Lassiter 07 - Flesh and Bones by Levine, Paul (best fiction books to read TXT) 📗

of adolescent ridicule. I considered having her mother arrested for conduct unbecoming a parent. I remembered Phoebe had a tattoo on her shoulder and wondered if Tanya did, too, and whether Kip would see it before the night was out.

Now I was getting angry at myself. Just when had I become so judgmental? All this time, I'd thought I was such a hip surrogate dad, and it turned out I was really Ward Cleaver.

"It's okay, Mr. Lassiter," Tanya said. "I brought my sleeping bag." She gestured toward the corner of the room, where indeed a sleeping bag was stretched across the carpet between piles of videotapes and Sega game cartridges.

"I see," I said for the second time, because I was utterly speechless.

"Hey, Uncle Jake, you're not going to get all freaky on us, are you?" Kip said.

"No. Why? I mean, of course not."

" 'Cause just now you seem like a major goober."

Tanya's voice managed to be both soothing and mature. "Kip and I just hang out. We're not, you know . . ."

I looked at my nephew, trying to remember what I'd been like when I was twelve. I seem to recall thinking a lot about girls but never doing anything icky like kissing them.

"All right," I said. "But don't stay up too late, and . . ."

And what?

"And don't forget to brush your teeth."

That set them to giggling again.

I left the room, closing the door behind me, feeling like a major goober indeed. Back in bed, I got back to my book, following Travis across the Gulf Stream toward Bimini, chasing a very bad character named Junior Allen. I remembered my own trip across the stream, where I'd followed a beautiful but lethal board-sailor named Lila Summers.

I was feeling sad and alone when there was a soft knock at my bedroom door. If Kip was going to ask permission to share a sleeping bag, the answer was a firm—

"Jake," came the woman's voice from the other side of the door, "are you awake?"

Chrissy and I sat on my bed, not unlike the twelve-year-olds across the hall. Except, if Kip was thinking what I was thinking, I was going to ground him for the next dozen years.

Chrissy arched her long neck and exhaled a puff of cigarette smoke toward the overhead paddle fan. I would try to get her to quit. Orders from her boy scout lawyer: no more shooting, no more smoking.

We sat there, side by side, talking. She told me everything she liked. Stone crabs and hash browns, Paris in the rain, snorkeling over tropical reefs. Yeah, and walks on the beach with somebody she cared about. We talked about plays and movies and even football. She had a decent understanding of the game and thought Troy Aikman was cute. I always thought quarterbacks were pampered, overpaid sissies, the rock stars of the business, but at least Aikman could take a hit.

We played a word association game we made up as we went along, and we laughed at each other's jokes. We talked about those who had sailed through our lives and examined each other's psychic scars.

I was quiet a moment, and she just looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"No man has ever cared for me."

It was such an outrageous statement that I laughed. Her look told me she was serious.

"That's hard to believe," I said. "Impossible, in fact."

"Oh, men have bought me things, taken me places. They've used me, and I've used them. But they never cared for me."

She let the line dangle there. I circled it but didn't bite.

"You do, though—don't you, Jake?"

"I do," I said.

"So you don't have to pretend that this is just another case."

"I won't. I can't."

"Then talk to me. Tell me what you're feeling."

"That's not easy for me. Never has been."

"All right. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of. . ."

Court of what? She didn't say. Law? Last resort? Love?

"Tell me how you feel," she ordered.

How do you wrap words around feelings? I didn't know.

"It's complicated," I said. "I have a duty to you. You're relying on me, not as a man, but as a—"

"Knight in shining armor."

I shook my head. "No, as a lawyer."

She ground out her cigarette in a Super Bowl commemorative plate on the nightstand. "Aren't you going to rescue me?"

"I want to. Believe me, I want . . ."

Outside, the mockingbird was at it again, and in the distance, a police siren wailed. "What do you want, Jake?"

"I want to wrap my arms around you and carry you off somewhere. Someplace safe where no one can hurt you."

"Ah, you are my knight."

"No. The armor's rusted, the knees are creaky, and my steed has thrown a shoe. Besides that, I've always been a step too slow."

She leaned over and kissed me. Smoky and sweet. "Not for me," she said.

Softly, tentatively, she kissed me again. Waiting for me to kiss her back. But I didn't. I stalled.

"It's important that we maintain some distance," I said. "At least until the case is over."

"You mean geographical distance?" She scooted closer on the bed, gave me a playful smile, and ran a hand through my hair. "Or emotional distance?"

"Both. I find the two are usually related."

"Oh, I don't know. I've been physically close to lots of men. But not emotionally close."

"Everyone's done that," I said. "But it's so meaningless. So . . ."

"Empty."

"Exactly."

"You don't want to get involved with me, do you?" she asked.

"It's not that I don't want to. I can't."

"What are you afraid of?"

"You. Me. I've been down this road before."

"Would it be unethical?"

"Technically, yeah. The Bar passed a rule that prohibits lawyers from sleeping with their clients."

"Really?"

"Unless they were involved before the case. Then the lawyer's grandfathered in."

"Nice choice of words," she said.

"But that's not the point. I didn't learn my ethics from a book. I just try to do what's right. And if we're involved, it'll cloud my judgment."

"And we wouldn't want that," she said, wriggling close