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

Had I seen something that night that I could no longer remember?

Shoving my hands through my hair, I let out a scream.

48

The scream just made me feel more unhinged, even though my mind felt crystal clear in that moment. Telling myself to get a grip, I grabbed an ­ice-­cold bottle of Coke from the fridge, drank it down to the last drop, then began to hunt for the secretary online.

My brain liked to collect names for possible use in future books, and funnily enough, that part of it was functioning just fine. My father’s secretary’s name was one I’d never forgotten: Aurelie Nissum.

It wasn’t exactly a common name, and it turned out Aurelie liked social media.

Not only that, but she didn’t seem to realize her privacy settings were ­wide-­open. It didn’t even matter that she’d changed last names. Within ten minutes, I knew that she lived in the suburb of Mt. Eden, and had two children with her “gorgeous” husband, Vikram.

“Vikram, huh? I guess you have a type.” It wasn’t an accusation; I had a type, ­too—­mine was just less physical and more psychological. Damaged women who were a little lost. Not only Paige, but all the girls and women who’d come before her, right back to my first girlfriend. Sapna’d had neglectful parents, had looked to me to save her while refusing to admit to any problems in her family life. Yeah, me and Dr. Jitrnicka had a great time talking through my ­self-­destructive life choices.

Gorgeous Vikram proved to be Dr. Vikram Reddy, Ophthalmologist.

No doubt his parents found a way to work the fact their son was a doctor into all possible conversations. “Oh, you like that biryani recipe? It’s our Vikram’s favorite, isn’t it, ji? I used to make it and send it to him every week while he was at medical school. Even now that he’s a successful doctor with his own family, he still loves my cooking.”

It took zero skill to track down Dr. Reddy’s practice, but I knew I’d have to wait till after his workday to follow him to the family residence. Wait, what day was it? Saturday. I checked his practice’s website ­again—­no clinic hours listed for the weekend, but I remembered seeing his name pop up in another link when I first did the search. There it was: Dr. Reddy was speaking at a local medical conference today. His sessions wouldn’t wrap up till 6 p.m.

Easy enough to wait outside the venue, see if I could pinpoint him.

Noting that as one option, I switched back to Aurelie’s photo gallery. She was a prolific poster, and many of her photos featured her ­children—­several times in their school uniforms. I smiled, recognizing the green tartan pattern of an exclusive private school. Even better, she’d posted a picture of them ­today—­out of ­uniform—­with the following caption: Looking fancy! My babies get to go on a special field trip today to Hamilton Gardens to see a show!

Seriously, Pari and Mia needed to give Aurelie Reddy a lesson in online safety. The woman put everything out there. But thanks to Aurelie’s lax security, including the fact she’d linked to the show the kids were going to ­see—­a matinee ­session—­I knew I had a good chance of spotting her when she picked them up.

I glanced at my watch to see it was already four.

The city of Hamilton was less than a couple of hours ­away—­maybe longer if you were driving a slow school bus and wrangling a whole group of children. I thought of Pari’s excursion to Rangitoto and figured it was possible the kids might not be back yet. I might as well see if I could catch Aurelie there before I tried stalking her husband.

Shoving back from the desk, I got up. Once I’d locked my study, I took another Coke from the fridge. The icy cold of it against my palm felt great, and I needed the sugar hit too much to worry about the fact I hadn’t actually eaten anything since breakfast.

I finished off the drink while staring out at the balcony from which Paige had jumped. I’d never asked to look at the ­crime-­scene photos, but still my mind insisted on seeing her, her limbs splayed like a broken doll’s, the scarlet of her blood splattering the crumpled metal roof of the car on which she’d landed.

I’d been at a crime novel festival in Perth, ­Australia—­over a ­seven-­hour flight ­away—­the day she jumped. By the time the police contacted me, she was already gone; they’d told me to find a friend with whom I could grieve. But I hadn’t been able to bear the thought of facing anyone, because then I’d have to accept that Paige was dead. Instead, I’d opened my laptop and written for ten hours straight, not sleeping, not eating. Just drinking and typing.

The end result had been a short novel I’d never looked at again.

Today, I pulled it up on my phone:

She was a Picasso in death, all elongated limbs and paleness.

Great first line to make myself a suspect, had I not had such an airtight alibi. But as I read on, past the typos I’d never bothered to correct, I knew this was good. Very good. Full of a ­deep-­seated rage that boiled off the page. This was the kind of story that won awards and started conversations. It was also pathological in the way it explored the deepest fears in my brain through the ­first-­person narration.

Did I kill her?

Did she feel my invisible hand against her spine the instant before she flew?

My damaged muse. My lovely creation.

Christ, what the hell had I been thinking? Had I been trying to turn myself into a suspect from more than five thousand kilometers away? My hand hovered over the delete button, but I couldn’t do it, couldn’t erase some of the best work I might ever do. Even if it exposed me down to the bone.

Closing the file, I slid my phone back into my