Chapter 33

Aaron pours himself a generous two fingers of Glenmorangie, his favorite single malt. He rarely drinks alone, but this evening it feels appropriate to do so. Maybe even necessary. A day that started out with so much promise has rapidly turned to crap. Holly left his bed while he was still sleeping. And then she called to cancel her plans to stay over again tonight, but not before telling him that she had spoken to a detective in Newport Beach.

Just as he lowers himself onto the couch, he hears the deadbolt turn and hopes that Holly might have changed her mind. He’s disappointed to see his son saunter through the doorway.

“Hey, Dad,” Graham grunts. “Got anything to eat?”

“Did I know you were coming over tonight?”

“I had a date downtown. It’s on the way home.”

By the fact that it’s barely nine o’clock and his son is looking for food, Aaron surmises the date didn’t go well, but he asks anyway, “How was it?”

Graham shrugs. “She was a bit of a cunt.”

“You know how I feel about that word,” Aaron snaps, thinking that it’s no wonder his son is perpetually single.

“If the shoe fits, Dad…” Graham says as he heads to the fridge and helps himself to the last bottle of Aaron’s favorite imported Belgian beer.

“What exactly did she do?”

Graham returns to the living room and plunks down on the chair across from him. “For starters, she talked nonstop the whole hour while downing two glasses of very expensive pinot noir.”

“Didn’t you tell me you always split the bill on first dates?”

“But my half of her fifty-dollar wine tab was a lot more than her half of my ten-dollar beer.”

“What else made her so insufferable?”

He takes a sip of beer. “She had this attitude, you know.”

Aaron stifles a sigh. “What kind of attitude?”

“Like she was better than me or something. As if I was the one hitting out of my league. And, honestly, she wasn’t that hot. A six-and-a-half. At best.”

Aaron has long recognized that Graham’s issues largely stem from a chronic sense of inadequacy, a lifetime of being the lesser brother, the lesser son. “What did she do to make you feel that way?”

“Do?” Graham’s face scrunches. “I dunno. She just gave off that vibe.”

“But how? What did she say?”

“Lots of shit.” He snaps his fingers. “OK, I mentioned something about Nate being in med school at Columbia. And then she got all worked up. As if it were some big fucking deal or something.”

Aaron summons a smile. “Did you ever think she might be showing you how impressed she was because she thought it reflected well on you, too?”

“Nah. She knew exactly what she was doing.” Graham takes a swig and smacks his lips. “Anyway, who cares? I was glad she didn’t stay for dinner. That I got to see her true colors before I wasted any more time or money on her.”

Aaron is too tired to argue. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

“It’s not like it was back in your day, Dad. When it comes to online apps, first dates are as plentiful as sand at a beach. The biggest challenge is juggling all the options. You know?”

“I really don’t, Graham.”

“You should! Even guys as old as you are getting lucky with these dating apps. Might save you a lot of the will-she-won’t-she grief that you keep reliving with what’s-her-face.”

Aaron takes a breath. “Why do you do that?”

“I’m only looking out for you, Dad,” Graham says with a smirk.

“It’s just like with your date. Rather than give people a chance, you always assume the worst. As if they’re always out to hurt you.”

Graham screws up his face. “This isn’t about me! Look at Holly’s track record with you. How many times has she left you since you’ve been together?”

His son has a point, but he doesn’t understand that for Holly, it’s more of a coping mechanism when she feels overwhelmed. One that is inextricably related to the traumatic and sudden loss of her father. “It’s a bit more complicated” is all Aaron is willing to say.

“Speaking of complicated, Dad…”

Aaron cocks his head. “Yes?”

Graham waves away the suggestion. “Nah, never mind.”

But Aaron can tell in a glance his son is up to something. Graham is wearing that same sheepish look that he always did when he’d crossed a line at school, and Aaron would know to expect an angry call from a teacher or the vice principal. “What is it?”

“You’re going to be pissed.”

“Just tell me, Graham.”

He shuffles in his seat. “This Justine Jang woman… the one in the news who took a header off her balcony?”

Aaron lowers his glass to the coffee table. “What about her?”

“She was also a patient of Holly’s, wasn’t she?”

Aaron’s toes curl inside his shoes. “How do you know that?”

“I told you that you were going to be pissed.”

“How, Graham?”

“Like I’ve been telling you, my new company is on the cutting edge of surveillance products.” He grins. “We have the absolute dopest gear. And we get tons of new gadgets to test at the office.”

Aaron can feel his ears heating. “Surveillance gadgets? As in bugs?”

“Yeah. Voice-activated shit. Some of them not much bigger than the head of a pin.”

Aaron rises from his seat. “Did you tap my phone?”

“No, not your phone!” Graham gets up and hurries over to the far wall. He stops at one of Aaron’s favorite paintings, a charcoal sketch of a woman in a dress drawn only from the neck down. He reaches behind the frame, fiddles for a moment, and pulls out what looks like a tiny USB plug-in. “It’s the only one I placed in the house. I swear.”

“Goddammit, Graham! How dare you bug my house!”

“What? I was just testing out the effective audio range. It’s not like I bugged your bedroom or something.”

“Christ! Even you have to know better than this!”

“I was going to tell you, Dad.” Graham folds his arms across his chest. “It’s only been there for like three days. I just happened to pick up another one of Holly’s damsel-in-distress convos with you.” He scowls. “And what do you mean, ‘even you’? What the fuck, Dad?”

“You have no right to—”

“Kind of hard to overlook, though, isn’t it? Two dead patients in a couple weeks. Both under sketchy circumstances. Both of whom had dirt on Holly.”

“You don’t have the first clue,” Aaron growls.

“Come on, Dad. Just like Holly said to you last night. It’s pretty fucking convenient!”

Aaron only glares at his son, feeling closer than he has in years to hitting the boy.