The Girl Who Took What She Wanted by David Handler

Author:David Handler [Handler, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Jack’s Countach was crowded in the apron of the driveway with Kenny’s Volvo, Enid’s Saab, Mona’s Toyota Corolla, George’s Jeep, Rory’s Ford-150 pickup, and the boys’ Kawasakis. Nikki’s bullet-riddled Porsche was parked in the garage next to Rita’s Mercedes. The sight of it there hit me harder than I’d expected. I pulled Lisa’s BMW into its garage space, then Lulu and I got out and went up the front path. The front door to the house was unlocked.

The first thing I saw was Rita standing in the middle of the living room clutching on to her ex-husband and wailing, “My baby’s gone, Jack! I held her in my arms when she was born and now she’s gone and I’ll never, ever see her again!”

“I know, Rita. I know.” Jack held his sobbing ex-wife in his arms, looking both grief-stricken and incredibly uncomfortable. “They’ll find out who did this awful thing to her and he will be one sorry son of a bitch.”

“But it won’t bring her back!”

“You’re right, it won’t,” he said, his voice heavy with sadness.

She released him and reached for her glass on the coffee table. Whatever she was drinking was brown and had two ice cubes in it. My guess was Scotch, and she’d had plenty. Her arm wavered more than slightly as she grabbed it, and the rim of the glass conked unappealingly against her top teeth when she gulped some down.

Jack, who Lamp told me had sped to the murder scene straight from his office, wore a handsomely tailored black Armani suit. I’d only seen him in casual clothes before. Dressed for work, he looked much more like the powerful Hollywood shark that he was. He gazed at me, tight-faced, before he said, “This has to be the worst day of my life. And poor Pam, finding Nikki floating there in our pool. I won’t ever forget her voice on the phone when she called me. She was hysterical, Hoagy. Utterly hysterical.”

“How is she doing now?” I asked as Lulu stood beside me, gazing up at him.

“Better. Nursing a glass of wine at the bar the last time I checked on her.”

“And how are you doing?”

“Nikki was the best and the worst of me. She was me. I don’t know how I’ll get through this. I really don’t.” He ran his hand over his hair. “I guess you and I won’t be in business together after all, will we? There’s no book without her.”

“No, there’s not. A shame, actually. Nikki and I had a terrific talk this morning. Really hit it off. I think we would have worked well together.”

“I’ll talk to Alberta when I get a chance. See if we can arrange some form of compensation for your time.”

“You’ve already done that, Jack. You don’t owe me anything.”

“So you’ll be heading back to New York?”

“Actually, Lieutenant Lamp has asked me to stick around for a couple of days.”

Jack’s eyes widened slightly. “He doesn’t consider you a suspect, does he?”

“No, not at all. Or at least I hope not.

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