Therapy by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online Page B

any suburban street, check out a mall or a multiplex theater or a college campus, and you’d see scores just like him. His sister—the law student in Boston—was plain and serious-looking.
    Quick saw me looking. “That was Gav.” His voice caught. He cursed under his breath, said, “Let’s get to work.”
    *
    Milo prepared him for the picture, then showed it to him.
    Quick waved it away. “Never seen her.” Quick’s eyes dropped to the carpet. “Did my wife tell you about the accident?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “That and now this.” Quick sprang up, strode to a mock-Chippendale coffee table, studied a crystal box for a while, then opened it and pulled out a cigarette and lit up with a matching lighter.
    Blue smoke rose toward the ceiling. Quick inhaled deeply, sat down, and laughed harshly.
    “I quit five years ago. Sheila thinks it’s gracious to leave these out for guests, even though no one smokes anymore. Like the good old days in Hollywood, all that crap. Her sister tells her about Hollywood crap . . .” He stared at the cigarette, flicked ash on the carpet, and ground it into the pile with his heel. The resulting black scorch mark seemed to give him satisfaction.
    I said, “Did Gavin talk about a new girlfriend?”
    “New?”
    “After Kayla.”
    “Her,” said Quick. “There’s an airhead for you. No, he didn’t say anything.”
    “Would he have told you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Was he open about his personal life?”
    “Open?” said Quick. “Less so than before the accident. He tended to get confused. In the beginning, I mean. How could he not be confused, he caught a tremendous blow right here.” Quick touched his forehead.
    Same spot where the bullet had entered his son’s skull. He didn’t know yet. No reason for him to know yet.
    “Confusion,” I said.
    “Just temporary. But he found he couldn’t concentrate on his studies, so he dropped out of school.”
    Quick smoked and grimaced, as if inhaling hurt.
    “He got hit on the prefrontal lobes,” he said. “They told us it controls personality. So obviously . . .”
    “Gavin changed,” I said.
    “Nothing huge, but sure, there’d have to be changes. But then he got better, almost everything got better. Anyway, I’m sure Gav’s accident has nothing to do with this.”
    Quick puffed rapidly, flicked more ash. “We need to find out whoever did this. Bastard leave any clues?”
    Milo said, “We have no suspects and very little information. We haven’t even been able to identify the girl.”
    “Well I don’t know her, and I doubt Sheila does. We know the same people.”
    “Is there anything you can tell us about Gavin that might help?”
    “Gavin was a great guy,” said Quick, as if daring us to argue. “Had his head on his shoulders. Hell of a golfer. We both loved golf. I taught him, and he learned fast, leaped right over me—a seven handicap, and he was getting better. That was before the accident. Afterward, he wasn’t as coordinated, but he was still good. His attention would wander . . . sometimes he’d want to take the same shot over and over—wanted to do it perfectly.”
    “Perfectionistic,” I said.
    “Yeah, but at some point you’re causing a traffic jam on the green, and you have to stop. In terms of his interests, he liked business, same as me.” Jerry Quick slumped. “That changed, too. He lost interest in business. Got other ideas. But I figured it was temporary.”
    “Other career ideas?” I said.
    “More like career fantasies. All of a sudden econ was down the drain, and he was going to be a writer.”
    “What kind of writer?”
    “He joked about working for the tabloids, getting the dirt on celebrities.”
    “Just a joke,” I said.
    Quick glared. “He laughed, and I laughed back. I told you, he couldn’t concentrate. How the hell could he write for a newspaper? One time Eileen was over, and he asked her if she knew any celebrities he could get dirt on. Then he winked at me, but