Jonathan Kellerman: Bones

Binchy received the laptop from Milo at six p.m., has already been watching the Vander house for an hour when we arrive at Gordie’s. No one has entered or exited and the garage door has been left open per Travis Huck’s instructions.

Huck stands in the sand.

Eight o’clock arrives. Passes.

Eight oh five, ten, twelve… we wonder if this will fizzle.

The garage door left open is a positive sign, and we cling to it.

Eight fifteen. Huck seems undisturbed. Then I remember he’s not wearing a watch.

It finally happens at eight sixteen, sudden and jarring as a heart attack.

Moe Reed is the first to notice. He points at the screen, nearly levitates from his seat.

Simone Vander has materialized on the beach. From nowhere.

The camera in Travis Huck’s button captures her willowy frame floating forward.

I think of a mermaid rising from the ocean.

As she gets closer, the bag in her hand takes shape. Large, paper, Trader Joe’s logo. Everything right on course, so far so good.

Simone’s clothes are dry, maybe a walk-on-water miracle?

So-thin girl, dry hair fluffing in the breeze. She walks along the beach. Bare feet mold to the sand. Walking with confidence, a rich girl accustomed to private silica, ambling, loose-limbed, swinging the bag, not a care in the world.

Huck stands there.

Milo says, “Where the hell did she come from?”

Aaron Fox says, “Don’t know. Camera is great for up close but past a certain point, you lose clarity in the long image.”

As if in illustration, Simone steps within fifteen feet of Huck, stares at him, stops, and her facial features clarify. Maybe a bit more tense than her easy walk had suggested. Green overtones don’t help. Bones sharper than I remember.

But still, a pretty girl.

The outfit she’s picked is SoCal Cutie 101: sprayed-on, low-riding jeans, dark middy blouse revealing a drum-tight belly, bangle bracelets, big hoop earrings.

Two pierces in her navel. The breeze blows dark hair away from her left ear, revealing a solitary diamond glinting from cartilage. The feed is that good.

Huck doesn’t move and for several seconds, neither does Simone.

“Travis.” The sound’s a bit grainy and her voice seems high, distant, muffled. As if she’s talking through a mouthful of whipped cream. Or blood.

“Simone.”

“Where will you go?”

“Not important.”

Simone smiles, steps closer, swinging the bag. “Poor Travis.”

“Poor Kelvin.”

Simone’s smile freezes. “Your little buddy.”

“Your little brother.”

“Half brother,” she says.

“Gook brother,” he says.

She gives a start, her eyes narrow, backtracking, trying to figure out where he got that.

She says, “Didn’t know you were a racist.”

“I heard you say it, Simone.” Something has changed in Huck’s voice. Deeper. Tighter.

Fox catches it. “Sounds like he’s working himself up. He goes for her, we’re too far to stop it.”

No one in the room answers him.

Simone Vander says, “You stalked me.”

“I did.”

She laughs at the shameless admission. “I fuck you four times and you can’t get over it.”

“Five.”

“Four. Loser. The first time was a joke. You have to actually put it in before you spooze to call it fucking.” She laughs harder. The tail end of her cruel mirth is softened by the fizz of an incoming wave.

She walks closer to Huck.

“You are such a dickbrain loser, Travis.”

“I know.”

His flat agreeability enrages her and her eyes turn to surgical incisions. She stops, sinks into the sand a bit, shifts position and finds higher ground. The bag swings wider. “You think you can escape your loser self by admitting that you’re a loser? What’s that, some rehab bullshit?”

Huck doesn’t respond.

“You’re a loser, a retard, a dickbrain preemie burnout. So don’t go thinking you can mess with me, Travis. Only reason I’m here is because I feel sorry for you, okay? And guess what the first thing you’re going to do when you’ve got my money?”

Silence.

“Take a guess, retard.”

Silence.

Simone tosses her hair, holds the bag in both hands. “The first thing you’re going to do-and you’re going to do it soon-is take every penny I give you and shove it up your nose or shoot it totally into your veins. Maybe we’ll both be lucky and you’ll totally O.D. What do you think, honey? Wouldn’t that be a good solution for everyone?”

Huck doesn’t answer.

The ocean rolls.

I wonder if he’s sweating. Moe Reed is. Milo is. Dark circles have spread under the armholes of Aaron Fox’s white-on-white silk shirt.

My scalp is sodden, my mouth is dry.

Another wave comes in, a big one, crashing.

Simone says, “Just do it, Travis. Like Nike says. O.D. yourself and put everyone out of their misery.”

“Why’d you do it, Simone?”

She laughs. “Why did I fuck you? Good question, Brain-Dead.”

“Why’d you kill them?”

Simone doesn’t confess, nor does she deny. She appears to glance past Huck, as if expecting company.

The four of us tense.

Moments pass.

Huck says, “All of them. Kelvin. How did you get yourself to that point?”

Simone’s laughter is sudden, shrill, unsettling. “You know how neat I am, honey. Comes a time, dirt has to go.”

Huck doesn’t speak. Maybe stunned. Or smart enough-with enough experience as a therapy patient-to use the silence.

Simone swings the bag. Arches her back, appears to be flaunting whatever chest she has.

Aaron Fox says, “She never stops. First time I met her, she was all sex.”

Simone says, “Catching up’s been fun, stud, but let’s just do this.”

Huck doesn’t answer. Simone appears distracted by the ocean. “Now you’re a dickbrain dumbie, too?”

Silence.

Fox says, “Say something, dude, keep her stringing along.” His jaw is tight and all his insouciance is gone and I catch a sense of what he was like working homicide.

Simone steps closer to Huck, just out of arm’s reach. A steady button-camera says Huck remains still.

He hasn’t budged since we planted him on the sand.

“Just like that,” he says.

“Like what?”

“You pay me, you’re free of sin.”

“Sin?” says Simone. “What the fuck is that?”

“Sixth Commandment.”

“What’s-oh, thou shalt not yadda yadda yadda.”

“All for money,” says Huck, with sympathy in his voice.

“Nothing sweeter.”

“It was more than that,” says Huck. “You’re jealous of Kelvin. Always were.”

“Jealous,” she says, as if the word is foreign.

“He’s got talent. You’ve got issues.”

Simone stares into the camera. Her chest heaves. She smiles. “You know what my issue is, Travis? Being here with a dickbrain like you so I can give you money so you can go shoot it up your arm or jam it in your nose. So cut the talk-you always wanted to talk.”

“You were nice to me so you could set me up.”

“Nice to you?”

“Pretending.”

“Sweetie,” she says, “you are so set-up-able.”

“So you could clean house.”

“Sweep, mop, polish,” she singsongs.

“Your dad gave you everything, Simone. You could have everything without killing them.”

“Really?” she says. “Everything for me and nothing for her? You are retarded.”

“There’s enough to go around, Simone.”

Simone thrusts the bag at him. “Take it and shut the fuck up.”

She grows smaller in the camera’s eye. Huck has retreated a foot or so.

“Take it!”

Milo slants forward.

Moe Reed mutters, “Go, go, go.”