MULTIPLE MOTIVES (The Kate Huntington mystery series Book 1) by Kassandra Lamb

in her notepad. At some point, Phillips would ask, with that smirky tone Kate had grown to hate, if she had seen her friend Mr. Franklin lately.
    When she turned the tables and asked about the investigation, she got the typical stonewall answers. “The investigation is ongoing. We are following all leads.”
    The second time the detective and his shadow had returned had been two days after the memorial service. Kate knew Rob would be angry with her for not calling him, but she hadn’t been able to dredge up the energy to make the call. And she definitely had no desire to sit around making small talk with the obnoxious policeman while they waited for Rob to shake free of his other duties to join them.
    Besides, Phillips hadn’t asked her anything she hadn’t already answered. When he’d requested the use of her bathroom, she assumed he wanted to snoop around. Normally such an intrusion would have pissed her off, but that day she was too depressed to care. Once he was out of the room, she’d begged Officer Hernandez to tell her what was going on in the investigation.
    The young woman hesitated, then said, “Not much to tell, ma’am. Perp didn’t give us much to go on. Homemade pipe bomb. Not that hard to make. Anyone can find out how on the Internet. If there’s anything you can think of that you haven’t already told us, it might help.”
    Kate searched her brain again for anything she could offer, and indeed a new idea occurred to her. She’d told them that she had no enemies, but maybe that wasn’t true.
    When Phillips returned to the room, Kate said, “Detective, I don’t know of any personal enemies. But in the work I do, not everyone is happy with me at the end of the day. There are some spouses and abusive parents out there who think I’m the devil incarnate because I helped their mate or grown child stand up to them. Not to mention I’ve reported a few child abusers through the years, some of whom have ended up in jail.”
    Phillips nodded to Officer Hernandez and she poised pen over notepad. “And what are the names of these people who might be mad enough to do you harm?”
    At that moment, Kate had realized this could go no further. She could give him the names of the abusers she’d reported–that information was already available to him. But she couldn’t break confidentiality and give out details about clients’ cases, on the off chance that someone connected to them might have decided to take revenge against her.
    She was ethically and legally required to keep clients’ names and any information about them to herself. Even if she strongly suspected someone connected to a client was Eddie’s murderer, technically she should get the client’s permission before revealing details about the case to the police. Otherwise, she’d risk losing her psychotherapy license.
    Although if she actually knew who the killer was, she’d tell the police in a heartbeat and her license be damned.
    The ding of the parking garage elevator broke into her reverie. As she stepped off the elevator, she double-checked the aisle number she’d scribbled on the time-stamped ticket.
    Three cars away, her steps faltered. She stared dumbfounded at her new Prius. The back window and one of the taillights were shattered.
    Assuming it was random vandalism, kids busting out car windows, she looked around. The cars near hers were intact. Confused, her mind searched for some other logical explanation for the damage, as if expecting to see a blown-down tree in the middle of a cement-and-steel parking garage.
    She approached her car. The back seat was covered with tiny shards of glass. She looked up at the sound of a car door slamming. A young couple was getting out of a red sports car in the next aisle.
    With a jolt, she realized that whoever did this could still be nearby. The young couple’s presence might be the only thing preventing an attack on her. Heart pounding, she almost dropped her keys as she struggled to unlock the