“I still have that one she got me.” A watery smile, while Calvin rubbed his hand up and down her arm.
“I know—I can see it from my room when it blooms.”
Calvin’s eyes caught mine, and I saw that he wanted to comfort his wife in privacy. Good.
I didn’t want to talk about this any longer. “You’d better finish Charlie’s walk before he starts snoring.”
The dog was settling down into a nap pose.
Diana looked down even as more tears bloomed in her eyes. “Dear Charlie. He’s never let me down. I’ll miss him desperately when it’s time for him to move on.”
“Aarav.” Calvin’s voice. “You know you can always count on us for support. Whether it’s with arrangements or otherwise.”
That was Calvin, too. Practical to the point that it seemed cold and unfeeling, but he’d been the same way when he helped me buy running shoes, and that had been an act of kindness. “Yes, I know. Thank you.”
I moved on as Diana bent to revive the dog and Calvin hunkered down beside her. And when I caught the pained sound of muffled sobs, I didn’t look back.
9
Diana and Calvin’s neighbors, the Dixons, were coming down their drive, showered and dressed and ready for their post-lunch coffee and cake at Lily’s. Seventy-five and seventy-nine and in no hurry to move in to a retirement home, they treated old age like an attempt at hostile takeover.
Adrian did a stop at their place for a personal training session once a week—it might be cynical of me, but I had a feeling that stop was the only one at which Adrian did the job he advertised.
“Hiya, my man Aarav!” Paul Dixon, the older of the two, tipped his jaunty black bowler hat. His blunt-featured face bore a permanent pink cast as a result of hard living during his time as a rock musician. Get close enough and you could see all the fine broken veins.
He’d had two monster hits. Add in a financial genius wife and boom, the man could buy a ten-million-dollar penthouse if he so wished, but he’d chosen the green privacy of the Cul-de-Sac. “How’s the leg?” he asked.
“I should be able to walk only on the boot soon,” I said, more in hope than anything else, because right now, it still hurt like a bitch if I even thought about putting any real weight on it.
“You should get yourself a cane, sweetcakes.” Margaret Dixon turned on one low-heeled but knee-high boot to fix her husband’s crisp black shirt; the magenta of her hair shone even in the dull light. “More comfortable than them crutches.”
“Yeah, I was thinking that, too. I’ll see if I can order one online.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that!” Paul said. “Just wait here.” He began to walk back up the drive while Margaret smiled out of a mouth coated in red lipstick.
The ebony of her skin was unlined, her only apparent concession to age her low heels. Otherwise, it was leather pants and sparkly tops.
“I like the sequins.”
She cackled. “Bloody horrendous, innit? Put dear Dr. Liu and those snotty Fuckpatricks in a right royal snit.”
It made me laugh, her butchering of Veda and Brett Fitzpatrick’s name, and for a moment I could imagine this was a normal day, with Margaret on gleeful bad behavior and Paul so incessantly cheerful I’d decided to cast him as a serial killer in a future book. “Brett and Veda still being assholes?” The lawyers were my father’s neighbors to the left, and two more sour individuals I’d yet to meet.
“Think they’re bloody toffs, too good for the likes of us. Meanwhile me and Paulie can buy and sell them under the table.” She patted me on the cheek. “Talking of the filthy lucre, you do what I said with yours?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I’d come straight to Margaret after realizing I was in danger of pissing away my newfound wealth. She’d given me some “no bollocks” advice, per her own description, then hooked me up with her and Paul’s money managers.
“Entire lot of them have sticks up their bums,” she’d told me around the fragrant smoke from an herbal cigarette, “but that’s how I like them financial types. They’re so proper they itemize every fucking paper clip on their expense reports. No funny-fiddling with our money, or faffing about and charging it to us—but remember, you gotta watch them.”
“I did fall behind in looking at the reports after my accident,” I admitted, “but my accounts seem in good order.”
“Send them to me and I’ll give them a squiz.” Another pat on my cheek. “You grew up pretty. Got your mama’s smile.” She kept going while I fought to maintain my casual expression. “I remember when you were a boy racing up and down here on your little red bike. Cheeky bugger you were—reminded me of our Cherry when she was small, yeah.”
“I never had a red bike. Maybe you’re thinking of Beau.”
“That’s bollocks, sweetie.” She glanced over at Paul, who’d just reappeared. “Paulie baby, didn’t Aarav have a red bike back when Fifi talked you into that crazy gig?”
“Bloody Fifi. Still miss that barmy tart. And yeah, Aarav, you were a right maniac on that red thing.” Grandfatherly laughter, as if he’d never once been caught having an orgy on his tour bus. “Here you go. Try this then.” He handed me a glossy wooden cane, the wood a rich dark hue.
It fit beautifully under my hand. “This is really nice.”
“Belonged to my pa. Bring it back when you’re done and we’ll be square. Righto, Maggie, my love, time to murder one of Lily’s cakes and horrify the neighbors.”
The two headed off down the street on a burst of shared laughter, leaving me with crutches, a cane, and a coffee. After some thinking, I hooked the cane on one of the crutches, and managed to get going again. At least it wasn’t far.
I’d forgotten about the red bike by the time I reached the house, my head heavy in a way that had become familiar since the accident. Leaving the crutches inside the front hallway and abandoning the coffee on a nearby table meant for flowers, I used the cane to support myself as I stumbled up the stairs. I should’ve taken a ground-floor bedroom instead of my old suite but I’d never been good at doing what I should.
Pain was a metallic taste in my mouth by the time I made it upstairs, my head in a vise. Hand trembling, I knocked over several of the pill bottles on my bedside table before I finally got my hands on the right one and unscrewed the lid.
Two minutes later, the lights went out.
I woke to the ringing of my cellphone. Groaning, my mouth thick with the residue of chemical sleep, I tried to pull it out of my pocket, my fingers feeling fat and sluggish. The sound had stopped by the time I dug it out. I blinked to clear bleary eyes, then stared at the name on the screen. “Shit.”
Dropping my head back on the bed, I grabbed the bottle of water on my bedside table and wet my throat before calling Dr. Jitrnicka’s office. “Apologies for missing my appointment,” I told the receptionist, polite because being polite to her cost me nothing.
“You understand we have a policy of charging you if you don’t cancel at least four hours ahead of time?”
“That’s fine.” Money wasn’t an issue; the boy who’d mowed lawns to buy his mother a cheap silver ring could’ve now afforded to give her diamonds.
“A moment please. Dr. Jitrnicka would like to speak to you.”
A click before the call connected. “Aarav.” The doctor’s rich baritone filled the line. “How are you? It’s not like you to miss an appointment now that we’re making such progress.”
If anyone knows who I am beneath the masks, it’s Dr. Jitrnicka. We’ve been “working together” for the past six months. He sees under my skin, to all the shit I hide from the world. “The police came. They found her.” He’d know which her; there was only one woman about whom we talked in the therapy sessions.
“I see,” he said, using one of those “let me think” phrases on which he was an expert. “You must have conflicted feelings.”
“Not alive. Dead. She’s dead and has been since the ni
ght she disappeared.”
The pause was long and filled with quiet breathing.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” the doctor said at last. “I know you’ve always hoped she’d return home and you’d get to speak again. If you want to do a phone session, this time is yours.”
“No, not now.” I wasn’t ready to dig into my emotions when it came to my mother’s bones. “I’ll book another appointment.”
“Let’s do that now.” When I didn’t reply, he said, “Aarav, this could be a major trigger for your drinking. Have you built the support structure we discussed? Are those people around you, ready to offer their help?”
I wanted to bark out a laugh and say sure, I have my father, that pillar of a man. “It won’t be a problem,” I said instead. “Accident turned out to be a blessing in disguise—I can’t drink while on these meds. Since I have no intention of ending up back in hospital, I’ll follow the rules. I want to drive my Porsche again.”
“The repairs are complete then? My impression was that the damage was fairly major.”
Sitting up in bed, I stared at the wall ahead of me, the painting that hung there a remnant of my teenage years. Something made me say, “I’m thinking positive.”
“That’s a good thing. Take care of yourself—and call me night or day. I don’t mind the interruption and will call back as soon as I can if I’m in session at the time. We’ve done some good work and we can’t allow this turn of events to jeopardize that.”
“Sure, Doc.”
After hanging up, I continued to look at the wall opposite. It was a pale gray color that Shanti had apparently chosen after her marriage to my father. Bull. Shit. Shanti didn’t so much as say boo without my father’s permission. If she’d had any input, it was because he hadn’t been interested.
But all I could see right then was the sleek beauty of my customized Porsche. A Porsche that was currently sitting safe in the secure garage of my city apartment. Dr. Jitrnicka had to be mistaken. I wouldn’t have forgotten that my pride and joy was in for major repairs. It’d be like forgetting my own head. Even highly intelligent doctors had off-days, and I couldn’t be the only one of his patients who’d had an accident.
He’d confused us, that was all.
10
Rubbing my face, I used the cane to get to my feet, then hobbled over to the bathroom. It was after four by the time I emerged, having managed a quick wake-up shower. My eyes went to the slim black laptop I kept on top of a desk in front of the balcony sliders.
A pile of printed pages sat next to the laptop.
That was one of my things—printing out pages as I went. I’d mentioned it in an interview after my first book hit it big, saying it gave “weight to the evanescent nature of my ideas” and now half the literary world thought I was a wanker and a poser.
I might be, but I also just liked to print out my work as I went. I’d done it since I was a teenager. It gave me a feeling of achievement, of steadily climbing the mountain even if a particular day’s work added up to a great big heap of nothing.
Today was one of those days.
Walking over to the pile, I picked up the last page I’d printed. As always, the final line on the page hung unfinished:
There really wasn’t much he could do about the blood, without
I’d woken at 3 a.m. and spent the next three hours trying to finish that sentence and failing. That’s why I’d been downstairs when the police came. Attempting to find inspiration in a bottle of Coke.
Now, I picked up a pen and scrawled:
Two cans of bleach and a flamethrower.
I smiled. There, the critics would love that line. They’d call it one of my title character’s signature turns of phrase. My lovable psychopath who mowed his widowed mother’s grass, walked her grumpy old cat, and only poisoned those who deserved it. The antihero with whom the public had fallen in love despite themselves: Kip Shay, multiethnic and deliberately ambiguous. He could be your brother or your killer.
Like me.
Just your friendly neighborhood writer who often faked a charming smile and whose dead mother had just been found, giving him good reason to commit a murder of his own. I had a single relentless goal now: to figure out the truth about that scream the night of her disappearance.
I’d been trying to chase down the answer for ten years, but I’d been working with a handicap: deep down, I’d believed she was alive, and so had never quite been able to push buttons I should’ve pushed, go as far as was necessary.
But the time for hope was over.
This time, I’d push every button, shove people past their limits, make enemies without hesitation.
A gnawing in my gut, my stomach coming back to life. I made it down the stairs, my breathlessness more a case of damaged internal organs still knitting themselves together than an indictment of my fitness. I took a moment to stand and breathe at the bottom. I couldn’t remember much of the accident, but I knew a sharp piece of … something … had pierced my lung. It had left scar tissue. Or something like that.
A lot of what the various doctors had told me had gone right through my drugged-up brain. I didn’t know why they did that—gave a patient a whole bunch of pharmaceuticals, then briefed them. Not that I’d really cared. The only thing I’d wanted to know was if I could still walk.
“Your spine sustained no damage,” Dr. Tawera had said with a surgeon’s directness. “You’ll have some residual bone pain, and, according to my colleague Dr. Mainwaring, you may develop breathing issues unless you stick to a good exercise routine. But you won’t come out of this any worse than you went in.”
I liked Dr. Mila Tawera. The short and outwardly grandmotherly woman had no bedside manner and didn’t care. When she looked at me, I was pretty sure all she saw was my skeletal structure. That focus made her an excellent surgeon.
Breath caught, I turned and made my way to the kitchen.
The door to the small prayer room set up by my father’s second wife was open, the sweet smell of incense wafting from it. I glanced at her metal statuettes of the gods, at the flowers and offerings, the handwoven mat she’d brought from India, on which she sat when praying, and felt nothing. These same gods had allowed my mother to die cold and alone.
“Oh.” Shanti jumped back from the counter, where she’d been in the process of prepping dinner, her twenty-two-carat yellow-gold earrings catching the light, and the reusable bindi in the center of her forehead a spot of red velvet.
Small and pretty with big round eyes, Ishaan Rai’s thirty-five-year-old wife was as quiet as a mouse most of the time.
“Sorry”—I smiled—“didn’t mean to startle you.” I’d switched to her native tongue with liquid smoothness.
It was the same language my mother had spoken.
She smiled back, shy but happy to have me around. Why shouldn’t she be? Shanti came from a culture where sons were revered, and father-son relationships considered sacrosanct. In her mind, I wielded far more power in this family than her, yet I treated her with kindness. I didn’t even have an ulterior motive for it. Shanti could give me nothing. Neither could she take anything away.
Truth was, I felt sorry for her. Shanti wasn’t my mother, able to hold her own against Ishaan Rai. Shanti was what Ishaan had always wanted—a simple village woman who was overawed to be with him, and who treated him like a god. It helped that she was twenty-five years his junior. That made her only nine years older than me, but I wasn’t an asshole about it.
Shanti wasn’t the problem in this family.
“I’ll get you some food.” She was already rushing around. “I came to ask if you wanted lunch in your room but I saw you were asleep.” She ducked her head, her waist-length braid moving against the green silk of her simple tunic. “I’m sorry—your door was open.”
“No problem.” Taking a seat at the breakfast counter, the stool not so high that I couldn’t rest my booted foot on the g
round, I said, “You don’t have to run around after me.” It wasn’t the first time I’d told her that.
“I like to.” Such genuine sweetness in her voice that I wondered how she survived living with my father.
Turning around to face me, she spoke in a rush. “My friend in India, Renu, she married a month after me and she has a grown stepson, too, and he lives at home with her and his father. He’s not like you. He’s mean to her every day.” She bit down on her lower lip after that burst of information.
“I’m sorry for your friend,” I said. “Some kids never get over their parents’ divorce.”
Tight features easing, she nodded and began to put together a sandwich. I knew she’d feed me a gourmet Indian meal if I gave the least hint of wanting one, but she’d picked up on the fact I generally threw together a sandwich for lunch. Of course, she continued to be horrified when I tried to do that myself—to Shanti, food was the job of the woman of the house.
In this particular situation, I could see her point. Shanti had no power in her relationship or in this family. The kitchen was the only place that was unquestionably her domain. “Where’s Pari?” My half sister was usually home by now.
A deep smile that lit her eyes. “She had a school trip today—to climb Rangitoto Island! The things these girls do nowadays. That’s why I’m starting dinner now—so I can pick her up later than the usual time.” Sandwich complete, she slid the plate across to me, then went and grabbed a bottle of Coke from the fridge.
I didn’t argue when she poured it out into a glass.
“Oh, I got you the sweets you like.” She brought over two bags, one of which held Peanut Slab chocolate bars, the other Diana’s artisan fudge. She’d kept up that small business even after they’d sold the café.
Quiet in Her Bones Page 5