Self-Defense by JONATHAN KELLERMAN
Self-Defense by JONATHAN KELLERMAN
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
About the Author
By Jonathan Kellerman
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Copyright Page
To my daughter Ilana,
a fine and magical mind, a sweet soul,
and, always, music
CHAPTER
1
She smiled, as usual.
From her chair she had a fine view of the ocean. This morning it was a wrinkled teal sheet gilded with sunrise. A triangle of pelicans reconnoitered overhead. I doubted she’d notice any of it.
She moved around a bit, trying to get comfortable.
“Good morning, Lucy.”
“Good morning, Dr. Delaware.”
Her purse was at her feet, a huge macramé bag with leather straps. She had on a light blue cotton sweater and a pleated pink skirt. Her hair was fawn-colored, sleek, shoulder length with feather bangs. Her slender face was lightly freckled, with great cheekbones and fine features ruled by huge brown eyes. She looked younger than twenty-five.
“So,” she said, shrugging and still smiling.
“So.”
The smile died. “Today I want to talk about him.”
“Okay.”
She covered her mouth, then removed her fingers. “The things he did.”
I nodded.
“No,” she said. “I don’t mean what we’ve already been over. I’m talking about things I haven’t told you.”
“The details.”
She squeezed her lips together. One hand was in her lap, and her fingers began to drum. “You have no idea.”
“I read the trial transcript, Lucy.”
“All of it?”
“All the crime-scene details. Detective Sturgis’s testimony.” Private testimony, too.
“Oh . . . then I guess you do know.” She glanced at the ocean. “I thought I’d dealt with it, but all of a sudden I can’t get it out of my head.”
“The dreams?”
“No, these are waking thoughts. Images float into my head. When I’m at my desk, watching TV, whatever.”
“Images from the trial?”
“The worst things from the trial—those photo blowups. Or I’ll flash on facial expressions. Carrie Fielding’s parents. Anna Lopez’s husband.” Looking away. “His face. I feel like I’m going through it all over again.”
“It hasn’t been that long, Lucy.”
“Two months isn’t long?”
“Not for what you went through.”
“I suppose,” she said. “The whole time I sat there in that jury box, I felt as if I was living in a toxic waste dump. The grosser the testimony got, the more he enjoyed it. His staring games—those stupid satanic drawings on his hands. As if he was daring us to see how bad he was. Daring us to punish him.”
She gave a sour smile. “We took the dare, all right, didn’t we? I suppose it was an honor to put him away. So why don’t I feel honored?”
“The end result may have been honorable, but getting there—”
She shook her head, as if I’d missed the point. “He defecated on them! In them! After he—the holes he made in them!” Tears filled her eyes.
“Why?” she said.
“I couldn’t even begin to explain someone like him, Lucy.”
She was silent for a long time. “Everything was a big game for him. In some ways he was just like an overgrown kid, wasn’t he? Turning people into dolls so he could play with them. . . . Some kids play like that, don’t they?”
“Not normal kids.”
“Do you think he was abused the way he claimed?”
“There’s no evidence he was.”
“Yes,” she said, “but still. How could someone . . . could he really have been in some kind of altered state, a multiple personality like that psychiatrist claimed?”