Killer: An Alex Delaware Novel - Softcover

Kellerman, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804121133 ISBN 13: 9780804121132

Verlag: Random House Large Print, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jonathan Kellerman returns with this stunning thriller—a mesmerizing L.A. noir portrayal of the darkest impulses of human nature carried to shocking extremes.

The City of Angels has more than its share of psychopaths, and no one recognizes that more acutely than the brilliant psychologist and police consultant Dr. Alex Delaware. Despite that, Constance Sykes, a sophisticated, successful physician, hardly seems like someone Alex needs to fear. Then, at the behest of the court, he becomes embroiled in a bizarre child custody dispute initiated by Connie against her sister and begins to realize that there is much about the siblings he has failed to comprehend. And when the court battle between the Sykes sisters erupts into cold, calculating murder and a rapidly growing number of victims, Alex knows he’s been snared in a toxic web of pathology.
 
Nothing would please Alex more than to be free of the ugly spectacle known as Sykes v. Sykes. But then the little girl at the center of the vicious dispute disappears and Alex knows he must work with longtime friend Detective Milo Sturgis, braving an obstacle course of  Hollywood washouts, gangbangers, and self-serving jurists in order to save an innocent life.
 
Killer is Kellerman—and Delaware—at their finest.

Praise for Killer
 
“Killer is well plotted and paced. . . . One of [Kellerman’s] best.”—Bookreporter

“As usual, the rapport between Alex and Milo is a show-stealer, and longtime fans . . . will love the well-executed flashbacks to Alex’s professional past.”—Booklist
 
“Kellerman kicks this one up to a whole new level.”—RT Book Reviews

Praise for Jonathan Kellerman
 
“Jonathan Kellerman has justly earned his reputation as a master of the psychological thriller.”—People
 
“Kellerman really knows how to keep those pages turning.”—The New York Times Book Review

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jonathan Kellerman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty bestselling crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, The Butcher’s Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted, and True Detectives. With his wife, bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman, he co-authored Double Homicide and Capital Crimes. He is also the author of two children’s books and numerous nonfiction works, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children and With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California, New Mexico, and New York.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER 1

“I’m not going to shoot you, Dr. Delaware. Even though I should.”

What’s the proper response to something like that?

“Gee thanks, appreciate the discretion.”

“Hope you don’t change your mind.”

“Hmm. Sounds like you’re feeling . . . homicidal.”

When in doubt, say nothing. My job features doubt on a daily basis, but it’s good advice for anyone.

I sat in my chair and crossed my legs in order to appear unperturbed and continued to look into the eyes of the person who’d just threatened my life. In return, I received a serene stare. Not a flicker of regret in the flat brown eyes. Just the opposite: icy contentment.

I’d seen the same creepy, inanimate confidence in the eyes of psychopaths locked up in supermax cells. The person across the room had never been arrested.

None of the usual warning signs had been present. No delusions or command hallucinations, none of the bizarre mannerisms or twitchy volatility that can result from too many crossed wires. No seepage of testosterone leading to unbridled violence.

The person who’d just threatened my life didn’t have much in the way of testosterone.

Her name was Constance Sykes and she preferred to be called Connie. She was forty-four years old, medium build, medium height, blond turning to gray, with a handsome, square-jawed face, a mellow voice, and perfect posture. She’d been a straight-A student, had earned a B.A. in chemistry, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, followed by an M.D. at a top medical school, then a prestigious internship and residency and board certification in pathology.

She owned and operated a small, private lab in the Valley that specialized in testing for sexually transmitted diseases and arcane infections, drove a Lexus, and lived in a house far too large for one person. Most people would call her wealthy; she described her financial status as “comfortable.”

Every time I’d seen her, including this morning, she’d been well groomed and dressed in quietly fashionable clothing. She wore jewelry but if you spent enough time with her, she’d inevitably remove bracelets and brooches and earrings and stare at them as if they were bits of alien flotsam. Then she’d put them back on, frowning, as if the notion of embellishment was a nuisance but also a responsibility and she was no shirker.

She had her issues, but nothing that had predicted this.

A self-professed loner, Connie Sykes seemed at ease with never having lived with anyone since leaving home for college. Matter-of-factly, she’d let me know she was an expert on self-sustenance, had never needed or wanted or imagined another person in her life.

Until “the baby” came along.

She hadn’t gestated the baby or given birth to the baby but she wanted the baby, felt she deserved to have the baby, had gone to considerable effort and expense to get the baby.

That quest had been doomed from the outset, with or without my input, but I’d been paid to offer an expert opinion on her case and Connie Sykes had just learned that she’d most certainly fail in her claim and she was unaccustomed to losing and someone needed to be blamed.

She’d stirred up needless pain but I felt some sympathy for her. My best friend, a gay homicide detective, describes psychologists as reflexive yeah-sayers. (“Forget Dr. No. You’re Dr. Sure-no-problem.”) Of course, he’s right. If therapists enjoyed deprivation and prohibition, we’d have studied for the clergy or run for office.

I figured if Connie Sykes called, I’d do my best to offer support, maybe smooth the edges.

She didn’t. She just showed up. I had time so I led her to the office.

She entered no differently than before. Settling, straight-backed, butt barely perched on the battered leather sofa the way she always did. Removing her glasses, she placed them in a hard leather case that she dropped into her fine, oversized, Italian drawstring purse and smiled.

I said, “Morning.”

She said, “Is it?”

Then her smile died and she cleared her throat, as if preparing to deliver a well-rehearsed speech, and informed me that she wasn’t going to ready-aim-fire in my direction. Even though she should.

I kept my mouth shut, figured I was coming across calm as the two of us danced the eyeball tango.

Connie Sykes broke first, smoothing her black gabardine slacks and stroking her purse’s whiskey-colored leather. Tapping the bag, she ran her finger over a swell in the leather and smiled wider and waited.

Well-timed comedian, waiting to see if the audience got it.

Implying she’d come with a weapon.

Her finger continued to circle the swell and my heart skipped and my gut churned and the shock must’ve shown on my face.

Connie Sykes laughed. Then she got up and left the office and continued up the hall.

I always walk patients to the front door. I let this patient find her own way out and locked my office door and pressed my ear to oak until I heard the front door close.

I remained inside the office for a while. A shot of Chivas didn’t help much but the passage of time and a shot of rationalization did and eventually I convinced myself she’d just been letting off steam. Given all the court work I’d done, the big surprise was that it hadn’t happened before.

A week and a half passed and when I didn’t hear from her or spot her skulking around my property or receive any anonymous hate mail or field any weird phone messages, I told myself I needed to forget the whole thing.

What I didn’t forget was the battle that had brought Connie Sykes to me in the first place. And while I hoped that she’d file me away as a distant, sour memory, I suspected her loss and grief wouldn’t fade for a long time.

If ever.

CHAPTER 2

When the divorce process begins, some people shoot out of the gate like corrida bulls, itching to inflict damage. Others declare good intentions and delay the attack. A small percentage manage to maintain civility, but the default is guerrilla warfare.

Combatants who have children often end up obsessing on the kids. That includes people who don’t much care about being parents but lie and say that they do. Admitting apathy about your offspring—going public with those fantasies you’ve had for years of divorcing the whole idea of family life—breaks a lot of social rules.

Parents who couldn’t care less about the kids often fight the hardest because it’s all about winning.

In the worst of divorces, children become hand grenades. Allegations of neglect, cruelty, and abuse surface, usually false. But when kids are involved everything needs to be checked out. Those are the cases when the courts call someone like me in to offer wisdom.

There’s another side to my professional life: working with Lieutenant Milo Sturgis on hideous murders.

That’s the easy stuff.

Back when I left Western Pediatric Medical Center and began private practice, I avoided child custody cases, going so far as to refer away patients remotely likely to become embroiled in legal conflicts. I knew that court work was lucrative but I always had plenty of work, and colleagues who’d struggled to work within the system described it as an unpredictable mess cobbled together by a loose confederation of morons and sadists.

Best interests of the child, indeed.

My practice rolled along nicely: mostly good people bringing in mostly good kids with problems that could be handled...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Large Print
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804121133
• ISBN 13: 9780804121132
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 448
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Purmerul LTD; https://strengholt.nl/en/; ; 22 Liuleburgaz Str., floor 4, app. 9; Plovdiv; Bulgarien