Page 30 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
Of course, really. Lilith had to establish her authority swiftly, and if she did not she would stretch out this whole wretched ordeal until she was satisfied she was dominant. With Lilith, it was simply easier to let her have her way.
Kateri leaned on her stick and her desk to straighten herself, walked around the desk and met Lilith as she half-rose.
Lilith offered her cheek.
Kateri kissed it.
There. Dominance established.
Lilith’s nose wrinkled. “This place smells like dirty socks. You should command your staff to get in here and do some serious cleaning. Then get an interior decorator in to improve the décor.”
Oh boy. People unclear on the concept. “The sheriff’s department gets its funding from the county council and the county council and the city council work in absolute opposition to each other until it comes to funding. At that point they agree that luxuries like excess janitorial staff and raises for public servants are unnecessary.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t afford an interior decorator.” Kateri retreated to her desk. “What can I do for you, Lilith?” For there was never a doubt she would be doing the favor.
“Katherine, I bring bad tidings.” Lilith donned her sad face. “Our father, Neill Palmer… is dead.”
“Iknowwhat his name is.” Kateri only wished she did not. “On the other hand, my name is Kateri. Not Katherine.”
“Isn’t Kateri the Native American version of Katherine?”
“Yes. They are as similar as Sean and John. One is not an acceptable substitute for the other.”
Kateri might as well be finger-spelling for all the notice Lilith displayed. Lilith said, “Yes. About our father…”
Kateri sighed. “Our father.” The man had twice ruined her mother’s life, once when he got her pregnant and abandoned her, and again when he had snatched his bastard daughter Kateri from the wilderness of Western Washington, took her to Baltimore and placed her in his bleak and glorious marble mansion. He cared nothing about Mary’s grief at losing her daughter. He had cared nothing about his wife and daughter’s horror at being saddled with a Native American savage. Most especially he had cared nothing for Kateri’s homesickness and unhappiness.
Now he was dead.
Kateri wished she could say she didn’t care. But every time she thought of her mother’s broken life, she burned with loathing. And to say she burned was not a metaphor; her hatred made her blood hot, her face flush, her stomach… burn.
Rainbow had lectured her about carrying that kind of destructive baggage, and in theory, Kateri agreed. But although she had meditated, prayed and lectured herself, still the mention of her father’s name made her remember… and burn.
Lilith said, “He departed this life as he had lived, a good man who fought a good fight—”
Kateri gave herself extra points for not snorting.
“—But in the end he could only succumb to the cancer that broke his body…” Lilith was watching Kateri all too closely. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I suspected.”
“Why did you suspect, sister?”
“He sent me a package. Since I hadn’t heard from him since I begged him to get me into the Coast Guard Academy, I figured something was up. Imminent death. Sudden insanity.” Perhaps that was a little cold.
Lilith seemed not to notice. “What did the package contain?”
“The raven.”
“Edgar Allan Poe’s raven.”
“That’s right.”
“What else?”
What else?A photo album filled with pictures of her father and her mother taken during that summer when he romanced the Indian maiden named Mary and Mary fell in love with a man who didn’t exist. “Nothing.”
