JONATHAN KELLERMAN. THERAPY

Blue smoke rose toward the ceiling. Quick inhaled deeply, sat down, and laughed harshly.

“I quit five years ago. Sheila thinks it’s gracious to leave these out for guests, even though no one smokes anymore. Like the good old days in Hollywood, all that crap. Her sister tells her about Hollywood crap . . .” He stared at the cigarette, flicked ash on the carpet, and ground it into the pile with his heel. The resulting black scorch mark seemed to give him satisfaction.

I said, “Did Gavin talk about a new girlfriend?”

“New?”

“After Kayla.”

“Her,” said Quick. “There’s an airhead for you. No, he didn’t say anything.”

“Would he have told you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was he open about his personal life?”

“Open?” said Quick. “Less so than before the accident. He tended to get confused. In the beginning, I mean. How could he not be confused, he caught a tremendous blow right here.” Quick touched his forehead.

Same spot where the bullet had entered his son’s skull. He didn’t know yet. No reason for him to know yet.

“Confusion,” I said.

“Just temporary. But he found he couldn’t concentrate on his studies, so he dropped out of school.”

Quick smoked and grimaced, as if inhaling hurt.

“He got hit on the prefrontal lobes,” he said. “They told us it controls personality. So obviously . . .”

“Gavin changed,” I said.

“Nothing huge, but sure, there’d have to be changes. But then he got better, almost everything got better. Anyway, I’m sure Gav’s accident has nothing to do with this.”

Quick puffed rapidly, flicked more ash. “We need to find out whoever did this. Bastard leave any clues?”

Milo said, “We have no suspects and very little information. We haven’t even been able to identify the girl.”

“Well I don’t know her, and I doubt Sheila does. We know the same people.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about Gavin that might help?”

“Gavin was a great guy,” said Quick, as if daring us to argue. “Had his head on his shoulders. Hell of a golfer. We both loved golf. I taught him, and he learned fast, leaped right over me—a seven handicap, and he was getting better. That was before the accident. Afterward, he wasn’t as coordinated, but he was still good. His attention would wander . . . sometimes he’d want to take the same shot over and over—wanted to do it perfectly.”

“Perfectionistic,” I said.

“Yeah, but at some point you’re causing a traffic jam on the green, and you have to stop. In terms of his interests, he liked business, same as me.” Jerry Quick slumped. “That changed, too. He lost interest in business. Got other ideas. But I figured it was temporary.”

“Other career ideas?” I said.

“More like career fantasies. All of a sudden econ was down the drain, and he was going to be a writer.”

“What kind of writer?”

“He joked about working for the tabloids, getting the dirt on celebrities.”

“Just a joke,” I said.

Quick glared. “He laughed, and I laughed back. I told you, he couldn’t concentrate. How the hell could he write for a newspaper? One time Eileen was over, and he asked her if she knew any celebrities he could get dirt on. Then he winked at me, but Eileen just about dirtied her pants. Gave some big speech about celebrities deserving their privacy. The thought of offending some big shot scared the hell out of her . . . anyway, where was I . . .” Quick’s eyes glazed. He smoked.

“Gavin becoming an investigative reporter.”

“Like I said, it wasn’t serious.”

“How did Gavin fill his time after he dropped out?”

Quick said, “By hanging around. I was ready for him to go back to school, but apparently he wasn’t, so I—it was a hard time for him, I didn’t want to push. I figured maybe he’d reenroll in the spring.”

“Any other changes?” I said.

“He stopped picking up his room. Really let it go to seed. He’d never been the neatest kid, but he’d always been good about personal grooming. Now he sometimes had to be reminded to shower and brush his teeth and comb his hair. I hated reminding him because he got embarrassed. Never argued, never gave me attitude, just said, ‘Sorry, Dad.’ Like he knew something was different and felt bad about it. But that was all getting better, he was coming out of it, getting in shape—he started running again. He was light on his feet, used to do five, six miles like it was nothing. His doctor told me he was going to be fine.”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *