John Lescroart - Guilt

'It'll be fun to find out.' Glitsky wouldn't take the bait. It did his heart good to see the real man for the first time. He half turned, then stopped, facing Dooher. 'Oh, and hey, good luck finding your wife. I wonder why she'd leave you.' A beat. 'Must have something to do with performance.'

Dooher couldn't sleep.

He kept coming back to Farrell.

What made a man valuable was imposing his will on the world he lived in. It was winning. Big risk, big prize. And he was the Alpha Male. He'd won. He'd beaten Glitsky, beaten Farrell, beaten the whole system. And it got him the mate he wanted, the prime female. And now he's supposed to feel guilty? Please. Peddle that twaddle to one of the sheep.

He kept coming back to Farrell, the whiner selling his loser's vision to Christina. By making Mark's guilt the big issue, he'd got her to leave him, tearing apart what Mark had earned.

Naked, he wandered through the big house – the library, the kitchen, the living room where he'd fucked Wes's wife.

He wondered if he knew. He should tell him.

Outside, it was freezing. But he liked it, liked the midnight stroll down his driveway without his clothes on. He was untouchable – he could do whatever he wanted.

He let himself into the garage. His M-16 was tucked into its shelf high up over his workbench and he took it down, unwrapping the cloth, shooting the bolt, sighting down the barrel, an idea forming.

But no, he couldn't use anything as obvious as a rifle that could be traced to him. He put the gun down on the workbench and picked up a crowbar, hefting it against his palm.

Doubts had tossed him from side to side on the bed for hours. Doubts about who he was. Doubts that he'd gotten himself to here by wanting too much, by lying, by lust, by murder, by all the cardinal sins. Now this – his world imploding, Christina leaving him – was his punishment.

And maybe he deserved it.

'Fuck that.'

A violent shiver ran through him. He felt some coil release inside him and he brought the crowbar down in a deafening crash, shattering the wood, scattering hardware and the now-broken glass from the storage jars over the M-16 and the rest of the workbench.

Farrell was the prime mover here. He'd brought Glitsky back into it again after it should have been long over. Somehow Farrell convinced Christina that she had to move out.

The self-righteous son of a bitch. Farrell, who'd never succeeded at anything, who believed in fair play and the goodness of man, was a slinking dog compared to the men who walked on this earth. How dare he presume to judge what Mark had done?

But now it was clear: Farrell wouldn't rest until he had brought Dooher down to his level.

He needed a lesson in where he belonged, in what his station was, in who made the rules.

Dooher wasn't going to let this continue. He'd take care of it in short order, set the world back straight.

Then go reclaim what was his.

Diane Price volunteered at the Center on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings. She picked up the phone when it rang at 8:45. 'I'm looking for Samantha Duncan's number.'

'I'm sorry,' Diane said. 'I can't give that out over the telephone, but I can call her and have her get back to you.'

A frustrated sigh. 'It's just I've been awake half the night and I'm starting… well, never mind. That would be good, if you could ask Samantha to call me.' She gave her room number, the motel.

'And who should Samantha ask for?'

A long hesitation. 'Christina Carrera.'

'You're Mark Dooher's wife,' Diane said.

'That's right.' And clearly Christina had no idea to whom she was talking, who Diane was. She wondered briefly if she should tell her, then decided against it. What would be the point?

'Oh…' On the phone, the woman gave a low moan, followed by a succession of quick breaths.

'Are you all right?'

The breathing slowed. The voice was normal again. 'I think I might be starting labor. Can you call Sam?'

'I'll call her right away.'

Irene Carrera walked out on to the pool deck where Bill was taking his morning laps. She watched the effortless glide of his body through the blue water, then her gaze went up and out over Ojai – the peace of it, the order.

She pulled up one of the moulded-iron chairs as Bill executed a swimmer's turn and headed back up to the deep end. She'd let him finish his workout, a few more carefree moments before she disturbed him.

Their daughter was in trouble again. Irene had just gotten off the phone with Mark. He told her he hadn't been completely truthful when they'd talked last night. Christina hadn't been home at that time. In fact, she hadn't come home at all. She was staring again out over the serenity of her valley.

'What's that look for?'

She hadn't noticed that Bill had finished and was walking toward her, toweling off, his usual easy smile in place. There was no avoiding it. She had to tell him.

A puppet whose strings got cut, her husband slumped into another chair as she spoke to him. Irene continued. 'Mark said she called him last night. Told him she needed some time to think, but wouldn't say where she was. She's hiding out.'

Bill let out a deep sigh, staring into the space between him and his wife. 'She's delivering his baby any time now and she's hiding out?'

Irene nodded. 'Mark said she'd been acting unstable the last couple of weeks – skittish, crying jags, seeing ghosts everywhere…'

'He called to ask us what we thought he should do. He sounded a wreck.' Anguish, now. 'Bill, why wouldn't she have called us?'

He barely trusted himself to speak. He would go up and find her. Somehow. Help Mark if he had to, though he'd never warmed to the man. 'I don't know, hon.'

'But wasn't it going so well? Hadn't she-'

Shaking his head, interrupting. 'She didn't want us to know,' he said. 'She didn't want to disappoint us.'

'So she won't call us?'

'She'll call.' But his face betrayed his words.

'Bill?' She stood and came up next to him, put her arms around him. 'I know what you're thinking, but we've got to keep Mark in this picture.'

He said nothing.

'He's her husband. He still believes in her -I heard it in his voice. If we hear from her, we have to tell her that. You don't leave. You don't always leave.'

'We don't know the whole story, Irene. Maybe Mark drove her in some-'

But she stepped away, fire in her eyes. 'No! That's always been her excuse and-'

'It wasn't an excuse with Brian, Irene. The bastard was married to somebody else, knocked her up and dumped her. That's not an excuse.'

'All right, but what about Joe Avery? What about all the other men?'

'Maybe they weren't good enough for her.'

She glared at him. 'Spoken like a true father, Bill.'

'What do you mean by that? I am her true father.'

'And every time she left some man, it was always okay, because they weren't good enough for her. And every time, it broke her heart a little more, but it was okay, it was okay. She was still Daddy's little girl.'

'Irene…'

'No, listen. She's almost thirty years old. She's picked a good man, I'm convinced of that. A good man.'

'I don't know that.'

'Bill. You do.'

'Then tell me why she's left him?'

'I don't know. But he called us. This isn't someone who's beating her. She's never said a bad word about him. He doesn't know what to do, so he comes to us. Doesn't that tell you something? Isn't that a good sign?' He didn't want to hear it, but it needed to be said. 'Bill, she married him. It's time she learned that's where her life belongs, with her husband. Not with us. We love her, but she can't keep coming back to us. She'll never grow up. She'll never have a life.'