Burning Blue by Paul Griffin Read Free Book Online Page A

“You must be really into art to know my father. It’s not like he works for the
Times
.”
    “My mother’s an artist. She calls herself a hobbyist, but she’s good. She’s serious about it anyway, reads all the reviews. She likes your dad. Says he’s one of the nice ones. You freaked me out, following me like that.”
    “I was just trying to—”
    “I know why you did it. What’s your number?”
    I gave it to her. A second later my phone vibrated. “There’s mine,” she said. Nicole Castro had just given me her phone number. How was this possible?
    “My friend,” the driver said, “stay and play, or let’s be on our way.”
    I hopped onto the bus. Nicole tossed me the umbrella the guard had given her.
    “You keep it,” I said.
    “I have this one.” She opened the crummy umbrella I’d put together for her. “Hey, Nazzaro? You’re my hero.” She saluted me with the messed-up umbrella.
    The bus doors closed and I grabbed a seat with one last wave to Nicole.
    “Excuse me, hero?” the bus driver said. “That’s two seventy-five.”
    I dunked my card, a slug, but the machine showed
PAID $2.75
because I was palming my phone as I leaned onto the card reader. That junky little Nokia with the cat-scratched display could work some minor magic.

From the notes of Dr. Julian Nye, MD, PsyD:
    Thurs, Oct 21, third session with Nicole Castro, begun at 8:30pm, at Castro residence. Patient initially appeared withdrawn and expressed that she was exhausted, complaining of a headache with pain 8 out of 10, but very quickly became agitated when I suggested I could write her a prescription for Relpax.
    Per NC’s mother, NC was AWOL after session with school psychologist Dr. Schmidt, for approx. one hour. I expressed concern that patient was walking around in the rain, alone. Patient said she wasn’t alone. I asked who was with her. She frowned and said, “People. You know, just people on the street.” Patient then asked what I thought about liars. I asked her to be more specific. She asked if I thought a liar could be a good person. “You know, if he or she is lying to do a good thing.” When I asked for an example of a “good thing,” patient stared out the dining room window and said, “I can’t think clearly. I’m afraid to picture it. His face. If they ever find out who did it, I mean. I don’t know whether I’d have a heart attack or claw his eyes out. We’re doomed, the human race, when you have people like that walking around. Absolutely zero empathy. I want to live on the Moon.”
    I am beginning to suspect patient is holding back more than the name of the young man who, per security guard, walked NC home.

BJ’s closed to the public at eight p.m., and I got to my restock work. At ten I grabbed my fifteen-minute break. I clicked one of the laptops to the local news links and found a short update on the Nicole Castro story, except it was hardly an update. That afternoon, some idiot had tackled some other idiot in Sports Authority after the dude tried to shoplift a Volta-Shock bottle. Other than that, there were no new leads in the case.
    “Can you believe she actually got a boyfriend?” the woman who ran the electronics section said. She tapped the keyboard to a gossip site. The headline ran BURNED BEAUTY QUEEN BAGS NEW BEAU. I panicked, expecting to see a picture of Nicole’s arm hooked through mine at the security gatehouse that blocked off her neighborhood. The follow-up would then be BENDIX VOWS TO BASH BEAU’S BRAINS IN, but the picture wasn’t of Nicole and me. I wasn’t the only one following Nicole in CVS. The picture showed Nicole with the guy who tried to pick her up, until he saw the bandage on her face. The headline and the camera angle were enough to suggest they were together. The photo credit was
©Scorpion Imageworks
.
    “What kind of guy would want to go out with her after that?” my coworker said.
    “Dude must be desperate,” I muttered, scanning the article.
    “I bet