Alex Delaware - 01 - When the Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman

Author:Jonathan Kellerman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9781451609851
Published: 2003-11-04T06:00:00+00:00

18

THERE WERE two surprises waiting for me when I got home.

The first was Robin, in my ratty yellow bathrobe, stretched out on the leather sofa, drinking hot tea. A fire burned in the hearth and the stereo played the Eagles’ “Desperado.”

She was wearing a magazine photograph of Lassie around her neck like a miniature sandwich sign.

“Hello, darling,” she said.

I threw my jacket over a chair.

“Hi. What’s with the dog?”

“Just my way of letting you know that I’ve been a bitch and I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” I removed the sign.

I sat beside her and took her hands in mine.

“I was rotten to you this morning, Alex, letting you leave like that. The moment the door closed I started missing you. You know how it is when you let your mind wander around—what if something happens to him, what if I never see him again—you go crazy. I couldn’t work, couldn’t be around machines in that state. The day was blown. I called you but I couldn’t get through. So here I am.”

“Virtue has its rewards,” I muttered under my breath.

“What’s that, sweetie?”

“Nothing.” Any recounting of my minor-league indiscretion would suffer in the retelling, emerging as either a boorish bathroom scribble—‘Yeah, I copped a fast feel from another broad, honey’—or, worse, a confession.

I lay down beside her. We held each other, said nice things, talked baby talk, stroked each other. I was pumped up from the waist down, some of it a residue of the curbside session with Raquel, most of it belonging to the moment.

“There are two giant porterhouses in the refrigerator and a Caesar salad and burgundy and sourdough.” She whispered, tickling my nose with her pinkie.

“You’re a very oral person,” I laughed.

“Is that neurotic, Doctor?”

“No. It’s wonderful.”

“How about this? And this?”

The robe fell open. She kneeled above me, letting it slide down her shoulders. Backlit by the glow of the fire, she looked like a piece of glorious, golden statuary.

“Come on sweetie,” she coaxed, “get out of those clothes.” And she took the matter into her own hands.

“I do love you,” she said later. “Even if you are catatonic.”

I refused to budge, and lay spreadeagled on the floor.

“I’m cold.”

She covered me, stood and stretched, and laughed with pleasure.

“How can you jump around afterwards?” I groaned.

“Women are stronger than men,” she said gaily, and proceeded to dance around the room, humming, stretching more so that the muscles of her calves ascended in the slender columns of her legs like bubbles rising in a carpenter’s level. Her eyes reflected orange Halloween light. When she moved a shudder went through me.

“Keep jiggling like that and I’ll show you who’s stronger.”

“Later, big boy.” She teased me with her foot and leaped away from my grabbing paws with fluid agility.

By the time the steaks were ready Mrs. Gutierrez’s cuisine was a vague memory and I ate with gusto. We sat side by side in the breakfast nook, looking out through leaded glass as lights went on in the hills like the beacons of a distant search party.

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