Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Thomas was at the condo at a decent hour—ten p.m.—and had work spread out on the living room table when Yagi entered the room and cleared his throat. "I've got the report from the P.I. on Kate."
"That was quick," Thomas said, leaning back against the couch. He pushed aside the paperwork on the proposed Fiendish Foods launch so he could focus. "Do we need to kill her?"
He was kidding. Sort of. The pang the lame joke sent through him was a little alarming.
Yagi saw no humor in it, and answered bluntly.
"It's hard to say at this point.” He popped in the thumb drive and cued up something on the large TV screen.
A picture of a child with dark hair and a gap-toothed smile came on, her expression one of mischief, with just a little hint of screw-you to it.
"That'd be Kate," Thomas guessed.
"Born Katherine Hong O'Hara, at San Leandro General Hospital, December 28, 1983.
" Yagi consulted the notes in the accompanying folder.
"Mother is Trang Thi O’Hara, a nurse at San Leandro General Hospital.
Father is Terrence O'Hara, currently working on the San Leandro police force but searching for side work. "
"Kate said she needed the job," Thomas said, making the connection. “Are they having financial trouble?”
"Looks like. We pulled their financials. Parents gave some money to the father’s brother, Oscar—which, strangely enough, Kate also did. Her parents are in for twenty-five thousand, however, and they took out a second mortgage to do so. His hours have been cut.”
“So Kate’s helping them out.” Another twinge of guilt pinched him.
“That's exactly the leverage someone could use to force her to betray you," Yagi pointed out.
Thomas took a deep breath. “We’ll put a pin in that. Keep going.”
Yagi nodded, then turned back to the file. "Her older brother Timothy is a detective for the Oakland P.D. Homicide."
"Of course he’s in homicide," Thomas groaned. "So they’re all local. Been here for years, I imagine."
"The father's family is from the area. Kate's paternal grandmother has a bit of a slum lord enterprise, owns a number of run-down apartment buildings.
Her mother grew up in Southern California, after her parents fled the fall of Saigon.
Kate her family moved from San Leandro to San Diego when she was eight. "
The slide show clicked forward to an unhappy-looking child in a green and black plaid schoolgirl uniform, with a green blazer.
She was standing in front of a McMansion-styled house, with a large palm tree in the yard.
Her dark brown hair was held back with a tie-dyed bandana.
That screw-you look was more pronounced, Thomas noticed.
"In her teen years, her father moves the family to San Clemente, a town about an hour north of San Diego," he said.
"Beach community, very rich. Dad's job was head of security for a gated housing development.
It looks like he got the job because the developer of the community was an old school friend. "
Thomas stared at Kate's unhappy expression. "Guess Kate wasn't too happy about the switch."
"She did get expelled from the first Catholic school they'd put her in. but since the same thing had happened in San Leandro, it’s hard to tell if she was unhappy or if it was a continuing pattern."
"Expelled?"
"In San Leandro, she was expelled for behavior issues.
Specifically, she asked too many questions," Yagi said, with the tiniest glint of humor in his eyes.
"According to the reports, her mother blames the neighbors who babysat her during the day, while the parents worked.
‘Communists and aging hippies’ apparently. "
"I see." Thomas chuckled. "Well, this would be the area for that sort of thing, I'd guess. What happened in San Clemente?"
Yagi's expression sobered. "It seems that she just kept asking the wrong questions. And she got into a fight with a classmate. She claims she was standing up for another kid who was being bullied, but she was the one who got expelled. That’s where I start to get worried.”
“What, her standing up to a bully?” Thomas asked. “Seems like a good thing to me.”
"It's pointing to a pattern. She has a tendency of getting into trouble when standing up for the underdog." He paused for a beat. “The wrong thing, for the right reasons. Who does that remind me of?”
"Shut up," Thomas said absently. "They were down in San Clemente. What brought them back?"
"The pattern repeated." Another click of the remote, and the next picture came up. "Specifically, when Kate was sixteen."
Thomas gawked. Then grinned.
Fast forward to the teen years. Kate was wearing a Radiohead T-shirt over shapeless jeans.
Her smile was shy, showing the slightest glint of braces.
And her red hair was pulled up in the ponytail he was so accustomed to.
Glasses—round, not squared like her current ones—were slipping down her cute nose.
She was adorable.
"She met David Millday, and things went steadily downhill.
" Yagi clicked to another picture. This one was of a teenage boy, good looking enough, in a nerdy way.
Glasses, too, and straggly long brown hair.
He looked... soft, Thomas thought with disdain.
"David was apparently her boyfriend. They appeared to be very involved, considering she went on the birth control pill at around that time. "
Thomas blanched. "How the hell do you know that?"
"The next time you wonder at my P.I.'s bill, you'll know where the money goes.
The man is quite thorough." Yagi said. "At this time, she’d transferred from the Catholic school where she was expelled to a very exclusive private academy, again thanks to the father's friend.
She seemed to be quite unhappy. Her school attendance was suffering, as were her grades.
David was from Oceanside, a nearby town with a markedly less affluent population—"
"I see where this is going," Thomas muttered. "Star crossed love, yadda yadda. Parents disapproved?"
"They did after David's family got busted for their pot growing ring," Yagi said, and Thomas’s eyes widened. "David's father went to jail, and David’s mother moved the rest of the family, and they blamed her. I guess the 'tip' came from a boy at her school."
"One who was in love with her?” he guessed. She really was cute as all hell, even with braces and glasses. He could see a hormonal teenager going a little crazy over her.
"One who had a rival pot growing scheme and who was on the right side of the tracks," Yagi corrected. "Here’s where her pattern goes one step further. She managed to get herself arrested again, this time for breaking into the kid’s house and calling the cops herself, to guarantee that they’d find the pot and actually bust the kid.
She was willing to fall on the sword to get justice. ”
“Damn.” Thomas had to admire the woman’s gumption. She managed to do all that as a teen. “So what happened?”
“The kid did get punished, and Kate’s father managed to get her record was sealed. But too much damage was done.” He paused a beat. “Guess who the boy’s dad was?"
Thomas frowned, then he let out a deep breath. “Don’t tell me. Her father's friend—the one who set him up with the cush job."
"It sounds like there was an attempt to bribe her father, to get him to cover it up.
Maybe even somehow have Kate take the fall for the kid's pot growing, admit that she was crazy and had set it all up to frame the boy," Yagi said with distaste.
"A clumsy attempt, at best—although I suspect that she went to her father first, and he didn’t listen to her.
At any rate, Kate was expelled, her father lost his job, and the whole family moved back in with the paternal grandmother, returning here to the Bay Area. "
"Well, I see where her trouble making and people-saving tendencies come from," Thomas said. "She's a terror, with good intentions. But I'm not seeing how that makes her the demons’ best friend. I'm also not seeing why we have to kill her."
"I still can't quite figure out what her connection with the demons is," Yagi admitted, his tone a bit surly at the fact. "Right now, I just know that she’s got a talent for acting righteously and creating disaster. And I’d strongly recommend that we get rid of her."
"Are you sure we can just get rid of such a dangerous, force-of-nature type employee like Kate?" Thomas said, half-joking.
"I can make it look like an accident," Yagi replied. "If it's a concern, I assure you she won't feel a thing."
"Knock it off. You know how I feel about that." His tone was sharper than usual, mostly because he really couldn’t tell if Yagi was joking. "I’m not having you kill anyone. Especially not Kate O’Hara.”
Yagi's eyebrow went up. Thomas realized he’d sounded a touch too vehement.
"Unless she's working for Cyril," Thomas added. "Then all bets are off."
He clicked back to her sixteen-year-old picture. The shy smile.
She’s still got that smile. Not all the time, but when he’d seen it… just the thought of it warmed him.
"Anything else you want to tell me about her?"
"We're still working on it," Yagi said. "She moved to the Bay Area, attended Skyline High, went to Berkeley for school, majored in Sociology."
"Of course she did." It fit in with her anti-corporate “save the world” attitude.
"Then switched to English, with a minor in Women’s Studies."
Thomas rolled his eyes. "Much more practical."
"We're still doing the research, but it seems like she's mostly just been a temp, repeating her pattern of finding something to rescue, creating some sort of havoc, and then getting kicked out or walking away," Yagi said. “Her overall report suggests she doesn’t conform and has issues with authority figures.”
"Now that," Thomas said, "I can absolutely believe."
"Thomas, this is serious,” Yagi said, and his expression was stern. “She’s an unknown quantity, and when I say she’s trouble, I mean she’s going to be trouble for you, and the cause you’re paying me to pursue.”
Thomas was shaken. “She’s a wide-eyed idealist. I think we can take her.”
Yagi didn’t crack a smile. “I’d rather deal with someone truly evil, because at least I’ll understand his motivations. Give me a psychotic serial killer any day. Altruists? They’re time bombs.”
“I'll take my chances."
“That’s the thing,” Yagi said somberly. “In her case, you really are taking chances.”
Thomas frowned at Yagi’s retreating figure.
Maybe he was too attracted to Kate; maybe he liked being around her a little too much.
And yes, she had a streak of do-gooding that was sort of powerful.
She might annoy him within an inch of his life, drive him crazy on a number of levels.
But pose a threat to getting his soul back?
He ignored the tingle of unease that skittered across his spine.
Nope, he consoled himself. No way in hell.