The Quiet Game by Greg Iles Read Free Book Online

keeping the truth from me. My mother believes Ray Presley is behind the blackmail, and I recall that Judge Marston often hired Presley to do “security work” when I was in high school. This translated into acting as unofficial baby-sitter for Marston’s teenage daughter, Olivia, who was also my lover. I remember nights when Presley’s truck would swing by whatever hangout the kids happened to be frequenting, its hatchet-faced driver glaring from the window, making sure Livy didn’t get into any serious trouble. One night Presley actually pulled up behind my car in the woods and rapped on the fogged windows, terrifying Livy and me. I still remember his face peering into the clear circle I rubbed on the window to look out, his eyes bright and ferretlike, searching the backseat for a sight of Livy unclothed. The hunger in those eyes . . .
    “Does this have anything to do with Leo Marston?” I ask softly.
    Dad flinches from his reverie. Even now the judge’s name has the power to harm. “Marston?” he echoes, still staring at his books. “What makes you say that?”
    “It’s one of the only things I’ve never understood about your life. Why Marston went after you.”
    He shakes his head. “I’ve never known why he did it. I’d done nothing wrong. Any physician could see that. The jury saw it too, thank God.”
    “You’ve never heard anything since? About why he took the case or pressed it so hard?”
    “To tell you the truth, son, I always had the feeling it had something to do with you. You and Olivia.”
    He turns to me, his eyes not accusatory but plainly questioning. I am too shocked to speak for a moment. “That . . . that’s impossible,” I stammer. “I mean, nothing really bad ever happened between Livy and me. It was the trial that drove the last nail into our relationship.”
    “Maybe that was Marston’s goal all along. To drive you two apart.”
    This thought occurred to me nineteen years ago, but I discounted it. Livy abandoned me long before her father took on that malpractice case.
    Dad shrugs as if it were all meaningless now. “Who knows why people do anything?”
    “I’m going to go see Presley,” I tell him. “If that’s what I have to do to—”
    “You stay away from that son of a bitch! Any problems I have, I’ll deal with my own way.” He downs the remainder of his bourbon. “One way or another.”
    “What does that mean?”
    His eyes are blurry with fatigue and alcohol, yet somehow sly beneath all that. “Don’t worry about it.”
    I am suddenly afraid that my father is contemplating suicide. His death would nullify any leverage Presley has over him and also provide my mother with a generous life insurance settlement. To a desperate man, this might well seem like an elegant solution. “Dad—”
    “Go to bed, son. Take care of your little girl. That’s what being a father’s all about. Sparing your kids what hell you can for as long as you can. And Annie’s already endured her share.”
    We turn to the door at the same moment, each sensing a new presence in the room. A tiny shadow stands there. Annie. She seems conjured into existence by the mention of her name.
    “I woke up by myself,” she says, her voice tiny and fearful. “Why did you leave, Daddy?”
    I go to the door and sweep her into my arms. She feels so light sometimesthat it frightens me. Hollow-boned, like a bird. “I needed to talk to Papa, punkin. Everything’s fine.”
    “Hello, sweet pea,” Dad says from his chair. “You make Daddy take you to bed.”
    I linger in the doorway, hoping somehow to draw out a confidence, but he gives me nothing. I leave the library with Annie in my arms, knowing I will not sleep, but knowing also that until my father opens up to me, there is little I can do to help him.

CHAPTER 5
     
    My father’s prediction about media attention proves prescient. Within forty-eight hours of my arrival, calls about interviews join the ceaseless ringing of patients