Book 1 of the H&K Series : Path of Knowledge

Chapter 2

It was nearly nine o'clock by the time the arson squad and police officers had departed. Hank and Bob entered the house.

"Bob, I can't stay here tonight," Tess said.

"Why don't we go to dinner?" Katharine suggested. "That's what we were supposed to be doing anyway. And we can try to forget about all this."

The four agreed to take Hank and Katharine's SUV to a nice restaurant and bar. When they were seated, the waitress asked if they wanted to place an order for drinks while they looked at the menu.

"I think we'll wait awhile to order dinner. Why don't you bring us a few drinks from the bar?" Hank suggested.

After the waitress took their drink orders, she disappeared. She reappeared a few minutes later with two wines for the ladies and two Guinnesses for the men. The three watched as Tess downed her wine in one gulp, her hands shaking.

"Want mine, cuz?" Katharine offered. Tess took Katharine's drink and downed it in one gulp.

The waitress was still standing at the table.

"Can we have four more wines please, miss?" Hank asked as Bob put his left hand on Tess's right hand. Her shaking slowed under his soft, tender touch. She turned to him and kissed him.

"Well, I don't know about any of you, but I need to use the ladies' room," Katharine announced. "Care to join me, Tess?"

Tess got up, kissed Bob, and slid her hand from under Bob's to walk with Katharine to the ladies' room.

"You haven't said or asked anything, Hank," Bob observed.

"It's none of my business unless you want to divulge something," he stated.

"Don't say anything to Tess, but she was attacked at work by a coworker. But that isn't what's frustrating her." Bob took a long swig of his Guinness. "One of the doctors associated with the hospital, someone we thought of as a good friend, propositioned to have an affair with her."

Hank sipped his Guinness as he listened but also observed one of the would-be arsonists wearing a baseball cap pulled down to obscure most of his face as he weaved his way through the crowded bar area, glancing toward their table nonchalantly. No one seemed to be with him.

"This doctor wouldn't be Doctor Martin, would it?" Hank asked. "He's the only doctor I have seen at any of your cookouts or get-togethers."

"Actually, it was," Bob replied.

Once they entered the ladies' room, Tess's frustration grew. Her hands clenched into fists as she began to pace about the ladies' room like a caged lioness. Luckily, the ladies' room was vacant for the moment. Katharine watched her cousin as she paced furiously about and waited.

Finally, Tess got herself under control as she locked the ladies' room door. Then everything flooded forth as Tess stepped close to Katharine. Katharine listened without saying a word.

"Oh my god," Tess said starting to pace again. "I now know why he was always shadowing me whenever we all got together. He would never offer to help but always lurked nearby. He even cornered me in the kitchen a couple of times and tried to kiss me. When I pushed him away, he said he was just playing. He even walked into my bedroom once while I was changing into my bathing suit. I guess I was lucky Shannon was with me." Shannon was her seven-year-old daughter.

"You need to tell Bob all of this," Katharine told her. Her concern for her cousin intensified with the new revelation.

"He knows about today," Tess replied.

"No, I mean everything else. All the times he tried or said things. He needs to know everything."

When the two exited the ladies' room, a line had formed. They walked straight to the table where their husbands had begun to worry about what was taking them so long.