Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [66]
“Can’t picture him and Denise.”
“Had an affair with the daughter.”
“Interesting.”
“Parents found out. Seducing underaged girls definitely not good PR for an enlightened being. Lightfoot has to do something about it and, knowing Ozzie’s history, goes with family annihilation.”
“Except he didn’t frame Ozzie. He framed Patrick.”
“All right. Lightfoot’s obviously a master manipulator….”
“‘Obviously’?”
D.D. ignored him. “So he went to work on Patrick. Here’s a father who’s financially stressed and emotionally strained. Troubled kid is a lot of work. House is a lot of work. Now he finds out his ‘good daughter’ is dirty dancing with the local healer. Patrick confronts Andrew. Andrew twists it all around and convinces Patrick that all the ‘negative energies’ are winning, and Patrick should give up the fight.”
“Drives the man into killing his entire family?”
“Why not? We close the case, Lifetime makes the movie, I finally get sex.” D.D. stopped. Probably shouldn’t have said that last part out loud.
“Does the sex part involve Lightfoot or me?” Alex asked.
“In that scenario, Lightfoot’s gone to prison, so it doesn’t involve him.”
“Perfect. Let’s make the arrest.”
“Only after you solve the next problem: the Laraquette-Solis crime scene.”
Alex nodded, serious again. “Lightfoot claimed not to know them, and I gotta say, I don’t see them as the shaman type.”
“Though they do know their herbs.” D.D. shrugged, trying out different scenarios in her mind, not making much progress. She started to pack up her fudge. “Grilled cheese?” she asked Alex, gesturing to the remaining half a sandwich. He considered the matter, then helped himself to a few bites. The gesture struck D.D. as intimate. Look at them, sitting forearm to forearm at this tiny little table in this cute little fudge shop in this gorgeous little town, sharing a sandwich.
She felt discomfited again. Torn between the life she had and the life she wished she had. Or, more accurately, torn between the person she was and the person she wished she could be.
“All set?” Alex asked after finishing the grilled cheese. D.D. nodded, and he graciously carried her tray to the trash. She replaced her fudge in the plastic bag, adding Alex’s box on top. They waved goodbye to the proprietor, then stepped out onto the sun-drenched street, having to pick their way through the throng of summer tourists.
“Next stop?” Alex asked, angling automatically toward the ocean. At the end of the street, they could just make out a slice of blue water. It was tempting to walk toward it.
“Don’t know,” D.D. said, staring at the distant water, listening to the gulls.
“Dig deeper into Lightfoot?”
“Probably.” But her heart really wasn’t in it.
“It might just be two coincidental crimes,” Alex said, as if sensing her apathy.
“I don’t know that the crimes are linked,” she admitted. “I feel it, but I don’t know it.”
Beside her, Alex blinked. It took her another second to get it.
“Crap, I sound just like him!”
“Cops know woo-woo.”
“That’s it, I want to go home and shower.”
“Works for me,” he said.
She shook her head and headed for the car. “We’re going to HQ.”
“No shower?”
“Nope. I’m getting out a whiteboard, we’re poring through the reports, and we’re gonna overanalyze every single detail of this case until we goddamn well know something. Screw woo-woo. You know what makes the world a better place? Good, old-fashioned hard work.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
DANIELLE
“So how are things at the PECB?” Dr. Frank asked.
He sat in a dark green wingback chair flecked with tiny gold stars. I sat across from him, not on the proverbial couch, but in a second star-dusted deep-green wingback. Between us was a cherry table with a tape recorder and two china cups: tea for him, coffee for me. We could be a set piece at a theater: prominent shrink interviewing prominent patient.
I picked up the fine rose-patterned china cup and took a sip before answering. Work was Dr. Frank’s standard warm-up question. I only saw him a couple of times a year, so each occasion called