Under The Knife. Tess Gerritsen
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arms, curling around Daddy’s neck for a kiss.
What do I have to go home to? she thought.
Guy turned and gave her one last wave. Then he and his family vanished out the door. Kate sighed enviously. Lucky man.
* * *
AFTER HE LEFT his office that afternoon, David drove up Nuuanu Avenue and turned onto the dirt lane that wound through the old cemetery. He parked his car in the shade of a banyan tree and walked across the freshly mown lawn, past the marble headstones with their grotesque angels, past the final resting places of the Doles and the Binghams and the Cookes. He came to a section where there were only bronze plaques set flush in the ground, a sad concession to modern graveskeeping. Beneath a monkeypod tree, he stopped and gazed down at the marker by his feet.
Noah Ransom
Seven Years Old
It was a fine spot, gently sloping, with a view of the city. Here a breeze was always blowing, sometimes from the sea, sometimes from the valley. If he closed his eyes, he could tell where the wind was coming from, just by its smell.
David hadn’t chosen this spot. He couldn’t remember who had decided the grave should be here. Perhaps it had simply been a matter of which plot was available at the time. When your only child dies, who cares about views or breezes or monkeypod trees?
Bending down, he gently brushed the leaves that had fallen on the plaque. Then, slowly, he rose to his feet and stood in silence beside his son. He scarcely registered the rustle of the long skirt or the sound of the cane thumping across the grass.
“So here you are, David,” called a voice.
Turning, he saw the tall, silver-haired woman hobbling toward him. “You shouldn’t be out here, Mother. Not with that sprained foot.”
She pointed her cane at the white clapboard house sitting near the edge of the cemetery. “I saw you through my kitchen window. Thought I’d better come out and say hello. Can’t wait around forever for you to come visit me.”
He kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry. I’ve been busy. But I really was on my way to see you.”
“Oh, naturally.” Her blue eyes shifted and focused on the grave. It was one of the many things Jinx Ransom shared with her son, that peculiar shade of blue of her eyes. Even at sixty-eight, her gaze was piercing. “Some anniversaries are better left forgotten,” she said softly.
He didn’t answer.
“You know, David, Noah always wanted a brother. Maybe it’s time you gave him one.”
David smiled faintly. “What are you suggesting, Mother?”
“Only what comes naturally to us all.”
“Maybe I should get married first?”
“Oh, of course, of course.” She paused, then asked hopefully: “Anyone in mind?”
“Not a soul.”
Sighing, she laced her arm through his. “That’s what I thought. Well, come along. Since there’s no gorgeous female waiting for you, you might as well have a cup of coffee with your old mother.”
Together they crossed the lawn toward the house. The grass was uneven and Jinx moved slowly, stubbornly refusing to lean on her son’s shoulder. She wasn’t supposed to be on her feet at all, but she’d never been one to follow doctors’ orders. A woman who’d sprained her ankle in a savage game of tennis certainly wouldn’t sit around twiddling her thumbs.
They passed through a gap in the mock-orange hedge and climbed the steps to the kitchen porch. Gracie, Jinx’s middle-aged companion, met them at the screen door.
“There you are!” Gracie sighed. She turned her mouse-brown eyes to David. “I have absolutely no control over this woman. None at all.”
He shrugged. “Who does?”
Jinx and David settled down at the breakfast table. The kitchen was a dense jungle of hanging plants: asparagus fern and baby’s tears and wandering Jew. Valley breezes swept in from the porch, and through the large window, there was a view of the cemetery.
“What a shame they’ve trimmed back the monkeypod,” Jinx remarked, gazing out.
“They had to,” said Gracie as she poured coffee. “Grass can’t grow right in the shade.”
“But the view’s just not the same.”
David batted away a stray fern. “I never cared for that view anyway. I don’t see how you can look at a cemetery all day.”
“I like my view,” Jinx declared. “When I look out, I see my old friends. Mrs. Goto, buried there by the hedge. Mr. Carvalho, by the shower tree. And on the slope, there’s our Noah. I think of them all as sleeping.”
“Good Lord, Mother.”
“Your problem, David, is that you haven’t resolved your fear of death. Until you do, you’ll never come to terms with life.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Take another stab at immortality. Have another child.”
“I’m not getting married again, Mother. So let’s just drop the subject.”
Jinx responded as she always did when her son made a ridiculous request. She ignored it. “There was that young woman you met in Maui last year. Whatever happened to her?”
“She got married. To someone else.”
“What a shame.”
“Yeah, the poor guy.”
“Oh, David!” cried Jinx, exasperated. “When are you going to grow up?”
David smiled and took a sip of Gracie’s tar-black coffee, on which he promptly gagged. Another reason he avoided these visits to his mother. Not only did Jinx stir up a lot of bad memories, she also forced him to drink Gracie’s god-awful coffee.
“So how was your day, Mother?” he asked politely.
“Getting worse by the minute.”
“More coffee, David?” urged Gracie, tipping the pot threateningly toward his cup.
“No!” David gasped, clapping his hand protectively over the cup. The women stared at him in surprise. “I mean, er, no, thank you, Gracie.”
“So touchy,” observed Jinx. “Is something wrong? I mean, besides your sex life.”
“I’m just a little busier than usual. Hiro’s still laid up with that bad back.”
“Humph. Well, you don’t seem to like your work much anymore. I think you were much happier in the prosecutor’s office. Now you take the job so damned seriously.”
“It’s a serious business.”
“Suing doctors? Ha! It’s just another way to make a fast buck.”
“My doctor was sued once,” Gracie remarked. “I thought it was terrible, all those things they said about him. Such a saint…”
“Nobody’s a saint, Gracie,” David said darkly. “Least of all, doctors.” His gaze wandered out the window and he suddenly thought of the O’Brien case. It had been on his mind all afternoon. Or rather, she’d been on his mind, that green-eyed, perjuring Kate Chesne. He’d finally decided she was lying. This case was going to be even easier than he’d thought. She’d be a sitting duck on that witness stand and he knew just how he’d handle her in court. First the easy questions: name, education, postgraduate training. He had a habit of pacing in the courtroom, stalking circles around the defendant. The tougher the questions, the tighter the circles. By the time he came in for the kill, they’d be face-to-face. He felt an unexpected thump of dread in his chest, knowing what he’d have to do to finish it. Expose her. Destroy