Bone on Bone: by Julia Keller

Author:Julia Keller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2018-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Jake Oakes finally answered his phone after six rings. Bell had almost given up, but decided to stick with it. Maybe, she reasoned, it took him a while to get to the phone.

“Yeah.”

“It’s Bell Elkins. Haven’t caught you at a busy time, I hope.”

He laughed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Right. A busy time.”

Self-pity: That was something she’d never expected to hear from Jake Oakes, no matter what had happened to him. It momentarily threw her off. Self-pity didn’t become him.

But then again—maybe he was kidding. Mocking himself. That would be more his style. She’d know for sure after they talked for a few minutes.

“So what can I do for you?” he went on. “What’s Bell Elkins need from a guy who pisses in a plastic bag?”

Jaunty Jake. That was more like it.

His jauntiness used to irk her, back in the day. Back when he was a deputy and she was the prosecutor. She’d wanted her staff to be focused, their tone reflecting the gravity of their task. That task was keeping the peace or, if the peace had been broken, bringing the law to bear upon those who’d done the breaking.

But Jake Oakes was never like that.

He’d grinned his way through the world. He made jokes when jokes were inappropriate. He had annoyed her endlessly. Worse yet, he seemed to sense that he did and thus doubled down on the very behavior that got under her skin. He took visible pleasure in infuriating her on a regular basis.

Funny thing, though: When it came right down to it, there was nobody she’d liked working with better than Jake Oakes. Nobody she trusted more.

“Did you hear about the murder last night?” she said. Some icebreaker, Bell thought. But it was a natural topic; time was, she and Jake would already be on the case, reviewing evidence in her courthouse office. Debating theories. Running down alibis. Dousing their insides with the harsh black coffee that Bell favored.

Caring about criminal justice in Acker’s Gap was a hard habit to break.

“Yeah,” he said. “I took the 911 call. I’m helping out at the courthouse. Nights. Working dispatch.”

Bell didn’t know what to say. That didn’t sound like the kind of thing that would satisfy Jake Oakes.

At least not the Jake Oakes she remembered.

“Good for you,” she said.

“Not my first choice, I’ll grant you. But I don’t have a lot of choices these days.”

There it was again: self-pity.

“You free right now?” Bell said. “I’d like to come over. If it’s convenient.”

He laughed again.

“Yeah, I’ll cancel all the important stuff I’ve got on my schedule today,” he said. “It’ll be hard, but for you—anything.”

She needed to tell him to work on the self-pity. She knew from experience how seductive it could be. And that kind of conversation always went better in person.

* * *

His directions were good, but they didn’t need to be. Bell knew the neighborhood. She’d lived two streets over from Jake’s street when she was in high school; one of the foster families with whom she had spent a portion of her youth had rented a house there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.