Quiet in Her Bones by Singh, Nalini (good e books to read txt) 📗

The native bush was a living, breathing force around me as I stepped onto the street. You couldn’t see a single property from the road, and that was exactly how the residents liked it. Each of the houses was unique, the designs created by different architects, and built at different times over a period of six years.

My father’s house was at the very back.

When I looked outward from my room, I could see the entire Cul-­de-­Sac. To my father’s immediate left were the Fitzpatricks with their intensely modern black glass construct, while Cora and Alice’s luxurious “log cabin” style home stood to the right. Next to the Fitzpatricks was Diana and Calvin’s home.

I had a vague memory of riding a bicycle up the drive of that grand showcase of square edges and black timber now softened by masses of fo­liage. It suited Diana, with her tidy mind and liking for routine and order.

My mother had always said her best friend had the neatest mind she’d ever known. “Forget about going back to practicing medicine, Diana could run a hospital,” she’d said once. “I wonder if Calvin knows how lucky he is that she prefers to focus all that intelligence and heart on her home and family.”

I suppose the home suited Diana’s husband, too. Given recent experiences, I was of the opinion that surgeons were anal by ­nature—­and I was more than okay with that. My foot would’ve been fucked three ways to Sunday if Dr. Tawera hadn’t noticed a single bone chip in the wrong place and removed it with what I liked to imagine were surgical tweezers.

A little murmur of noise hit the air as I neared the Corner Café. Located just outside the gates of the Cul-­de-­Sac proper, the tiny place just big enough for five tables inside and a couple outside made most of its money from locals who stopped for coffee on their way to and from work. Most discovered it thanks to small signs about a hundred meters up Scenic Drive in either direction.

Still, located where it was, it was never going to be a major operation. The original owners had asked permission from the Cul-­de-­Sac residents before setting it up, and that permission had transferred to the current owner. The secret of its success was that the people who lived here liked coffee as well as anyone ­else—­and the place only operated a limited number of hours.

I stopped, walked inside.

The murmuring halted as if a switch had been flicked.

Trixi and Lexi stood at the counter, having paused midword in their chat with the owner of the café. The mother and daughter duo were dressed, as always, in spandex tights and fluorescent tops. They wore sports bras in summer, switched to ­long-­sleeved tops in winter.

Today’s colors were ­eye-­searing pink and blazing yellow. Their shoes matched. All bore the emblem of a ­well-­known designer. Trixi gave me a look I thought might be aiming for concerned, but her unmoving forehead made emotion difficult. Bleached blonde, the older of the two women had a face that would’ve been beautiful if it wasn’t so hard, with so little fat on the bone.

Trixi and her daughter didn’t live in the Cul-­de-­Sac, but it was part of their “walking route.” I’m not sure how much walking took place between the gossiping with those they met along the way.

“Are you all right, Aarav dear?” Trixi asked. “We heard they found something out on Scenic Drive and well, the police came to take you and your dad ­away …”

I’d known her and Lexi as a boy, hadn’t been the least surprised when I returned to the Cul-­de-­Sac and found the two still doing the rounds. They’d given me jelly beans back then, and while I knew gossip was their top priority, I’d never found them unkind. Today, I had the feeling the sympathy was genuine.

“The police found my mother’s car,” I said, because the news would be all over the street soon enough. “The car from that night.”

A gasp cut through the air. Not Trixi or her younger shadow.

No, the sound had come from Lily.

The owner of this café and my ­long-­ago lover. At nineteen, she’d been all slender limbs, golden brown skin, and an awakening sensuality.

Today, her skin remained unblemished, her body as slender, but she’d contained the sensuality behind a simple black sweater and jeans. Her slick ­brown-­black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her dark eyes wide.

Born in Thailand to a white Kiwi father and an ethnically Thai mother, Lily had come to New Zealand at age two. She’d begun working for my family a year before my mother’s disappearance and had been let go about eight and a half months into working there.

The maid and the scion of a rich family.

It sounded so simple and so sordid, but I’d never been the one in control in that relationship. I’d been ­a—­barely—­sixteen-­year-­old boy in awe of her sensuality, far too awed to even speak to her properly. That I’d get to see her naked one day hadn’t been a possibility I’d ever considered.

I also hadn’t been the only Rai to notice Lily.

My father used to stand in the doorway of his study and watch Lily as she swept and vacuumed and dusted. She’d never worn revealing clothes, not even anything particularly tight, but she’d been as sensual as a ripe peach bursting with juice.

My editor would immediately strike out that metaphor if I put it in a book, writing “cliché” next to it, but this cliché fit who Lily had once been. The quintessential young woman on the cusp of erotic discovery.

So when, one week after my sixteenth birthday, while my parents were out, she’d walked into my room and shut the door behind her, I hadn’t even thought of saying no. She’d stripped slow and easy, dropping her clothes to the floor one by one while I sat frozen in bed. Naked, she’d walked across the room to undo my