Quiet in Her Bones Singh, Nalini (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖

Nausea twisted my stomach. I couldn’t turn that around, couldn’t make my mother into a better person. “Why? Why did she want you to beat up Cora?”

“I have no fucking idea. She said, ‘Don’t worry your pretty head about it. Just hurt her without doing major permanent ­damage—­but make sure you shatter her left hand. And don’t get caught.’ So I put on dark clothing, pulled on a balaclava, and crossed all my moral lines.”

Cora’s hand had never quite healed right.

“My mother sent her flowers on behalf of the family,” Riki whispered. “She was ­incensed—­what kind of man beats on a defenseless woman, she kept saying.” He sat down on the grass, his arms on his knees and tears in his voice. “Who do you want me to hurt?”

“You had a ton of motive to kill my mother.”

A bark of laughter, his cheeks wet when he lifted his head. “You know why this is like a fucking nightmare on repeat? She had video, too, something she said would come out if anything happened to her.” His eyes narrowed. “Never did though, so maybe I should kill you and take my chances.”

I thought quickly. “She hid it in my stuff. I already knew you were gay, and you were my friend, so I didn’t see the point in doing anything with the information.”

“Guess we’re not friends now.” His face was without expression. “Does it feel good to have another man’s balls in your hand, where you can twist and twist?”

“All I care about is finding out who killed my mother.” Unable to stay upright any longer, I moved over to the ­air-­conditioning unit and sat down on top, hoping it’d hold my weight. It did. “Where was your father the night my mother disappeared?”

“I might hate him, but I won’t let you destroy him because you’re on some fucked-­up vengeance trip.”

“I don’t want a scapegoat. I want the person who murdered her.”

“Then look elsewhere. Dad was at a function at SkyCity that night, together with Mum. Something to do with the Mahi Awards.”

The awards were an annual celebration of Māori achievement widely covered by the media. Kahu had been nominated more than once, so I knew the awards also had a website, complete with a public archive of photos from previous events. Hemi’s alibi would be easy enough to confirm.

As I sat there in the cold, I asked myself if the information gained had been worth making an enemy out of Riki.

Yes.

Did I feel like shit?

Surprisingly, yes. Maybe because he’d been kind to the lonely kid I’d once been.

Or maybe I wasn’t as dead inside as I believed.

It didn’t matter. My mother was still just bones.

Transcript

Session #8

“No family talk today. I’ve had enough.”

“As you like, but I do think we’re at a critical stage.”

“I feel like the walls are shutting in on me, suffocating me until I can’t breathe.”

“Is it because of the memories? You mentioned certain buried ones had begun to resurface.”

[No answer]

“I know it’s scary and painful, but you’re so close. It may take us months to reach this stage again if you take a step back now.”

“Don’t you fucking understand? I don’t want to see! I don’t want to know!”

34

I saw Isaac early the next morning, while I was out for a “walk” in the main drive. Either the lanky male didn’t see my raised hand or he was ignoring me. He banged his car door hard as he got into his white SUV, then reversed in a skid of tires before racing out of the Cul-­de-­Sac.

Someone whistled nearby. “Wife number five in the wings, you think?”

I shifted to see that Veda had walked up to me. Despite the fact it was still ­morning-­dark, she was already in a suit of pinstriped black and fashionable spiked heels that put her an inch over my height. She’d placed her hair in a crisp coil at the back of her head, but hadn’t yet put on her usual makeup. “Why do you bother with makeup, Veda? Your skin is flawless.”

She blinked before a faint hint of color tinged her cheeks. “You did grow up into a charmer, didn’t you?” But the way her lips were tugging up, I knew she was pleased by the compliment. “Look, Aarav, I came to apologize.” She locked those bright blue eyes on me. “Brett shouldn’t have gone off on you like ­that—­our beef is with your father, not you, and he realizes that. He was just overwrought. He did love Rex.”

My foot suddenly felt wet and dirty. “I understand.” Smiling gently, I said, “I figured you and my father would’ve come to a ceasefire by now.”

“If Ishaan would leave us alone, we’d return the favor.” Her tone was arctic. “You know he reported us to the Law Society?”

“I try not to pay too much attention to my father’s actions.”

Expression softening, she said, “Wise move.” She rolled her lower lip inward. “I was sorry to hear about Nina. We were never close, but I think that’s because we were too much ­alike—­never content to accept the patriarchal status quo.”

“Did you see or hear anything the night she vanished?”

“I was in Queenstown to represent a ­client—­I have a vivid memory of standing in my hotel room, staring out at the lake when Brett called to update me on what was going on. It must’ve been a few days afterward, when Ishaan filed the theft complaint.”

“You were in Queenstown the entire time?”

“Left two days before Nina drove away. But Brett was ­home—­he told me it was so stormy that night he didn’t even think about going out. Made a nice pasta, lit the fire, and had a night in. Saw or heard nothing.” She looked at her watch. “I better go finish prepping for work. Talk later, okay?”

As I watched her walk into the foggy gray between the tree ferns, I considered the fluid, pat nature of her answer. Was that just the way her brain