Birthday Girl by Niko Wolf

Author:Niko Wolf [Wolf, Niko]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529366655
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2022-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

His woes continue in the shower, which sputters, thin and lukewarm, then blasts him in the face with a jet of scalding water. He fills the basin from the cold tap and fetches a washcloth, holds it to his burning skin. Laura has suggested they try “one last time” to sit down and discuss the Ben situation as a family—the very next time they can both catch him at home, that is. Meanwhile, she will take one more look around for the watch. And if it doesn’t show up, they’ll take the matter up with the insurance company.

He examines his face in the mirror, the skin tight and painful, like a bad sunburn. Is a criminal born, he thinks, or created? Nature or nurture, the eternal question. Whether the blame lay with the parent, or within the child itself. One more question that, right now, he’s not sure he wants the answer to.

He fills the basin a second time, resoaks the washcloth. As Ben’s father, was he fooling himself? The money, the multiple pairs of fancy sneakers, the casual references to restaurants even he and Laura would think twice about dropping cash on. He pulls the plug, watches the water swirl and vanish into oblivion. Red flags. All the telltale signs have been there. Once you got away with one thing, once the people around you have proven themselves gullible and blind, it was like one of Ben’s video games: What was to stop you moving up to the next level?

He recalls Ben in the park as a small boy. Laura had asked whether he remembered playing hide-and-seek with his mom. “I remember everything like it was yesterday,” Ben had replied somberly. Father and son hadn’t always had the easiest relationship.

Jonathan finds a clean towel, dries himself down in the bedroom in front of CNN. Magazines, restaurants, designer clothes—there is not only a shadow side, but a distinctly shallow one to Ben. And yet, underneath it all, he senses an inner resolve. A steely, almost cold-blooded resourcefulness. “How do you think this is going to end?” If Ben did end up in jail, he thinks, with an inward shudder, his son would find a way to survive.

He rubs the towel harder across his shoulders, down his legs for a second time, but can’t seem to get dry. He sniffs at the skin on his arm. That funky salt smell again. He goes to the sink and scrubs at it. How much does Ben remember about the first years of his life? He was barely four when his mother went missing, yet the boy remains fiercely loyal to her memory. As for himself, wrapped up in work, high on his newfound success, he had not always been the best parent. There’s a look he’s been getting from Ben recently as well. Something in the eyes that he can’t name, and doesn’t like. Some spark of secret knowledge Jonathan doesn’t have the courage to delve into. But for Laura, he can tell, it’s now or never.

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