Kiss of Evil by Richard Montanari Read Free Book Online

corner desk sits an iMac, ringed with yellow Post-it notes.
    “The company paid for it,” Beth continues. “I can do half my work from here now.”
    “You’re that good with a computer?”
    “They paid for the three-day training, too. I can get around.”
    On top of the monitor is something that looks like a small plastic tennis ball with a shiny black dot in the middle. Paris walks over, fiddles with it. He notices that the object is stuck to the top of the monitor with a suction cup.
    “Isn’t that neat?” Beth says. “It’s a video camera. We use it for conferencing.”
    “Conferencing?”
    “Videoconferencing.”
    “Sorry,” Paris says. “You know what a Luddite I am.”
    Beth joins him at the desk. She hits a few keys, starting a software program called iChat. Then, suddenly, the two of them appear on the monitor screen.
    Crazily, Paris feels as if he is walking through Sears, on one of those forays through the electronics department where you stroll by the camcorder display and they let you see how shitty you really look. Except, this was in the privacy of your own, well, wherever you had your computer. Beth’s computer is in her spare bedroom. And thus a million prurient scenarios jog through Jack Paris’s mind. He banishes them. “Wow” is all he can manage.
    For a moment, on the screen—a poorly lit shot of the two of them from the waist up—Paris sees his ex-wife as another woman for some peculiar reason, a very attractive stranger standing inches away. He is fascinated by the way the light plays over her breasts, her shoulders, her hair. But he cannot see her face.
    And, for some equally peculiar reason, that fact stirs him even more.
    “By the way,” Beth says, punching a few keys, killing the image on the screen. “Have you had a chance to get to the safety deposit box?”
    Shit , Paris thinks. He was hoping to milk this one for a while. If she hadn’t asked him this time, it would mean another between-visitation liaison. “This week. I promise.”
    “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it,” Beth adds, speaking of her mother’s wedding ring, a mostly sentimental piece of jewelry that was part of the ever-dwindling residue of their marriage. It had sat in a box at Republic Bank at Severance since the divorce.
    “This week,” Paris repeats.
    “Thanks.” Beth smiles a smile that reaches Paris’s knees, the one that won his heart. She kisses him on the cheek. “I’ll be back by one.”
    A little late for an office Christmas party, isn’t it? Paris thinks. But he says nothing about it. “They’ll all be asleep by then, right?”
    Beth laughs. “Sure, Jack.”
    “How old are your friends, Missy?” They are in the kitchen, making what has to be their fifth pitcher of iced tea. The noise in the living room has abated for a while, save for the occasional barrage of laughter. Somehow, for Paris, as the father of a near-teenager, the silence was worse.
    “My age,” Melissa says. “Jennifer’s twelve, Jessica’s eleven, Mindy’s twelve.”
    Twelve , Paris thinks, retrieving a not-quite-frozen tray of ice cubes from the freezer. One of them looked at least sixteen. Was this how teenage boys saw his daughter? “They’re all in your class at school?”
    “Yep,” Melissa replies.
    “Some of them look so . . . I don’t know . . .”
    “Mature?”
    “Yeah. I guess that’s what I mean. Mature.”
    “I know ,” Melissa says. “Jessica’s getting boobs.”
    The word hangs in the air for a moment, immobilizing Jack Paris, freezing all ability to function, to think. Boobs. His daughter said boobs . What the hell was next? Paris attempts speech. “I hadn’t . . . I mean . . . I didn’t . . . y’know—”
    “Can we get pizza?” Melissa asks, sparing him. “Mom says the new guy who delivers for Domino’s is really cute. Everybody wants to see him.”
    My God, Paris thinks. Cute. Boobs. Guys . One conversation. He feels as if the floor beneath him has