not close questioning. She needed to be put at ease.

"I used to feel like that," Katherine said.

"When?"

Skepticism way beyond her years added even more of an edge to Sprite's belligerence, but Katherine's voice and manner remained unaltered in their placidity.

"It was the year I got my first two-wheel bicycle. I didn't want to grow too big to ride it. I was seven years old then."

"That's how old I am."

"When's your birthday?" Katherine asked.

"June 14th."

"Flag Day," Katherine said.

"Your birthday's the same time as the Flag Day Parade."

"I never saw a parade on my birthday."

The skepticism was still there, but it came in a somewhat lighter tone, as if she thought Katherine might be making a joke and Sprite was acknowledging she knew that.

"I swear," Katherine said, putting her hand over her heart.

"June 14th is Flag Day, and I'll bet if we looked around we could find a parade. Right on your birthday. Would you like to do that?"

Sprite didn't say anything right away. She studied Katherine, who understood that seek ing a response so soon after they'd met could be tricky. If Sprite chose to answer, that would mean she'd chosen to partic.i.p.ate in a conversation with Katherine which would, in turn, be a major step toward the beginnings of trust.

"Can Coyote come?" Sprite asked at last.

"Sure."

Katherine was careful to keep her voice from showing her excitement at Sprite's response. Keeping the emotional level of their exchange on an even keel was crucial, especially for what Katherine was going to ask next.

"Would you like to go and tell Coyote about it, you and me?"

Sprite tensed a little, and Katherine hoped she hadn't moved too fast. Then Sprite sighed, and her shoulders dropped some of their hunch.

"I don't really know where he is," She said.

"I asked him, but he said he couldn't tell me."

Katherine almost sighed herself, from grateful relief at hearing SPrite's confession. The code had been broken. A small door had opened in the wall that was Sprite Bella-way's defense against the world that made her at least as frightened as she'd just revealed her brother to be. There would be more revelations now, until she had told whatever she happened to know.

"Is he playing hide-and-seek?" Katherine asked. "He's not playing.

He's scared. "

Katherine remained crouched on the floor of the vice princ.i.p.al's office, probing gently for the information she and Vic needed. For the moment, she tried not to think about Coyote and where he might be right now, out there in the world that frightened his little sister so much.

Chapter Six Katherine did have the knack, after all. She was wonderful with kids.

Vic felt his heart swell with pride for her, and he didn't like that.

He'd better not let himself get hung up on her. He didn't need another dead-end relationship. He'd been through too many of those already, scenes that went nowhere from the start, and he hated the whole messy business. Relationships like that just about always ended up not worth the ha.s.sle and hard feelings. Still, as she knelt beside the chair talking softly and smiling so he could almost see her heart shining through, all for the sake of an unhappy little girl, Vic wondered if Katherine Fairchild might be worth just about anything.

When Stefan Piatka leaned forward to speak quietly to Katherine, Vic realized he'd almost forgotten the vice princ.i.p.al was in the room.

"Maybe Sprite could tell us what she thinks Coyote is afraid of,"

Stefan suggested.

Sprite lowered her brows and pouted. She couldn't have made it more clear how little she wanted to talk directly to Stefan if she'd shouted the words out loud.

"I'd like to know what Coyote's afraid of," Katherine said gently.

"Would you mind telling me about that, Sprite?"