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

couldn’t see it in my current project. Maybe now that my mother had been found, I could lay those ghosts to rest.

Leaving the balcony, I considered what I knew so far, then decided to see what I could dig up about Alice’s wife. Cora wasn’t much for social media and had no real online footprint other than what Alice had shared, and that one mention in the local news. No other references to the “mugging” where Cora’s hand had been crushed.

Should I have given that information to the police? Possibly.

But then I’d have had to tell them how I’d obtained the information, implicating Riki. ­Or …

Frowning, I considered my options. I could just give the police bread crumbs to follow.

What if those bread crumbs led to Riki?

Guilt gnawed at me again, far more strongly than I might’ve expected. An assault conviction would ruin Riki’s military ­career—­after all, he had nothing to prove that he’d been blackmailed into doing violence.

How could Cora have known it was him anyway?

According to Riki, he’d been wearing a ­balaclava—­and since the police had never come after him, it was reasonable to assume Cora hadn’t known the identity of her attacker. It made even less sense that she’d have figured out my mother had been behind it.

Then I remembered something Diana had said, about Alice confronting my mother.

I saw her and Nina from the upstairs window out front and could swear they were ­arguing …

If Alice knew, she could’ve told ­Cora … but at that point, Cora had still had one hand in a cast. The Jaguar had been a manual, not an ­automatic—­she couldn’t have driven it, not with how she’d been immobilized. That limitation didn’t apply to Alice.

Was that what Elei had seen that night? Her daughter doing something?

There was no way I was going to break Elei’s silence. Not when it came to her child. So it’d have to be Alice or Cora.

Alice, I decided.

Confident demeanor aside, there was something vulnerable about Alice. Something malleable.

My phone pinged.

A reminder: Session with Dr. Jitrnicka: 12 p.m.

Good thing I’d input all these dates and times at some point, because I’d had no fucking idea this was coming up. On the verge of canceling, I thought of Paige’s reddened eyes and retreating form and decided to keep the appointment.

Rising, I threw my empty Coke bottle in the recycling bin, then locked up my study. It struck me as ironic: no one was welcome inside my office, but here I was, about to go see a man whose job it was to get inside my mind.

I had a moment at the front door when my gaze went to the coffee table and I had the feeling I was forgetting something, but then it was gone. Just another memory ghost.

Dr. Jitrnicka’s office was decorated in tones of soothing gray.

His ­middle-­aged receptionist welcomed me, offered me a cup of coffee. I accepted and sat there adding more caffeine to my system. The doctor had another exit from his consultation room to ensure clients didn’t cross paths, so I wasn’t surprised when his door opened ten minutes later to show his genial face.

Round eyeglasses, white skin with no real tan, warm eyes of light brown, and a build so tall he had that slightly hunched posture really tall people sometimes get. As if they’ve had to bend over so often that the action’s become locked into their bones.

His hair was a coarse strawberry blond that had a tendency to wave. It reminded me of the fields of overripe wheat my mother had described to me when I was a child.

“I used to walk through those fields, running my fingers over the tops while the sun rose over the mountains, and the dupatta of my salwar kameez caught on the stalks.” In her voice had been an ache I could almost touch. “Such beauty, Ari. Such peace. I’ve never known it since.”

Dr. Jitrnicka’s voice was far more hearty and open. “Aarav. It’s good to see you.”

“Doc.”

“Come on in. I’ll carry your coffee for you.”

Once we were settled, he, of course, bought up the discovery of my mother’s remains. “Are you up to talking about it?”

“Sure.”

“Truly talk, or just give canned responses designed to tell me nothing?”

“You know me too well.” But I liked the man, was willing to talk. “My feelings ­are … complicated.”

Dr. Jitrnicka leaned forward, nodded in encouragement, and we talked. It was soothing to do so with someone who had no stake in the game.

The time passed fast.

“How are you doing with your new regime of meds?” he asked toward the end, lines between his eyebrows. “I’m not happy with you changing prescriptions, but your neurologist was adamant it was necessary given the possible contraindications with your pain meds.”

The jumble of pill bottles on the bedside table, the bottles I’d seen without seeing them.

What exactly was I supposed to be on?

Alice was driving out of the Cul-­de-­Sac as I drove in. She waved, but didn’t smile.

The first thing I did once inside my room was look through the pill bottles I’d been ignoring while using up the pain meds. They had long names, but a couple of online searches and I knew their purpose: to balance the chemicals in my brain, ease depression.

Frowning, I split the pills into two groups: prescribed ­pre-­accident and prescribed ­post-­accident. The latter, I spilled onto the bedspread, then began to count them. As I’d suspected, I hadn’t taken a single one of any of these.

After I’d put those pills back in their bottles, I did the same check with the earlier prescription from Dr. Jitrnicka. It took a little work to calculate, but even adding in a buffer zone of a week in case I’d renewed the prescription early, it was clear I’d gone off my meds well before the accident.

According to my computer files, I’d written the first sixty pages of book two the week before the crash. Had I decided the meds were screwing with my creativity? Sounded like my kind of