Jonathan Kellerman - Flesh And Blood

Sage dropped her head. Her lips trembled.

“Oh, no,” said the woman scooping her up. “Don’t start crying, now – c’mon, sweetie nibbins. C’mon, c’mon, no tears now, you’re a good girl, you don’t have to cry – good girls don’t have to cry.”

Sage sniffed. Cried.

“Oh, please, Sagey. Mommy just doesn’t want anything to happen to you. Okay? You understand?”

Sage’s nose began running, and she licked away snot. Baxter said, “Ew, boogers,” and yanked on his mother’s arm.

She yanked back, raised her voice. “Now just set yourself down – both of you.” Pushing both children down onto the sand. “Good. Now just stay there – don’t move or… no TV and no pizza or F.A.O. Schwarz or Digimon or Pokémon or nothing. Okay?”

Neither child responded.

“Good.” To me: “You must think I’m a horrible mother. But he’s impossible, never sits still. When he was a baby, every time I walked through a doorway carrying him he used to stick out his head and – bump! Banging his head on purpose ! Raising these lumps! I used to worry everyone would think he was abused or something, you know?” A glance back at Sage: “And now, you too!”

The little girl said, “UUUUU!”

The woman blew a raspberry. Smoothed her dress again, heightening the virtual nudity. “She’s usually my good one. What a day.”

I smiled. She smiled back. Stuck out her hand. “I haven’t thanked you, have I? I’m really horrible – thank you sooo much. I’m Cheryl.”

“Alex.”

“Thank you, Alex. Thank you very very much. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t…” The green-blue eyes took another trip down my wet suit. “Do you live around here?”

“No, I was just kayaking.”

“Well, thank God you were. If you hadn’t happened to…” Tears filled her eyes. “Ohmigod, it’s just starting to hit me – what could’ve – I’m so-” She shivered, hugged herself, looked at me as if inviting a hug. But I just stood there, and she emitted several high-pitched whimpers, plucked at an eyelash.

Now her lip quaked. Both kids stared up at her. Sage seemed stunned, and for the first time Baxter looked penitent.

I squatted down beside them, sifted sand through my fingers.

“Mama kie,” said Sage, with wonder. Her lower lip jutted.

“Mama will be fine,” I said, drawing a small circle in the sand. Sage dotted the middle.

Baxter said, “Mommy?”

Cheryl stopped crying. Crouching down, she gathered both children to her artificial breasts.

“Mama fine?” said Sage.

“Yes, I am, nibby-nib. Thanks to this nice man – thanks to Alex.” She held on to the kids as her eyes locked onto mine. “Listen, I want to give you something. For what you did.”

“Not necessary,” I said.

“Please,” she said. “It would make me feel better – to at least – You saved my babies and I want to give you something. Please.” She pointed up at the top of the cliff. “We live here. Just come up for a second.”

“You’re sure it’s okay?”

“Of course I am. I’m – I’ll bring the car down and we can ride up. You’d be helping me anyway. It scares me – the car. I’m always afraid they’ll fall out or something. You can hold on to Baxter, you’ll be doing me a favor. Okay?”

“Sure.”

Her smile was sudden, warm, rich as she leaned over and kissed my cheek. I smelled sunscreen and perfume. Baxter growled.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “For letting me give you something.”

She walked over to the straw hat, lifted the brim, and pulled out a small, white remote-control unit. The push of a button triggered the cable car’s descent, soundless but for an occasional bump where an odd rail protruded.

“Neat, huh?” she said. To the kids: “Neat, right? Not too many people have something this cool.”

Neither child answered. I said, “Sure beats climbing.”

Cheryl laughed, tossed her hair. “Well, you couldn’t exactly climb that unless you were a – a lizard or something, I dunno. I mean, I like to work out – we’ve – There’s a great gym up at the house, and I’m real physical, but no way could I climb that, right?”

“No way,” I agreed.

“No-ay,” said Sage.

“I could climb it,” said Baxter. “Pizza cake.”

“Sure you could, honey.” Cheryl patted his head. “It is kind of neat, being able to ride down whenever you want. He – it got put in a long time ago.”

Muffled thump as the car came to rest six inches above the sand. “Okay, here we go, all aboard. I’ll take Sage and you hold on to him, okay?”

The compartment was roofless. Glass panels in a redwood frame, redwood benches, large enough for four adults. I got in last, feeling the car sway under my weight. Cheryl sat Baxter down, but he immediately stood. “No way, José,” she said, returning him to his bench and stretching his arm toward mine. I gripped his hand, and he growled again and glared. I felt, strangely, like a stepfather.

“Close the door, Alex. Okay? Make sure it’s locked good – Okay, here we go.”

Another button push, and up we went, hugging the cliff. The transparent walls gave the ride a weightless feel – floating in air as the view expanded to infinity. A brief, dank wave of vertigo washed over me as I caught a stunning brain-full of ocean and sky and endless possibilities. Norris might be right about the millionaires and their pitiful scraps of beach, but this was something too.

The trip was less than a minute of Baxter squirming, Sage growing drowsy, and Cheryl staring at me from under half-lowered lids, as if I had something to look forward to. Her legs were long, smooth, subtly muscled, perfect, and as she flexed she allowed them to spread, offering a view of soft inner thigh, high-cut lace panties, the merest hint of postwax stubble and goose bumps peeking out beyond the seam.

Baxter was staring at me. I held on tight to his hand. When we reached the top the car paused for a second, changed course, drifted horizontally, bumped to a halt under the metal arch.

“Home sweet home,” said Cheryl. “At least, kind of.”

THE FUNICULAR SET us down on a concrete platform, and we walked to a waist-high redwood-and-glass fence set twenty yards behind the cable unit. The barrier stretched the width of the property – at least three hundred feet – and halfway to the northern edge; a husky man in a gray uniform stooped and sprayed glass cleaner from a blue bottle. The area between the cliff edge and the fence was a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of packed brown Malibu dirt. No need to conserve space; the expanse before me was twenty acres minimum, maybe more.

Twenty calculated acres. The earth had been bunched into too-gentle slopes of a symmetry that would’ve amused Mother Nature, then cloaked with emerald sod. Beds of tropical vegetation had been cut into the grass, and medallions of flowers sprouted bauble-bright. Granite paths, some hooded by pink marble arbors laced with scarlet bougainvillea, others sun-whitened, sickled through perfect lawns under the selective shade of specimen trees. Maybe half a thousand trees, grouped in copses and pruned sculpturally, as calculated for size and shape as Cheryl’s breasts. The beat of the ocean continued to work its way up. But it competed now with new water music – waterfalls, at least a dozen minicataracts, tumbling into rock pools that seemed to sprout from nowhere. The soda spritz of skyward-aimed fountains jetted from free-form rock ponds, some occupied by swans and ducks and pink flamingos. Bird cries in the distance didn’t belong to any native species, and something that might’ve been a monkey shrieked.