Thin Air by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online

wrong about that.
    "Every day will be fun, chiquita," he said. "Every day we will play a different game."
    "And what's this one?" Lisa said. "Tie me up and drag me up here on a damned dolly like a pig to a barbecue?"
    He laughed. "A pig at a barbecue? You. My beautiful Angela? No, I don't think so."
    She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the room.
    "Oh, and this is fun," she said. "A cartoon room, and cartoon costumes."
    There was a table set with ornate china. There was a decanter of wine, some cheese, some fruit, some bread, just like the picnic at Crane's Beach. He gestured at the table.
    "We should eat, Angel, and talk of our future."
    "Future? Future? We have a past, " she said. "But we don't have a goddamned future, Luis. My husband will find me, and he'll find you and he'll kill you."
    "No," he said. "I think not."
    "You don't know," Lisa said. "My husband… "
    He shook his head.
    "No more, " he said as if to a noisy child. "He will not come. Let us have no more talk of this man. Sit down at the table."
    Lisa sat. "This man will show up one day and kill you," she said.
    Luis smiled like an indulgent parent. Frank will come. She wasn't hungry, but she knew she should eat. I'm trying, Frank. I'm trying to stay ready. She took some bread and a slice of cheese. She broke off a small segment of each and ate them, looking quietly at him while she chewed and swallowed. The bread seemed like Styrofoam. The cheese seemed like wax. It was difficult to swallow. Her mouth was dry and her throat was tight. Gotta eat, she thought. And broke off another piece. She took some grapes. He poured some wine from the decanter into her glass. She ignored it. The semblance of another time. The sham of intimacy was hideous. She could feel tears form behind her eyes. I want to be home with my husband, she thought. I want to be in my house. She forced herself not to cry. She would not cry! She forced a grape into her mouth and chewed it and swallowed it, squeezing it down her narrowed throat, fighting the need to wash it down with the wine.
    "That is good, Angel. It is lovely to see you eat like this. It is a good beginning."
    I want to kill you, she thought.

Chapter 8
    Merrimack State was a small cluster of mismatched buildings on the west fringe of Proctor, where the crime rate wasn't keeping up. It looked more like an elementary school with some outbuildings than a college. The administration building appeared once to have been a two-family house. The building had been painted white, but not recently, and the parking area out front was dirt covered. I parked in a spot marked Visitors and went in. I asked at the counter in the Registrar's Office, and got shunted around for maybe half an hour until I ended up talking to the Dean of Students.
    "I know this is trying, Mister Spenser, but obviously the right to privacy is something we must respect in regard to our students."
    "How about the right to get found, if they're lost?" I said.
    The dean smiled politely.
    "May I see your credentials, please."
    I thought about showing him my gun, rejected the idea, and let him see my license.
    "And you're employed by Ms. St. Claire's husband?"
    "Yes."
    "I'm afraid I'll need his authorization."
    "Of course you do. After all, I'm asking if she's enrolled here, and if so what courses she's taking. Hot stuff like that has got to be handled discreetly."
    "You may be as scornful as you wish, Mister Spenser, but it's not a question of what you're asking. There's a larger issue here."
    "I think it's called self-importance."
    "I beg your pardon?"
    The dean's name was Fogarty. He was a small man with a trimmed beard and receding hair. He wore a business suit. He'd probably started life as a high school principal somewhere and moved up, or down, depending on your perspective. The state college system was not a hotbed of erudition.
    "There is no issue here. I'm not asking you to reveal anything which is in any way of a private nature. You just like to think that