Джонатан Келлерман - Night Moves

Felice leaned close and whispered, “Now you know. So we can move on, okay — Trev, Cheltz, when you finish why don’t you go work on a project.”

Chelsea turned to her mother. Joy on her broad, pasty face. First time I’d seen that.

“Really?” she said. “When it’s still light?”

“If Trevor’s okay with it.”

“More than okay,” said Bitt. He straightened with what looked like pain, held out the dustpan. “Where do I toss this?”

Father and daughter left in lockstep, a trudge duet.

When the utility door closed, I said, “This is the first time he’s been inside your house.”

Felice Corvin nodded. “It was going to happen, eventually. I wasn’t sure how to do it.” Wan smile. “Guess you took care of that... you didn’t touch your coffee. I’m having more — what I’d really like is a double Martini.”

“Go for it.”

“And make myself vulnerable? Don’t think so, Doctor.”

She walked to the coffeemaker, took a long time to do a simple task, returned to the island. Positioned so she’d have to face me.

“Okay. Here goes.” The flat of her hand landed on her left breast. “Okay. Nineteen years ago, I was living in the Bay Area, getting my master’s at Cal, and I met Trevor at a party. I’d just ended a toxic relationship — a professor, don’t ask.”

The “intellectual girlfriend” Lanny Joseph had mentioned.

She played with her hair. “Trevor was an underground celebrity but I knew nothing about him or his art. I just thought he was a nice, quiet guy, which is exactly what I was looking for. Turned out he’d also ended a fling, some stripper with a subterranean IQ.”

Bitt’s uncharitable assessment of Maillot Bernard. No doubt he’d sidestepped the incident with the gun.

I waited.

Felice Corvin said, “That’s it, basically. We started something, it lasted a year, it ended.”

“Basically” is a favorite word of liars and evaders.

I said, “Go on.”

“Oh, Jesus.” She reclamped her hair. “It ended with Trevor because I met Chet and he swept me off my feet, okay? Trevor was handsome but so was Chet, in a different way. What I saw as super-masculine, back then. He had — was nothing like what you saw. Really. I’ve long thought of him as fruit that didn’t ripen properly. I suppose we all change but Chet really changed. When I met him he was courtly, attentive. The proverbial sweep off the feet, nothing was good enough for me. I loved it.”

“Trevor hadn’t provided that.”

“Trevor was quiet and inoffensive. He needed his alone time, lots of it. After the professor, who was a total sociopath with insane mood swings, I was attracted to peace and quiet. But then it became... I’m not proud to say this but I grew bored with Trevor and meeting Chet intensified that. He was stimulating, gregarious, we laughed all the time, always had something to talk about. When I was with Trevor, there was a lot of silence. At first I was content but then I realized I was never joyful. After a while I felt burdened — having to carry the ball socially.”

“If you didn’t talk, no one did.”

She reached out, as if to touch my hand. Drew back. The downward eyes of a child caught in the act.

“With Chet,” she said, “I was the audience, could just sit back and be entertained. I loved that. Loved him for quite some time. Then — enough, okay? You don’t need to know about all our relationship garbage.”

I said, “Did you see Chet and Trevor simultaneously?”

She stiffened. “Wow. Someone’s being brutally direct. Was I a two-timing slut?”

“Not my question.”

“I know, I know, you’re being logical. Yes, there was overlap. And during that overlap, something happened.”

She touched her mug. “Do I need to spell it out?”

“Pregnancy.”

“Which I didn’t realize for a while. I’d never been regular and I didn’t gain a lot of weight until my sixth month. By that time, doing something about it seemed... I just couldn’t. I was terrified to tell Chet, he said no problem, let’s get married.”

“Chelsea was Trevor’s but Chet never knew. Did Trevor?”

Her cheeks flushed. The rest of her face followed, rosiness spreading beneath her neckline. “I was with Chet by then. To you it probably sounds cold-blooded but I didn’t want to hurt him.”

Answering one question, no sense pushing. “How did you learn Chelsea was Trevor’s?”

“I always suspected it,” she said. “The timing. The blood typing proved it. Chelsea’s AB blood, the same as me. Trevor’s A, so he could be a contributor. I knew Trevor’s type because we gave blood together. Some benefit in Berkeley for Africa or somewhere that I pushed him into.”

Smile. “Once upon a time, I was quite the idealist. When they typed me, I got treated like a big star, AB’s rare. When the needle went into Trevor’s arm, he nearly passed out.”

“Chet’s type is...”

“O-positive. And no, he never had a clue. Medical details weren’t his thing. When the kids were sick, he always managed to disappear. That was his approach to life in general. Anything that didn’t fascinate him personally, he ignored.”

Her fingernails rapped her mug. “Like Chelsea. The moment it became clear she was different, he abandoned her emotionally. Brett, on the other hand, was his guy. Conventional, concrete, athletic. He was never mean to Chelsea, she was just a big zero to him. He’d talk a good case to outsiders, but there was nothing real emanating from him to her and she knew it.”

“Did she talk about that?”

“Chelsea doesn’t talk about anything but it affected her, a mother can tell. That’s why I got so angry when Chet made that call to you. All of a sudden he’s the concerned parent? Pu- leeze . Have you figured it out, now? His ulterior motive?”

“He suspected something inappropriate going on between Chelsea and Trevor, wanted to point me in that direction so I’d snoop around.”

She nodded. “It made me mad but it also scared me.”

“His learning the truth.”

“At exactly the wrong time, Doctor. Eventually, we were going to get divorced — mutual decision. So far, the discussion had been civilized. But there are money issues, as I told you most of it’s mine. I didn’t want him using that against me.”

“When did you start talking divorce?”

“A while back. A year, at least. We’d bring it up, agree, get busy and forget about it. Our talks were always friendly, splitting up was one of the few things Chet and I could cooperate on.”

She burst into tears. No tissues in sight. I tore a paper towel from a roll on the counter and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Sorry for being mawkish but I just remembered something. The things you think you’ve forgotten.”

She sniffed, dabbed the corners of her eyes. “Don’t know if you noticed but one of the many obnoxious things Chet used to do was call me his bride.”

I nodded.

“I couldn’t stand it. But one day, when we were talking about the divorce, he got a look on his face. Troubled. What actually looked like a deep emotion, which for Chet was rare. He reached across the table and took my hand like he used to. Massaging my knuckles gently. I used to love that. When he wanted to, he could un- wind me. Then he said, ‘Guess you won’t be my bride anymore.’ And his voice choked up.”

More tears. “If he’d been like that all along...”

Footsteps cut her off. Brett bounced into the kitchen, miming jump shots.

Felice wiped away tear-tracks. Not necessary. The boy’s eyes were on the fridge.