Rock Killer by S. Evan Townsend Read Free Book Online Page A

He’d debated taking time to go. Kirsten would have understood, but would have resented it after making arrangements to spend all her time with him. At least, that’s what Alex decided. That, and he preferred to honor the memory of his friends his way and in private.
    Out of one of the multitude of small dishes on the table, Alex used chopsticks to select a slice of kimchee and put it in his mouth. He followed the pickled cabbage with a gob of rice.
“I suppose,” Kirsten chided playfully, “you expect to sleep in the same bed as me after eating that.”
Alex nodded and swallowed. “All you have to do is eat some and we’ll cancel each other out.”
Kirsten made a face. “No thanks, Mr. Chun.” She used a fork to eat a piece of duk-gogi.
“It’s real embarrassing,” Alex teased, “to have a wife that can’t eat with chopsticks.”
    “Sorry,” she replied. “I don’t eat Oriental food very much. My friends like Middle Eastern food. About a month ago, Alysia and her husband and I went to this new place in Boulder, on a Monday night, and the place was packed. We almost left but everyone was there. The McConnells, the Kims–you remember Jason Quinn from Aspen?–he was there. We pushed all our tables together and talked and laughed until the owner threw us out–it was two in the morning. I almost fell asleep during a session with one patient the next day. But it was so much fun.”
“Oh,” Alex said simply.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” she said quietly. “But you don’t expect me to pace the widow’s walk the whole time you’re gone?”
Alex shook his head. “No, of course not. It just seems sometimes I’m only a footnote in your life.”
    “Well, Alex, you’re only here about six weeks a year. I love you, but I have to have a life. And while you’re here I put everything off. I even send my patients to other therapists; because I want to be with you.”
    “I know,” Alex intoned. “And I appreciate that.”
    “You could quit SRI,” Kirsten speculated. “Join my life full time. You’ve met most of my friends and get along with most of them. You have enough money in your SRI account we could both retire.”
    Alex shook his head. “I can’t. I mean, I can, but I won’t. I owe SRI. They took me and educated me and gave me a job–and kept educating me. Because they require employees to continue their education in order to get promoted, I have the equivalent of a B.S., at least. I’d never have gotten that if I’d stayed in L.A. My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college, and you know how it was then. The government was broke and there were no grants or students loans. I’d have worked in my father’s store on Olympic Boulevard forever; if the gangs didn’t get me, too.”
The last sentence was stated with a mixture of anger and pain.
“And,” he continued after a few moments, “I’d have never met you.”
“Joey probably would still be alive if you two hadn’t gone into SRI,” Kirsten noted. “You still call out his name in your sleep.”
    “I know,” Alex replied softly. “I usually wake up right afterward. I still dream about that damn rope slipping through my fingers–if only I’d caught it. But Joey would probably be dead if he’d stayed in L.A. I never told you, or, hell, anyone this, but one reason we joined SRI was that there was a gang out to kill him.”
    “Why?”
    “He refused to join. The courts were so lenient with criminals that the gangs were the defacto government in many parts of L.A. They didn’t have to worry about getting caught. You could do two years for murder. If only...”
    “If only...” Kirsten repeated. “Let’s stop playing ‘if only’ games. Let’s make the most of the two weeks you have at home. Have you decided whether to go to Frank’s memorial service?”
    “Yes,” Alex said with conviction. “I’m not going. It would take four days. I really haven’t seen Frank in years. Besides, it’s starting in about ten