Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [29]
“We ran it through ballistics. Now we have to pull up cases where we have shells from a .380 Ruger. It’s going to take time.”
“Think the gun has been sitting around doing nothing for five years?”
“It could have been doing something but we may not know about it. The obsession with a camera is intriguing. Maybe he filmed something he shouldn’t have.”
“I was thinking about the same thing.” He handed her an address. “I hope Wendy Hesse is still cooperative. I haven’t talked to her since the memorial service.”
“She hasn’t called you up?”
“No, and I’ve called her several times. All I’ve gotten is the machine. So maybe she changed her mind about poking into Greg’s personal life.”
“So why stir up things?”
“You know how it is with an investigation. The damn thing takes on a life of its own.”
Gabe hadn’t heard from her since Sunday evening. She had texted to say her final thanks, and he had texted back, anytime, which he had meant. Then his phone had gone cold.
During the week, he thought about contacting her, but what was the point? She’d either show up on Saturday or she wouldn’t, and the way things were going, wouldn’t looked like the likely option. It was affecting him and his playing. Even his teacher noticed.
Especially his teacher noticed.
You’re distracted. Then Nick graced him with one of his famous withering looks. Gabriel, you’re a good professional-quality pianist. You’ll always be a good professional pianist. But if you want to be great, you’re going to have to be one hundred percent focused on what you’re doing. In this business, good isn’t going to cut it.
For Chrissakes, he was fifteen. Most dudes his age were smoking dope and sniffing girls. What did the man want from him? Instead, Gabe told Nick that he was right and he’d try harder.
It’s not your hands, Gabe, it’s your brain. Get your head wrapped around the music.
He had meant to take the advice to heart. He really had meant to do it. Plus, Nick had given him some composing assignments that ordinarily he really liked. But instead of making progress in his chosen field, he was alone in the house, sitting on his bed at four in the afternoon, surfing Facebook.
Chopin would just have to fucking wait.
Distracted.
His Facebook account was still active, but his pictures were old. There were several snapshots of him and his buddies when he had buddies. There were a couple of him and his mom when he had a mom. There was one old picture of his dad who happened to be the only one still in his life. He hadn’t answered anyone’s mail or posted any comments in over a year. Wistfully he surfed the pages of his old buddies, looking at updated photographs. His friends had grown taller and broader, and some of the more swarthy ones had sizable clumps of facial hair. His own cheeks and chin had sprouted stubble, but it was hard to see because it was growing in blond.
Anyway he wasn’t really interested so much in his old friends—just his new one.
For the fifth time in an hour, he pulled up Yasmine’s profile. She had accepted his invitation to be her friend, but that was as far as their contact had gone.
He stared at the pictures of her (gorgeous), her three sisters (gorgeous), her mother (the original gorgeous), and her dad who was bald and square faced and looked to be in his late sixties. Yasmine resembled her sisters (who in turn resembled the mother) except that she was still childish whereas the other three were closer to being women. He got a clear idea how she’d mature, would love to take a bite out of her two years from now. Even as is, he wouldn’t mind a nibble. He continued to gape at her face, wishing she’d never approached him. He had even gone to Coffee Bean several times in the past week at six in the morning, hoping to catch her, but she didn’t show.
As a last resort, he thought about hanging around her school, acting surprised when he saw her. He had a legitimate excuse. Rina was a teacher there. But he nixed the idea because it was clearly stalking.
So he stared at the same dozen pictures that he had stared