Move to Strike by Perri O'Shaughnessy Read Free Book Online

have to take care of Bob. It’s not just getting paid for your case that matters to me. It’s that your case might take up a lot of my work hours for a long time to come.”
    Nikki’s face worked. Nina could see she wanted to ask Nina to take the case anyway, but she didn’t. “I’ll trust you when you show me I can trust you. I don’t exactly know a lot of adults worth trusting.”
    Nina thought of Daria, of Nikki’s father who had abandoned her, of the poverty of Nikki’s home, and of a girl she had known a long time ago and decided not to press the point. “Okay. Go on with the story.”
    “Uncle Bill was home. I watched from the bushes by the pool. He was in his study. The front doorbell rang and he went to answer it.”
    “Did you go into the study?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “No, I said. I did my thing and went home.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean, Nikki?”
    “I can’t elaborate on that,” Nikki said with exaggerated care.
    Nina thought, if she won’t cooperate, I ought to leave. She took a moment to study the girl, her shabby clothes, the overall air of neglect, the proud angle of her chin, the sad droop of her hair, trying to make up her mind whether she should shoulder her bag and say good-bye and walk out of this young delinquent’s life forever.
    Aware of the scrutiny, Nikki veiled her eyes with hair, as if she was expecting Nina to leave and protecting herself in advance. Her hands lay quietly on her legs, the knuckles large and the fingers long and thin.
    Bob had spent a good part of his life not knowing where his father was, too. She wondered if he and Nikki ever talked about that. She wondered if Bob was her only friend.
    “Nikki?” she said.
    The girl looked up with eyes empty of hope. Nina found herself wincing. She knew that expression.
    “Did you kill your uncle?” According to her law professors, she wasn’t supposed to ask that. It was the perverted courtesy of the defense attorney—don’t ask so your client won’t have to lie to you. Don’t ask because if the rare client admits guilt, you’ve lost all sorts of trial options. But she often asked anyway, and she always got something from the answer that shaped her defense.
    “I didn’t do it.”
    “Do you have an idea who might have killed him?”
    Had Nikki started at that question? “No,” she said. She was lying.
    “When’s the last time before Saturday that you saw your uncle?”
    “A long time. Years? We used to go over there when I was little.”
    Nina couldn’t read the look on her face, but thought it might be nostalgia.
    “Then we didn’t anymore. He called us trailer trash once,” she continued. “I heard him say it, even though he didn’t know I was listening. We didn’t want to know him either. Aunt Beth came over sometimes when he was out of town and brought Chris. Neither of us had brothers and sisters, so—when we were little I pretended Chris was my brother. Then when Chris went to private high school down in LA, we didn’t see him either.” Clearly, this had been a blow. “I tried writing to him a few times, but I quit doing that a while back.”
    “Why?” Nina said.
    “Oh, it wasn’t that Chris was a snob like Uncle Bill. It’s just—I changed too. We were nearly three years apart in age and I didn’t feel like I could live up to him. I’ve been busy with my downhill spiral.” She smiled. “Band name. Downhill Spiral.”
    “Were you ever in your uncle’s home?”
    “Sure. When I was little. He had these really violent paintings, and always had sharp things around. He had a set of medical instruments from the sixteenth century or something. And of course, the famous sword. Some samurai owned it in ancient history. Daria told me this morning—she read it in the paper, that he was killed with that thing. He used to have a whole collection of swords. He had this one with a silver handle—no, I guess he said it was made of nickel or something like that—anyway, it