Flesh And Blood by Jonathan Kellerman

Milo and Rick sometimes drank at The Cloisters. “I know the place.”

His brows climbed higher. “Do you. So why haven’t I seen you before?”

“I’ve driven by.”

“Ah,” he said. “Well my Bombay martinis are works of art, so feel free to breeze in.” His face grew grim. “Listen to me, Lauren’s gone and I’m sitting here prattling— No, Doctor, she never gave me a clue as to where she was headed. But till Mrs. A called I can’t say I was ready to panic. Lauren did go away from time to time.”

“For a week?”

He frowned. “No, one or two nights. Weekends.”

“How often?”

“Maybe every two months, every six weeks—I can’t really recall.”

“Where’dshego?”

“One time she told me she spent some time at the beach. Malibu.”

“By herself?”

He nodded. “She said she rented a motel room, needed some time to decompress, and the sound of the ocean was peaceful. As for the other times, I don’t know.”

“Those weekends, did she usually take her car?”

“Yes, always. … So this is different, isn’t it?” He rubbed his armband tattoo, wincing as if the art were new, the pain fresh. “Do you really think something’s wrong?”

“I don’t know enough to think anything. But Mrs. Abbot seems to be worrying.”

“Maybe Mrs. A’s getting us all overwrought. The way mothers do.”

“Have you met her?”

“Only once, a while back—two, three months ago. She came to take Lo out to lunch and we chatted briefly while Lo got ready. I thought she was nice enough but rather Pasadena, if you know what I mean. Coordinated ensemble, several cracks past brittle. I saw her as a perfect fiftiesperson—someone who’d drive a Chrysler Imperial with all the trimmings and pile the backseat full of Bullocks Wilshire shopping bags.”

“Conservative,” I said.

“Staid,” he said. “Theatrically sad. One of those women fighting the future with mascara and matching shoes and tiny sandwiches with the crust trimmed.”

“Doesn’t sound like Lauren.”

“Hardly. Lauren is tres natural. Unaffected.” The washcloth was wadded once more. “I’m sure she’s fine. She has to be fine.” He sighed, massaged the tattoo some more.

I said, “So the time you met Mrs. Abbot, she and Lauren went out to lunch.”

“Long lunch—must’ve been three hours. Lo came back alone, and she didn’t look as if she’d had fun.”

“Upset?”

“Upset and distracted—as if she’d been hit on the head. I suspected something emotional had gone on, so I fixed her a gimlet the way she likes it and asked if she wanted to talk about it. She kissed me here”—he touched a rosy cheek—”said it wasn’t important. But then she drank every drop of that gimlet and I just sat there emitting that I’m-ready-to-listen vibe—it’s what I do, after all—and she—” He stopped. “Should I be telling you this?”

“I’m beyond discreet,” I said. “Because of what I do.”

“I suppose. And Lauren did say she liked you. … All right, it’s nothing sordid, anyway. She simply told me she’d spent her childhood fighting not to be controlled, had made her own way in the world, and now her mother was trying to do the same old thing, again.”

“Control her.”

He nodded.

“Did she say how?”

“No— I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m just not comfortable flapping my trap. There’s nothing more to say, anyway. That’s the entire kit and caboodle.”

I smiled at him. Didn’t budge.

He said, “Really, I’ve told you everything—and only because I know Lo liked you. She came across your name in the paper, some kind of police case, said, ‘Hey, Andrew, I knew this guy. He tried to straighten meout.’ I made some remark—how it obviously hadn’t taken. She thought that was runny, said maybe it was patients like her who’d driven you to quit doing therapy and work with the cops. I”— his cheeks flamed—”I made some crack about shrinks being more screwed up than their patients, asked if you were . . . like that. She said no, you seemed pretty . . . I think conventional was the word she used. I said, how boring, and she said no, sometimes conventional was exactly what you needed. That she’d screwed up, not making good use of her therapy, but looking back it had all been a setup anyway.”

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