Stalking the Angel by Robert Crais Read Free Book Online

bar, then set the Asahi on the coaster. She took an icy beer mug from somewhere beneath the bar and put it beside the bottle. I ignored the mug. “You were telling me about the call.”
    The smile went away. She looked down into her drink and swirled it and her eyes began to redden and puff. “He had an ugly voice. He said he had that goddamned book, and that he knew we had the police involved and that we had hired a private investigator. He said that was a mistake. He said if we didn’t stop looking he was going to do things.” Her voice got higher, probably the way it had been ten years ago. It was nice. “He said they were watching me and could strike at any time. He told me when I left the house this morning and what I was wearing and who I met and when I came back. He knew my perfume. He knew I use Maxipads. He knew Tammy came over at four and that we played tennis and that Tammy was wearing green shorts and a halter top and—” She closed her eyes and took more of the gin and said, “Damn.”
    “Did you call the police?”
    She shook her head, keeping her eyes closed. “Bradley would shit.”
    “Calling the cops is the smart thing.”
    “We do things Bradley’s way, mister, or we never hear the end of it.” She shook her head again and had more gin. “God damn him.”
    I said, “Did you recognize the voice?”
    She took a deep breath, let it out, then came around to my side of the bar and stood next to me. Petulant. The first fright was past and the gin was working. She said, “I don’t want to talk about thisanymore. I needed someone here.” I guess she hadn’t recognized the voice.
    “I know. I’ll check the house and make sure it’s tight. You’ll be all right. A guy calls like this, it’s only to scare you. If he was going to do anything, he’d have done it.”
    She gave her head a flick to get the hair out of her face. Her hair was lush and rich and if it was dyed it was a helluva good job. She reached out and touched my forearm with her finger. “I’ll walk with you.”
    I moved my arm. “You look cold,” I said. “Go put something on.”
    She looked down at herself. The silver gown made an upside-down V over each breast with a thin silver cord running from the apex of one V up her chest and around behind her neck and back down to the apex of the other V. Her shoulders were smooth and bare and tanned. She said, “I’m not cold. See?” She picked up my hand in both of hers and brought it to her chest.
    I said, “Your daughter’s in the house.”
    “I don’t give a good goddamn who’s in the house.”
    “I do. And even if she wasn’t, your husband hired me, and he didn’t hire me to lay his wife.”
    “Do you have to be hired for that?”
    “Go put something on.”
    She pressed against me and kissed me. The silver gown felt warm and slick. I eased her back. “Go put something on.”
    “Fuck you.” She slid past me and hurried out of the room, bouncing a thigh off the near couch as she left. She hadn’t seen her daughter standing in one of the doorways leading from the rear of the house, as motionless as a reed in still air. Neither had I.
    I put the Asahi on the bar. “I’m sorry that happened,”I said. “She’s very scared and she’s had too much to drink.”
    Mimi Warren said, “She’s very good in bed. Everyone says so.” Sixteen.
    I didn’t say anything to her and she didn’t say anything to me, and then she turned and walked away. I watched little drops of condensation sprout on the Asahi until their weight pulled them down to the bar, then I took a rambling tour of the house, checking each window and door and making sure they were tight and locked and that the alarms were armed. I looked for the girl.
    At the back of the house, a little hall branched away from the kitchen with a couple of doors on one side and glass looking out toward the pool on the other. If you looked out the glass you could see down across the lawn to the flat mirrored surface of