Free Near Death by Glenn Cooper Page A

through the proceedings, keeping the snacks coming, making sure the beer and white wine were well-chilled, and tending to accidents on their more avant-garde nights.
    Alex sneaked up behind her, watching her for a few moments as she worked the food processor. He felt a powerful wave of love wash over him. Her red-orange hair, the color of leaping flames, fell over her black sweater. She was a foundling, a good ten years younger than he, plucked from a bookstore in Harvard Square where, three years earlier, he had been browsing on a Sunday. When he took his paperbacks to the register, he had looked across the counter into her milky oval face with jade eyes and cherry lips and those cascades and ringlets of Pre-Raphaelite fiery hair and had been utterly captivated.
    She was a townie, a dropout, drifting on a quiet sea of menial jobs, enduring a succession of unreliable roommates. She’d never before had anyone like Alex in her life—a powerful spinning bowling ball, knocking a light pin into the air. She tumbled happily and landed squarely inside his sphere of influence. He was everything to her: father, brother, teacher, friend and lover. She idolized him and made few demands, grateful for every day with him; and he cherished and protected her like a delicate hothouse flower.
    Now he surprised her by cupping her small breasts and using his nose to part her hair to find a patch of skin on the back of her neck to kiss.
    She laughed. “What’s that for?”
    “Love.”
    “I like that. How many are coming?”
    “I never really know. The weather’s fine. Probably fifteen or so.”
    “I still miss Thomas.”
    “Me too.” He let go of her.
    “You worked all day,” she scolded. “Lie down for an hour. I’ll bring you some wine.”
    He kissed the top of her head. “I can’t live without you.”
    “You don’t have to.”
    Davis Fox arrived first, pecking both Jessie’s cheeks, European style. Alex could tell straight off that he wished to talk. He took him into his bedroom and shut the door.
    “Are you okay?” Alex asked.
    “Just a bit pissed off.”
    “Why?”
    “That FBI agent called me again.”
    “When?”
    “This afternoon. He asked when we were having our next salon.”
    Alex blanched but tried to be nonchalant. “Really? What did you tell him?”
    “I told him to ask
you
and then he asked
me
for your mobile number. When I said I was uncomfortable giving it out, he said he could get it anyway and asked why I was being unhelpful so I wound up giving it to him. I hope that was okay.”
    Alex reached for his cell phone on the bedside table. It was off and when he powered it back up, there was a message waiting from an unknown caller.
    “Much ado about nothing,” Alex murmured. “Let’s hope they catch the murderer rather than wasting their bloody time on us.”
    He sent Davis to the kitchen for a glass of wine and sat on the bed to listen to the voice message. The nerve! O’Malley wanted to attend one of the salons, talk to the group about Thomas.
    Alex felt a pitting nausea. O’Malley wasn’t going away. He could hear the persistence in his voice. He angrily imagined calling him back, telling him to leave him the hell alone … for the sake of his daughter. The threat would make O’Malley disappear. A fantasy.
    Everything would have to move faster now. He was on the threshold. He would not and could not be denied. Every hour and every day standing between him and the answer was precious, every minute wasted, a tragedy. He wished he could have canceled the salon to get on with things, but that was out of the question.
    The others arrived in ones and twos.
    Frank Sacco, his young pimply technician, came and sat by himself. He never interacted much, a fish out of water, and Alex had long regretted ever having invited him. It wasn’t a good idea to mix lab business with his otherinterests—especially now—but what was done was done; he couldn’t disinvite Frank, not without raising a red