Free Except for the Bones by Collin Wilcox Page B

and moved away. My mom went to Santa Barbara, and Diane’s mom went to New York. She married Preston Daniels. Have you ever heard of him?”
    “Sure.” Bernhardt nodded. “The real estate tycoon.”
    “Yeah.” It was a sarcastic acknowledgment. “Right.”
    “You don’t think much of Preston Daniels, I gather.”
    “That’s right, I don’t.”
    “Have you ever met him?”
    “Yes. They have a place on Cape Cod. A wonderful beach house. I spent a week there, last summer.”
    “Does Diane live in New York?”
    “She’s going to college. Or, at least, she was going to college. She just finished her freshman year at Swarthmore. But her father lives here, in San Francisco. He’s remarried, just like my dad. He’s a lawyer—Diane’s dad, I mean. His name is Cutler. Paul Cutler. So, a week or two ago, Diane came out here—drove out here, in her car. See—” Earnestly, she leaned toward Bernhardt. Carley Hanks had come to the crux of it, the reason she desperately sought help. “See, she had a terrible fight with her mother. And with her stepfather, too. Daniels. So—” She spread her hands, evoking the eternal plight of the powerless teenager. “So she came out here, to San Francisco. Except that she doesn’t get along with her stepmother, either. So—” As if she were admitting to a defeat, she grimly shook her head. “So she’s staying with me.”
    “It sounds like Diane has problems with both her stepparents.” Watching her, Bernhardt spoke quietly, evenly.
    “Yeah, well—” She broke off, considered, then decided to say, “Well, the truth is, the past couple of years, Diane’s been pretty hard to get along with herself.”
    “What about her and her father?” He glanced at his notes. “Paul Cutler. Do they get along?”
    “Yes, they do. But she can’t live with him and his wife.”
    “Do you think she’s talked to her father since she arrived in San Francisco, told him what was bothering her?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Why not?” But, even as he asked the question, he knew it was meaningless. The answer was lost in the mystery of the parent-child relationship.
    “What about you?” he asked. “Will she talk to you?”
    “She tells me a little. But not enough. That’s why I called you. Sometimes strangers can help more than friends or family. You know—like psychiatrists.”
    “On my machine, you said Diane’s in trouble. What kind of trouble?”
    She looked away, shifted in her chair. The body language was definitive: she was deciding how much to tell him—and how much not to tell. Finally she admitted: “The fact is—the truth is—that the past year or two, Diane’s done more—” She looked away, bit her lip.
    “She’s done more drugs than she should have,” Bernhardt offered. “Is that what you were going to say?”
    Sadly, she nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.”
    “What kinds of drugs does she do?” There was an edge to Bernhardt’s voice, a sharpness in his eyes. If Diane Cutler was a junkie, he would stay clear. It was the second lesson he’d learned. The first lesson was to always get a retainer.
    “She drinks a lot, and she smokes a lot of dope.”
    “That’s it?”
    “She also takes pills. Lots of pills. And if she does the pills with the booze, she gets really spaced out.”
    “How about cocaine?”
    “I’m sure she’s tried it. But she’s not really hooked. I’d know if she was doing a lot of it.”
    “Heroin?”
    “No, not heroin.”
    “So she does booze and grass and pills.”
    Gravely, she nodded.
    “You say she gets spaced out. What’s that mean?”
    “She just kind of—kind of floats off.”
    “Would you say she’s self-destructive? Does she get in car accidents, things like that?”
    “No, nothing like that. She loves her car. If she drinks too much, pops too many pills, she’s extra careful.”
    Judiciously, he nodded. “That’s a good sign.”
    Carley nodded in return. “I thought so too. Except