"Death Of A Princess" Chapter Two

Death Of A Princess

T.C. Barnes, copyright 2013

Chapter 2

 

 

Sheriff Caleb Stone eased his police cruiser to a stop at the end of the long, crushed and tumbled quartzite driveway, and then looked over at the weary dog lolling in the front passenger seat next to him.

“We’re here, girl,” he said, his voice tinged with abject exhaustion.  After six grueling hours, Harley was finally back home.  And, what a home it was.  Built from jutting slabs of granite stone and massive beams of oak and cedar timber, it perched on the edge of an enormous cliff and looked broodingly out over the small township and the thousands of acres of wilderness that lay far below it.  The house almost seemed to be standing staid guard over its domain; keeping vigilant watch in the darkness like a silent sentinel while the town beneath it slept.

Erected in 1882, the house had been in the Archer family for five generations.  Astin Archer, Kayleen’s great-great grandfather, had built it himself with his own two hands, using stones carved out of the mountains, and trees hewn from the hills.  Embraced on the front and right side by thick woods and facing a vertical incline of another few hundred yards of mossy hills and rock on the left, it backed up to a drop of more than two hundred and fifty feet along the entire rear portion of the house.  Oddly enough, looking at it in the moonlight now, it seemed almost as remote right this moment as Caleb imagined it must have appeared the day it was first completed.

The landscape was starkly beautiful, the house, itself, stunning.  With nearly four thousand square feet of indoor living space that thrust stately upwards three towering stories high, it was a marvel of stone and wood ingenuity that merged almost seamlessly into the exquisite surroundings.  In so doing, it practically became a part of the scenery itself – much more like a natural off-shoot of the mountain it was perched upon than any sort of foreign or unwelcome intrusion.  Quite simply, it looked as if it belonged.

Astin Archer had really had quite a knack for blending his architectural masterpieces into their natural environments.  It was for this reason more than anything else that he had been so successful.  His tyrannical, reclusive personality would have otherwise made him a financial failure in a small town such as this.

At the time he had first built the impressive manse over a hundred and thirty years ago, Astin Archer had already begun losing his sanity.  Yet even as his mind had evidently spiraled more and more out of control, his buildings had also become more elaborate, his work ever more popular.  As a result, in the three decades since its incorporation, nearly half of the buildings in the little municipality that surrounded the base of this towering cliff had actually been built by him.  Two years after he had leapt to his death off the balcony that overlooked the austere and jagged bluff, the small, but still elegant town of “Flagship”, North Carolina, had been renamed “Archdale” in his honor.

The tragedy of Kayleen’s entire family tree was not lost on Caleb.  There had been Astin Archer’s suicide, followed thereafter by his wife’s death from cancer and then his son’s fatal heart attack.  Then there had been Kayleen’s mother’s recent stroke, and the loss of her father when she was only just a child; something she’d refused to talk to Caleb about even years later, when they’d ended up becoming so much more than simply friends.

Harley nudged Caleb’s hand with her damp muzzle and whined, breaking his rather rambling train of thought.  It had been a long night, and the hound was undoubtedly as tired as Caleb was by now.  And he had already been putting this off for far too long.

He’d been contemplating this very moment ever since he’d first heard that Kayleen was back in town again a little over seven weeks ago.  She’d come, of course, for her mother’s funeral a few months before that, but he’d studiously avoided going; not really sure, even after all these intervening years, that he was ready to face her under even the best of circumstances - much less the worst.

But then the little girl had gone missing, and Kayleen, having unexpectedly come home yet again, had not really given him much of a choice.  And now that the final moment was here, he still found himself wishing for just a little extra time.  For what, he didn’t even know.  He figured he could wait another decade and he still wasn’t quite sure that he’d find facing her, or his past, any easier.  So, he finally acknowledged resignedly, there was nothing left to do but get on with it.

He creaked the door open and carefully stepped out onto the crunchy, milk-white pebbles.  Every bone in his body ached, every muscle was taut with strain.  He let Harley out of the passenger side and then they both made their way through the yard and towards the house.

Caleb clomped his way slowly over the white marble and gray slate walkway behind the dog, feeling every single day of his 34 years of life.  But before he was even halfway to the door, the massive wooden frame cracked open and threw a shred of light across his path.  Silhouetted there against a dimly-lit backdrop, he could see a dark figure, tall and lithe in the shadows.  The unexpected twinge in his heart told him immediately who it would be.  The voice that greeted him confirmed it.

“Sheriff Stone,” she said formally.  “Terrible news.”

Caleb nodded his head at Kayleen cordially, but resisted the impulse to speak, knowing how his voice might somehow unwittingly betray him.  And that’s when it suddenly hit him; the unexpected realization of how unabashedly greedy his own eyes honestly were for the sight of her.  Hungry to the point of starvation after the past eleven years of not having been able to look at her – not having been able to watch her smile, and cry, and laugh, and sleep.  He grudgingly swallowed his heartache, and the taste was bitter, like crushed aspirin.  But still, he feared that the pain of truly looking at her now might pierce him like a million glass shards.  So instead, he watched the dog.

Harley ran nimbly up the porch steps, stopping to greet her mistress so as to briefly rub her wet nose against Kayleen’s assuredly cool and comforting palm.  She nuzzled there for a moment before padding into the house, heading through the foyer, and then weaving her way straight into the kitchen.  A second later, Caleb heard her big, rough tongue lapping furiously against the sides of her water bowl.

Kayleen made a movement with her hand as she fell back a few steps, indicating for Caleb to follow her.  So he took off his hat and wiped his sweaty brow with the back of one sleeve as he laboriously climbed her tall front stairs.  Once inside, he carefully and abashedly scuffed his grubby boots against her charming little clover and sun-flower ‘Welcome’ mat, gripping his hat tightly enough to break the brim with his right hand while reaching behind him to softly pull the front door shut with the other.

His eyes remained trained on the floor, at the exact spot where he’d lost sight of the dog once she’d entered the kitchen, until Kayleen finally obliged him by turning completely away.  Then he was able to bring his gaze up while simultaneously forcing his legs to move; following helplessly along in her wake as she glided smoothly towards the recently redecorated living room – a warm, open space that, despite her best efforts, still smelled like stale cigarettes and beer.  But even the freckles that trailed along the collar of her long-sleeved, white cotton shirt distracted him, and the way her hair gleamed in its pony tail reminded him of the last night he’d seen her, after which everything had gone to hell and he’d come to the bone-jarring conclusion that he’d lost her forever.

He cleared his throat, which felt dry and raw and when he swallowed, it made an audible click.  ‘Jesus Christ, what am I doing here?’ he thought.  But then it came back in a flood and the emotions washed over him until he felt dizzy and weak.  He was here because of the girl.  And because Kayleen, Kaytie of all the people in this world, Kaytie alone he felt could help him.

When they reached the living room, she turned to face him, and at last he met her eyes.  Like an electric shock, she buzzed through him.  ‘God,’ he thought, ‘she hasn’t changed at all.’  But that wasn’t entirely true.  The crystal blue-gray eyes with gold flecks around the irises were exactly the same; large, darkly lashed, widely set.  Her hair was the same vivid copper-brown – so shiny it almost seemed like burnished gold.  Her nose was still narrow and straight, exactly as he remembered, and her lips were still full and darkly pink, without so much as the tiniest drop of makeup.  Even Kayleen’s skin was exactly the same, as smooth and white as heavy cream, with tiny freckles across her nose and cheeks.  But although he could see no wrinkles, no vestiges of the passage of years, her eyes themselves had aged.  It was as if the knowledge she had gained over the past eleven years was reflected there, and what it literally screamed out to him was an overwhelming anguish.

Was it possible that her past decade without him had been filled merely with sadness and pain?  He had always assumed that she’d run away to be happy, so now his heart clenched agonizingly in his chest at that last thought, and he suddenly found himself at a loss as to what he should say.

He floundered there for a moment, and might’ve been trapped in his inertia forever had she not turned once again and thankfully broken his gaze.  It was then that the blessed numbness began to slowly sink back in.  Some things, he realized, would have to be dealt with sooner or later.  But the only thing that mattered tonight was the here and now.

“Make yourself at home,” Kayleen said softly as she walked back over to her couch and folded herself stiffly against the buttery-colored suede cushions.  Their supple softness appeared capable of sucking her deeply down into them, yet in this awkward situation she appeared unwilling to even minutely try and relax.  Instead, she remained perched uncomfortably along the edge, her hands on her knees, both feet planted firmly side-by-side on the floor; unintentionally and unknowingly looking to Caleb like some sort of errant school girl being dressed down by the principal.  Despite his intentions of staying completely neutral, his mouth unknowingly fashioned itself into the fleeting-ghost of a smile.

Caleb trudged over a short, carpeted expanse, and then settled himself into one of the spare burgundy armchairs with a sighing gust of utter, defeated fatigue.  Unsure of where to begin, and still yet-unable to return her steady gaze, he simply cast his eyes randomly about her cozy new living room, noticing for the first time how different it truly was.  In fact, it was so utterly changed from what he remembered that he didn’t even really recognize it anymore.

The entire space was now tasteful and elegant, and nothing like the dusty, dim room he still recalled so well.  Those memories included cheap, tarnished brass end tables, a cracked vinyl couch sprouting tufts of cotton filler, and mismatched lamps with bulbs that were more often burnt out than not.  The old room had also sported worn, peeling wall-paper and tired, sagging, wooden-planked floors.  Those poor boards had constantly been coated with a fine layer of virtually un-removable grit, had groaned loudly beneath every footstep, and had been scuffed white in bald patches across the thresholds of both of the doors.

Now, everything from the weathered flooring, to the ugly green curtains, to the garish green and yellow, daisy-print wall-paper, had been drastically and quite favorably updated.  Even the old fireplace had been thoroughly cleaned and re-framed in stone and fresh cedar.  The newly-laid, vibrantly stained, cherry-wood floors were polished to a glossy shine.  An expensive Oriental rug nicely offset the creamy suede sofa and the two wine-colored wing-backed chairs that flanked it - one of which, Caleb was currently ensconced in.  Before him sat a brand new stained glass and carved-wood coffee table that was a work of art all by itself.

The lighting was much nicer now, too.  The ambience was rosy and warm from two tall, burnished-silver torchiere lamps that cast a soft, subtle glow across Kayleen’s tense, strained face.  But Caleb didn’t need that tell-tale, revealing illumination to recognize her current discomfort:  he could practically feel it radiating off of her in waves.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he said politely.

“It wasn’t me, it was her,” Kayleen replied, her voice acrid and cold.

Caleb shrugged noncommittally and then leaned his head back against the soft red leather.  He allowed another sigh to pass slowly through him, this one a bit more narrow and stilted than the first.  Then he closed his eyes and slowly pulled his enormous hand across his still-sweaty face.

Kayleen, herself, was closely watching, too, although she was desperately trying to hide it.  She had even clearly noticed the small smile that had faintly curved a small arc across his strong lips for the briefest of instants a few short moments earlier.  Seeing it, she couldn’t help but cringe.  Was he happy to see her then, she wondered?  Even after the way she had ended things so ruthlessly all those years ago?

As much as she might like to believe that, that he had forgiven her for her past transgressions, for some reason, she just couldn’t quite make herself swallow the lie.  No, she was smart enough to realize, and yet also stupid enough to admit, that no man could ever forgive her the kinds of things that she had done.  Not then and not eleven years later.  Quite possibly not ever.  But she was okay with that because really, in the scheme of things, whether or not Caleb could get over the mistakes she’d made as a child absolutely paled in comparison to the terrible and unforgivable mistakes she’d made once she’d gotten out on her own.

But beyond all of that, beyond her faults, her blunders, her screw-ups, her errors; his mere arrival had thrown her for a sideways loop.  And not for anything once shared between them, either.

For a tiny moment, just one little pinprick in time, the sight of him in his Sheriff’s cruiser, stepping out in that same tan uniform that her dad had once worn, had brought-up the barest glimpse of a memory; that, and nothing more.  She wasn’t even sure at this point if it was one of her own memories, or just something that she’d vicariously picked up from looking over yellowed photos across a great, yawning chasm of time.  Still, it had made her heart thud in her chest a bit harder, nonetheless.

Kayleen cleared her throat now, trying to wipe away the sudden and unexpected burn she had just felt when she’d tried to swallow.  But other than that, she remained quiet, refusing to break the silence by saying anything at all.  She figured Caleb should really be the one to broach this next part of their conversation.  They both knew what he was doing there and thankfully, it at least had nothing to do with their past.  It had to do with their present, and if he had his way, their future.

Caleb was trying to figure out the best way to ask for her help in solving the little girl’s murder.  She just hoped like hell that he would go ahead and get it over with.  Then she could turn him down flat and get right on back to her own pathetic and miserable life.  This particular chapter in it would finally be closed, the past would remain in the past, and she and Caleb could finally be done with each other, once - and mercifully - for all.

As she sat there uncomfortably waiting, she felt a bead of moisture slither from behind the bend of her left knee and begin to roll sinuously down her calf.  She realized with a start then that she really was sweating; not only was her brow greased with the sticky stuff, but so were her ribcage and underarms, too.  Anxiety began to clog the entire back of her throat with some sort of sour film, and she could actually even feel her pulse as it thrummed wild staccato bursts against the papery-thin insides of both of her wrists.  She was extremely glad to be sitting now since all of a sudden, her legs began to feel as if her bones had just turned to jelly.  Where was the emotional void she had found herself floundering in only a short while ago?  Now her insides were a turbulent mix of wild emotions.

She’d gotten by somehow, over the past eleven years, with the thought that she’d never have to actually face Caleb ever again.  Yet now, here they were.  And as she rested her eyes once again on his excruciatingly familiar face, she felt the whole room tilt unnervingly around her.  Past was merging into present.  Her world was shifting smoke, unstable, without substance.  And the contact with the couch and her uncomfortable position along the edge of it, barely served to tether her to her current reality.

Now, at this very moment, Kayleen found herself dead-center in the midst of truly looking at him for the very first time.  Ever since he’d walked in, her mind had been cleaved by thoughts of their past.  She’d seen him of course; the hat, the badge above his left pocket, the wide set of his shoulders and his slightly aged face.  But suddenly she found herself comparing the appearance of this grown man who sat before her, to the young adult she had once loved so tumultuously before.

His immense physical presence was the initial thing that struck her.  Even sitting there, slumped over, Kayleen could tell that Caleb was at least several inches taller now.  And yet, he was still every bit as massive as she remembered.

In high school he had played varsity football, and she could tell right away that the past decade hadn’t softened him any.  If possible, he seemed even more solid and muscular today than he’d been back then.  His shoulders still looked big enough to take on the weight of the world, like some kind of modern day Atlas.  But his once newly-burgeoning muscles now resembled smooth skin overtop of bulging, corded steel.  His face had thinned out a little, but the thick, crew-cut, blondish-brown hair, the strong jaw, the full mouth and slanted, deep chocolate brown eyes, were all pretty much the same.

He did have a few beginning wrinkles.  Only they simply added to his appearance, making him seem for the first time ever to her like a man who was a part of this world rather than a perfect god who merely ruled over it.  Yes, he might be a little different, a little more mature from the past eleven years that had marched their way determinedly across the myriad planes of his handsome and charismatic face.  Still, overall he looked just like her same old ‘Caleb’ on the outside.  She couldn’t help but wonder; did the inside of him fare so well?

Finally, he broke her almost helplessly-riveted concentration by lifting his head up and looking straight at her.  Kayleen blinked several times, trying to wipe away the misty film that had, unnoticed, freshly draped itself across her gaze.

Drawing his brows sonorously down over his piercingly broody eyes, appropriately and effectively conveying the gravity of the moment, Caleb slowly began in on what had to have been a dreaded and unwelcome task.  “We found the girl,” he told her heavily.  “She was dead.  Just like you predicted.”

For a moment, Kayleen was simply unable to answer him, feeling so barren, cold and broken; she frankly had nothing left she truly could say.

Caleb let another hushed span of time stretch out between them, giving her a moment to collect her thoughts.  Then he went on hacking away at her defenses again.  Of course he didn’t realize what he was doing.  But Kayleen, she felt the agony of every single, stabbing word.

“How did you know, anyway?” he asked, startling her a bit by the sudden bluntness in his jagged, rough voice.  She knew that tone well.  Caleb only used it when he was terribly upset.

“Know what?” she finally replied.  She remained cautious, her voice still warily cool and decidedly distant.

“That she was not just missing, but murdered.  Deputy Carleton said that when he came by to pick up Harley earlier, you mentioned that the girl was probably not alive anymore.”

“Actually, I wasn’t talking to Deputy Carleton.  I was randomly muttering to myself and he accidentally overheard me.  And it wasn’t some supernatural prediction, either.  It was merely an instinctive, ‘gut’ conclusion, quickly-derived by the facts of your investigation that he’d so casually let slip out.  Young girl, public place, she goes missing:  probably dead.”

Caleb’s manner had been sharp, and hers became no less brittle now.  As much as she had tried to prepare herself for this imposition, this intrusion into her life; work was just something that she could not even begin to pretend to be interested in anymore.  And the discussing the death of a child had the potential to strip her to the core.  What was left of her was bloodied and bruised beyond repair.  And picking away at the raw surface of it would be like scouring away at freshly-formed sores with a handful of Brillo pads.

Beyond that, the visits to flashback-hell, vis-à-vis her love-sick adolescence, were over.  She was done thinking about her past with Caleb.  And, she was also done thinking about this friggin’ case.  The night was growing older by the second, and her hands were already beginning to tremble from severe want of drink.  It was time to turn him down and send him on his way.  Then she’d light up a fresh cigarette, slam back another few shots, and proceed with blurring those irksome, needling memories until they seemed far, far away.

Only, as she was soon to discover, it wasn’t going to be nearly that easy.

“I still don’t get it.  Fill me in,” he persisted stubbornly.  The urgent and obstinate undercurrents beneath his simple words finally began to illuminate the distressing and infuriating reality that he was not going to just let this go.  Not without at least something from her first.  But what, exactly, would he settle for?

She sighed audibly then and said, “Does it really matter Caleb?”

“Yes, it does.  It matters to me.  I know you have more experience with this kind of stuff than I do.  All I’m looking for here is a little help, a tiny window of insight.  Is that too much to ask from you these days?”

And that was a jab to the heart right there.  Because once upon a time, nothing that Caleb could have ever asked of her would have possibly been ‘too much’, and both of them damn well knew it.  Kayleen shook her head in disgust, but wasn’t quite sure who it was even aimed at; Caleb or herself.  It was only a simple conversation.

A little girl had been tragically murdered, and Kayleen had seen similar crimes before – unlike Caleb who had probably never dealt with anything quite as horrific as this during his entire tenure with the Sheriff’s Office.  It couldn’t hurt to just offer him some basic observations, right?  Yeah, right.  Truth be known, it could cut her to the quick.

Yet she didn’t see any way to avoid it without stirring up even more problems than what already lay between them.  And this would be way easier than sifting through those old hurts.  “Okay,” she said finally.  “Okay fine.  I’ll tell you.”

So she started, the words coming slowly at first, as if out of practice with her craft.  But as she talked, the momentum gradually began to build until before long, she was actually back within her work’s own dark and peculiar element once again.

“Alright now, keep in mind I only have the barest of minimums as far as the particulars go: the girl’s age, where she went missing, and so forth.  So, I could be way off-base here.  I’m really not able to state anything with any measure of certainty without having first seen the crime scene pics and the full police report and autopsy notes.  But, going with what I already do know; her age was the first indicator to me that she was likely going to end up being an actual murder victim rather than a simple runaway.”  With these words, Kayleen held up her slender right index finger, indicating to Caleb that this was her ‘Factor #1’.

“Depending on the girl, on how mature she is, from around the age of twelve and up when they go missing, there really is a good chance that they just took off somewhere.  Girls that age like to rebel.  Screw with their mothers a little bit.  Younger than that, they wouldn’t dream of running away.  They’re still scared of strangers – not like little boys who are usually a bit more trusting.  But they are unfortunately still gullible, vulnerable, and easily manipulated.  All kids are, which is why we have child rape-murder rates as high as we do in this country in the first place.  This girl, she was only nine years old.  And she came from a small town.  No way was she just off somewhere messing around.”

Kayleen ticked the next point off on her hand, now holding up two fingers as she spoke, “Second, we have the fact that she went missing from a very public place.  A week and a half-long beauty pageant no less.  Anyone, anywhere, anytime, had access to this girl.  Hotel staff, visitors, participants, passersby.  Public exhibitions like this tend to attract freaks also.  You get all these young girls parading around in these tiny little outfits, hair done up, makeup slathered on.  A pervert’s wet dream.  And when those perverts figure out that the dream just isn’t doing the trick anymore, they sometimes take it a step further.  That’s where you have the last factor.”

She paused almost imperceptibly before holding up a third finger and concluding, “And finally, she had been missing for an extended period by the time that Carleton came for Harley.  Not for just a few hours, not for just an afternoon, but for almost two whole days.  After the first 24 hours have elapsed, the chance that the subject will be found alive decreases dramatically.  Plus, no ransom demands had been phoned in and no letter had been left behind.  It wasn’t about some possible financial jackpot, Caleb.  From what I understand, the parents didn’t have any money, weren’t famous or political, and there would’ve been no reason to try to extort them in the first place.

“No.  This was all about the girl, herself, which means that it was most likely a sexually-motivated crime.  And statistically speaking, by the point in the investigation that you guys came to collect Harley, time had almost unquestionably run out for the little girl.  Abductors, especially sexual predators, rarely keep their victims alive for any length of time after the initial assault; at most, typically only a matter of a few short hours.  Almost two full days into it, and her chances of still being alive considering the other two circumstances…were nearly non-existent.  So, that’s how I knew.  It was merely a matter of putting it all together.”

Listening to her now, Caleb looked beaten and fatalistic.  She knew he was probably berating himself internally for not having done more to find the girl.  Wondering, questioning if the outcome would’ve been different had they only gotten to her sooner.  But knowing damn-well how these predators worked, Kayleen was quite certain her own intuitive deduction was right:  that poor little girl was undoubtedly dead long before they’d even been called to investigate.

Kayleen realized then that her arm was still up in mid-air, the three fingers she’d used to measure out that dead child’s fate still pointing uselessly up towards the ceiling’s wooden rafters.  Slowly, she allowed her hand to drop limply back into her lap.

Completely drained from just that short explanation, she leaned back and took a long moment to simply breathe again.  Yes, she had known full well the actual reasons that she had believed the girl had been killed almost instantly.  But having suspected it all along hadn’t made speaking her theories out loud any easier.  She hadn’t delved into the mind of a killer since Richard Allan Estes himself, and time had not served to soften the blow.  All she wanted to do now was have a few more stiff drinks and then head upstairs to bed.  Forget the girl, forget Caleb, forget everything.  At least for a little while.

Caleb, however, still had other plans.

“We sure could use your help on this one Kaytie,” he told her suddenly.  “I know you’re not working right now, and it seems like a perfect opportunity for you to get involved in our case.”

‘Kaytie’, he’d said.  Hearing him call her that name was like a dash of cold water across her face.  No one called her that.  No one but Caleb.  And the last time she’d heard it, she’d been only seventeen years old and getting ready to leave this small hick town for what she’d assumed would be forever.  The name stung her, made her feel the weight of her guilt.  And it also pissed her off.

“I’m on vacation, Sheriff Stone.  I thought you all knew that,” she bit out, her tone thoroughly mottled with anger.  She had grown used to the anonymity of living in a big city.  Back in D.C., she could go weeks without bumping into even one of her neighbors, and nobody other than her close friends and co-workers appeared to give a damn what she said or did.  But here, it seemed that everyone had known her each and every move, from the moment she’d first stepped out of her car and walked up the front steps of this lonely house nearly two long months ago; trying, rather pointlessly to begin her life anew.

And obviously they’d certainly known all about her visit the time before, too, when she had come back to inter Mother in the family cemetery, and simultaneously pay her pleasantries to the rest of her buried dead.  Unfortunately, word traveled fast in small country hamlets:  notoriously so.  She’d heard the whispers every time she’d gone to the grocery store or taken a walk through town.  People had gleefully availed themselves of her private business, sharing supposed intimate facets of her life between them like tiny nuggets of gold passed from hand to greedy hand, old friends and strangers alike speaking mere dirty gossip about her out loud as if it were the God-given truth.

Considering the snippets of conversation that she, herself, had accidentally overheard, many of their suppositions had been way off base.  And now, it would seem that Sheriff Caleb Elijah Caswell Stone was not exempt from the rumor mill, as well.  She wondered how many useless lies he may have already heard about her and taken straight to heart without a second thought.  Or worse, perhaps he had somehow, through his law enforcement connections, managed to learn the truth.  If that were the case, she wasn’t entirely sure that she could bear it.

“That’s why it makes this a perfect opportunity for you to consult with us.  You can stay here and work on this case as long as you want,” he continued, confirming the fact that he was well-aware that she was on an indefinite leave from the FBI, but also reassuring her, in the short-term at least, that he remained blessedly unaware of the unspeakable events that had led to it.  Had he known, he would’ve never dared to push her so blatantly.

“You’ll have nothing else getting in your way,” he concluded, sickeningly smug with self-satisfaction.  But when she simply sat there, stonily-silent and unmoving, his tone got a little desperate, “You can focus on the facts of this case alone, Kaytie.  We need your help.”

Those solemn, sable eyes of his bored unflinchingly into hers.  They were so damn familiar, so damned intimate.  But the honest truth of it was that he was nothing more than a mildly-threatening stranger to her now.

So she looked away from him, down at her own lap.  Her old, worn jeans had little threads coming unwoven from the soft blue nap.  Intently, she focused on those tiny filaments.  She could hear her grandfather clock ticking relentlessly in the rear hallway, could hear Harley’s nails clicking on the stairs around the bend from them as she finally headed up towards her bed.

“No,” she finally replied; flat, unemotional, non-negotiable.  “And by the way, stop fucking calling me that.  My name is Kayleen.”

“Okay, then.  How much have you had to drink tonight, Kayleen?” he queried casually, his intent rather brutal although his voice remained deceptively mild.

She’d been staring at her thin, long, nervously active fingers as they picked thoughtlessly away at those annoyingly-errant threads.  But with his last comment, she whipped her head up to stare at him in shock.  How had he known?  She was freshly showered, the house was clean, her clothes were recently laundered, and her teeth were thoroughly brushed.

She had so completely isolated herself lately that she hadn’t really even had to worry about hiding her drinking from anyone else before tonight.  Yet even so, she’d assumed she’d done a pretty good job of cleaning up and at least superficially masking the truth.  Well, covering it up good enough to get through this short conversation undetected, anyway.  As a result, his words quite literally blindsided her.  She was instantly mortified and ashamed.  And the fact that Caleb had picked up on it so friggin’ quickly made her feel inexcusably violated, too.

‘Oh, God’, she thought abruptly, a surge of noxious panic funneling nauseously through her veins.  Certainly that wasn’t one of the rumors circulating around town, was it?  Kayleen always went two counties over to stock up on her weekly supply of booze.  So, how in the hell had he known?

“Th-that’s none of your goddamn b-business,” she finally managed to sputter out, well and truly rattled for the first time that night.  Kayleen didn’t have any intention of telling Caleb how long she’d been drinking, or why.  Especially why.  Some things were better off left unsaid, unknown, and buried deep inside.

Caleb sat there silently, simply watching impotently as she set about completely shutting down and shutting him out.  He could see the change quickly settling over her:  the steely glint furiously intensifying within her eyes, the unmistakable straightening of her backbone, the inevitable sharpening of her already thinly-compressed lips.  Finally, he shrugged again.  This time it was almost imperceptible.  He wasn’t trying to convey any frustrations to her by way of it.  He was just acknowledging his own defeat.

Caleb already knew incontrovertibly that he couldn’t force what he wanted out of her.  He’d never been able to take anything from Kayleen Archer that she hadn’t been willing yet to give.  It was one of the things that he’d respected about her, even as it had simultaneously driven him damn-near insane.

But stubborn as a mule in his own right, he wasn’t quite resigned to giving up on the case.  He might go passively along with backing off her personal life, at least for now, but as far as the murder of the O’Neal girl went; he needed her help and he knew it.

Caleb wasn’t exactly sure why she had chosen to come back to town so quickly after her mother’s funeral, and he was even less sure about why she had chosen to stay.  Regardless, he had no intention of letting this golden opportunity slip right through his fingers.  He’d heard from more than one person in the business that Kayleen was one of the most respected FBI profilers around.  As such, there was no way in hell that he was going to be content with settling for a negative answer.  Not now, not later, not ever.

“Hell of a crime scene,” he mentioned softly, beginning his not-so-subtle attempt to gently somehow reel her in.  He figured if he continued to play it cool and friendly, sooner or later, she just might change her mind and acquiesce to his request on her own terms; whatever those terms may be.  But he had underestimated the strength of her vehemence.

“I don’t want to know about it!” she practically screamed.  Against his better judgment, he completely lost his patience.  His face grew flushed and his tone once again became sharp and clipped.

“Look,” he snapped out sarcastically, “just because you get to take a nice little leave of absence from the big ol’ Eff Bee Eye up there in Virginia, doesn’t mean you stop being a fucking cop.  A little girl got killed today.  I thought you might care enough to try and help me figure out why.”

“Well then, you thought wrong.”  Her voice in return was hostile, icy, and unmistakably final.

“Have it your way.  If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”  He stood suddenly and was gone as quickly as he’d arrived, angrily stomping through the house and then slamming the front door behind him as he stormed out.  He strode back across the moonlit path, his face red with indignation, heart heavy with disappointment.

He climbed into his car and gunned the engine, spitting out a spray of white gravel behind each of his spinning tires.  Heading back down the mountain, he found himself jerking against the steering wheel as if trying to strangle it.

“Goddamn her!” he growled to himself, smacking the dashboard with the heel of his hand so fiercely, it sounded like a muffled gunshot.

He careened down the steep, sharp pass like a madman whose ass was on fire.  It was only when he had reached the bottom of her private road and had pulled out onto the rural baseline highway on screaming rubber, that he realized he’d utterly forgotten the one thing that he’d supposedly gone there for in the first place; to thank her for the use of her well-trained bloodhound.