“The police haven’t solved it,” I said. “It’s not likely they will.”
“Good,” she said. “Why waste time.”
She trickled more food into the pond, rubbed her hands together to get rid of the pellet dust. Began kneading again, her body tense. Rubbing her brow, she let out a long sigh.
I waited.
“I fly up there every day to see her,” she said. “And I keep asking myself why is she here, why does she have to go through this? Why should one person who never did anything bad in her life have to go through being victimized by two monsters in one lifetime? If there’s a God, why would He set things up that way?”
“Good question,” I said. “People have been wrestling with various versions of it since the beginning of time.”
She smiled. “That’s no answer.”
“True.”
“I thought you had all the answers.”
“Brace yourself for crushing disillusionment, kid.”
Her smile widened and warmed. She leaned forward, holding her hair back with one hand, touching the water with the other.
“You saw things,” she said. “Up at that . . . place. Things we haven’t talked about.”
“There’s a lot we haven’t talked about. All in—”
“I know, I know, due time. I just wish I knew what due time was— could put some kind of number on it.”
“That’s understandable.”
She laughed. “There you go again. Telling me I’m okay.”
“That’s ’cause you are.”
“That so?”
“Very definitely.”
“Well,” she said, “you’re the expert.”
The End
A Ballantine Book
Published by Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 1992 by Jonathan Kellerman
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN 0-345-46374-9
Private Eyes Page 56
