The Murderer's Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online Page A

frighteningly rotten family.
    Maybe all he needed was permission to cut off some toxic relatives. If so, not nearly as complex an issue as Bev’s or Helen’s or the arm gouger’s poor parents.
    Grace could say that with authority.
    Placing the appointment book back in her bag and still warmed by her bath, she shrugged out of the kimono and walked to the French doors opening to the deck. Turning off the weak bulb, she stepped out on weathered wood, stood bare and vulnerable as a newborn.
    Taking in the murmured comfort of the tides as they rolled in, the swoosh of farewell as they embarked on the return trip to Asia.
    A gust kicked up from the water. Sudden burst of energy from—Hawaii? Japan?
    Grace remained on the deck as something other than time passed. Finally, she felt herself growing drowsy and made her way back into the house. She should’ve been hungry but wasn’t. Going to bed on an empty stomach was fine. She’d had plenty of practice.
    Now, of course, an empty gut could be filled by a humongous breakfast. The following morning, how wonderful life was when you ran your own show.
    Relatching the French doors, she got into bed, crawled under the covers, drew them over her head. Taking a moment, as she always did, to reach under the box spring and pat the reassuring hunk of dense black plastic resting on the carpet beneath the bed.
    Her house gun, a 9mm Glock, just like the cops used. Unregistered and perfectly maintained, same as the .22. Most likely, she’d never need either weapon. Same for the twin S&W .38 revolvers she’d bought at a gun show in Nevada last year and secreted in the file cabinet at her office.
    Nighty-night, beloved instruments of destruction.
    Curling fetally, Grace slipped her thumb between her lips. Sucked greedily.

S he rose at dawn, famished, watched through the French doors as a gray pelican dove for breakfast. Shorebirds skittered along the tide line. An intermittent dot caught Grace’s attention and she got up and wrapped herself in the yellow kimono and went outside.
    Focusing her eye where the dot had last been, she waited. There it was again, a few yards north. California sea lion, drifting and submerging. Keeping a slow pace, lovely, entitled predator that it was.
    Grace watched for a while, made coffee and drank the first of three cups while scrambling four eggs tossed with cheese, Genoa salami, rehydrated porcinis, and garlic chives. Buttering two rolls, she downed every greasy crumb. By seven thirty she was back on PCH, letting the Aston do its thing as she warmed herself with thoughts of the care she’d be giving all day.
    Bev, soon to be married, was better dressed and coiffed and conspicuously more put together than the red-eyed young widow who’d first showed up at Grace’s office shaking uncontrollably and barely able to speak. This morning, those eyes were clear, alternating between the warmth of pleasant expectation and flashes of furtive heat that Grace knew meant guilt.
    No big puzzle: At a moment when the poor thing felt husband-to-be should take precedence, all she could think about was husband-who-was.
    A thirty-year-old Portland firefighter when Bev met him, Greg had the equilibrium and easy confidence of a man whose body worked perfectly. Till it didn’t.
    The cancer that had ended his life was so rare there was no treatment protocol. Bev had watched him waste away.
    Who could blame her for abandoning hope? It had taken Grace a long time to get the sweet, warmhearted young woman to see that the concept of
future
could still be relevant. Now Bev was about to embark on a second attempt at faith, good for her!
    “I’m not terrified, Dr. Blades. I guess I’m just…anxious. Okay, honest? I’m scared as heck.”
    Grace said, “Then you’re ahead of the game.”
    “Pardon?”
    “If you were totally terrified, it would be understandable, Bev. Anything less than terror is heroism.”
    Bev stared. “You’re serious.”
    “I am.”
    Bev looked