Free Mortal Danger by Ann Rule Page A

on their flight to Georgia, where they would begin their series, did he hand her an outline of what he wanted her to say.
    When Kate, using her airline passes, flew as a passenger with John, he seemed very comfortable with flying and showed no fear. “The only thing that upset him,” she would remember sardonically, “was when we couldn’t get seats together. If I sat next to a good-looking stranger, John was convinced he was making moves on me or that I was flirting.”
    With so little preparation on their first venture, Kate was very nervous. Fortunately, the audience was kind and receptive, and complimented her after she spoke. She felt confident, but later, in their hotel room, John belittled her and berated her for “screwing up.” She could see he resented even her small success. First she was mortified, then furious.
    As long as she was with him, he remained calm and confident. He had told her in the beginning that his wife had always been there for him, and that he would expect that of her, too. And she’d promised to stand beside him. However, she hadn’t realized how dependent he would be on her. Sometimes, he was almost like a child who neededto hold his mother’s hand. But in front of an audience, he could be a magnanimous and totally competent performer who held a roomful of people in thrall.
    “There came a trip,” Kate recalled, “when everything went wrong. We’d recently returned from the Canadian tour, and I had my ‘speaking outfit’ dry-cleaned. I picked it up, threw it in my suitcase, and we left to fly to Lansing, Michigan. The morning of the presentation, I put on the outfit only to discover it had shrunk considerably!”
    There wasn’t time to buy anything else, so Kate slid the pants down to her hip bones so they reached her ankles. This didn’t leave even a full inch for her tunic top to cover the waistband of her slacks.
    She got on stage feeling ridiculous, knowing she had to maintain perfect posture, as she had no room for error lest her bare stomach show.
    “I was so nervous. I decided just to ‘zen’ the situation,” Kate said, “so I simply spoke from my heart. Apparently I connected with the audience, who were most complimentary to me, but a couple of people added almost as an afterthought, ‘You were good, too, Dr. John….’
    “That was the last time I was allowed to take the stage.”
     
    She still loved him, but try as she might, Kate could not avoid seeing emerging aspects of John’s personality that continued to disturb her. She’d known from the beginning that he had a strong ego; back then, it had been part of his charm, but it wasn’t so much any longer.
    Why did he have to build his ego by sacrificing hers?
    They stayed with Mannatech for five years after returning to the company, and they didn’t mind the sporadic traveling. They went home to Gold Beach when they could. It was much like the kind of book tour I do as an author—a different city every night. They began their first Mannatech tour in Florida and Georgia, crossed Canada in five days, and headed east to Michigan, where their tour ended. Kate and John flew from city to city most of the time and stayed in nice hotels when they landed. Many of the Mannatech presentations had a festive—almost partylike—air.
    Still, Kate often longed for their quiet cabin in the woods in Oregon. It was a place where she felt serenity and safety, where even the wild deer and their fawns felt little fear. She flew her two-day trip for American once a year and remained on the active roster.
    John loved Oregon, too, and they were able to stay in Gold Beach most of the time. They were getting by financially, but Kate could have made more if she’d flown full-time. John wouldn’t hear of that. He was restless. Kate had long since accepted that it didn’t matter what he was doing; he grew bored easily and began to formulate plans for new enterprises. He was like a butterfly—lighting on a firm base, then