Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online

photocopied Tanya’s medical records, and returned the originals to her. Five minutes to go, but she said, “We covered everything,” and got up.
    Then: “Just talking helps, even if it’s genetic?”
    I said, “There may be a genetic component. Most tendencies are a combination of nature and nurture. But tendencies aren’t programmed like blood types.”
    “People can change.”
    “If they didn’t, I’d be out of business.”
    That evening at five, she called me through my service. “Doc, if an appointment tonight’s still an option, I’ll take you up on it. Tanya started in on her homework, tore it up, redid it, then she got all hysterical. Crying that she could never do anything right. Saying I was ashamed of her, she was a bad girl, like Liddie. Nothing like that ever came out of my mouth but maybe I somehow communicated…Right now she’s calm, but not a calm I like.
Way
too quiet, generally she chatters away. I haven’t told her I made an appointment with you. If you say tonight’s okay, I’ll explain it to her in the car.”
    “C’mon over,” I said.
    “You’re a saint.”
     
     
    She showed up an hour later, with a little blond girl in hand. In her other hand was a small white jar.
    “Museum wax,” she said. “Long as I was coming here. This is Tanya Bigelow, my beautiful, smart daughter. Tanya, meet Dr. Delaware. He’s going to help you.”
     
CHAPTER 6
     
    Milo touched a corner of the newspaper he’d slid across the booth. “Cute, huh?”
    Ten a.m., North Hollywood. Hot Friday in the Valley, the Du-par’s on Ventura east of Laurel Canyon.
    I’d left a message for Tanya about no malpractice issue, told her I’d be contacting Detective Sturgis. An hour later I was watching him jab the front-page
Times
article with his fork.
    Breathless coverage of the founding of a mental health program in Tahiti by a former film agent and a retired studio head. Diploma mill doctorate for her, deep pockets and May–December infatuation for him. The agenda was past-life regression, a Chinese menu of meditation games, all the therapy you could eat for two hundred grand a pop, no refunds. The projected client base was “people in the public eye.”
    I said, “What a scoop.”
    “Probably some kiss-ass reporter with a screenplay.”
    “That’s networking, dude.”
    “Curse of the millennium. Hollywood sharks peddling mental health, what a concept. If you get in a tropical mood, maybe they’re hiring.”
    I laughed and slid the paper back.
    “Hey,” he said, “you’re not on the stand, volunteer an
opinion
.”
    “I get paid for opinions.”
    He grumbled something about “dogmatism.”
    I said, “How’s this: Taking life advice from people like that is like learning the tango from gorillas.”
    “Eloquent. Now I might even listen to the further details of your little mystery.”
    We were putting away stacks of pancakes and drinking coffee strong enough to make my pulse race. With Milo, food smooths the process.
    I’d driven out to Studio City because he’d been on the other side of the hill since midnight, cleaning up the details of a Mar Vista gang homicide whose tentacles had spread into Van Nuys and Panorama City. Another big one that would finally close. One more meeting with the D.A. and he’d be on a two-week vacation.
    Rick was scheduled tight and couldn’t travel. Too bad for Milo, lucky for me. I had designs on his leisure.
    I told him everything Tanya had said.
    He said, “First a ‘terrible thing,’ now it’s a murder? Alex, I’m not prying into clinical details, but be brutally frank: Is this kid stable?”
    “Nothing points otherwise.”
    “Meaning you’re not sure.”
    “She’s functioning well,” I said. “All things considered.”
    “Mommy offed some neighbor? But she really
didn’t
? What exactly does she want?”
    “I’m not sure she knows. I figure we do a little searching, come up empty, I’ll have more authority to ease her away from it. If I