The Venus Fix Read Online Free

front of him.
    “You aren’t ever wrong, are you, Detective?” Mrs. Hatterly, the defendant’s mother, was in her sixties, with white hair pulled back off a face that was deeply etched. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she was trembling. She stood so close to him that he could smell her sweet perfume.
    “Perez, gotta go.” Jordain snapped the phone shut. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to go through, Mrs. Hatterly.” His New Orleans drawl made the word
sorry
stretch all the way out.
    “What I’ve had to go through is nothing. It’s my son who is suffering. Because of you. Because you are so sure you’re right. Don’t you realize that your being right is what got my son convicted—”
    A young man came over and put his hand on the woman’s arm. “Mom, let’s go inside.”
    But Mrs. Hatterly wasn’t done with Jordain yet. “You’re so sure. But what if you are wrong? Haven’t you ever been wrong? Haven’t you—”
    Her son pulled her away just before her angry fists reached Jordain’s chest.
    He sighed. Other cops claimed they got used to people’s pain, and he envied them for that. But becoming hardened took its toll in other ways.
    He watched until she was gone from sight, and then he, too, headed toward the courtroom.
    It took some effort. And not because it was so hot out and the air was so heavy. He loved that air. No, that wasn’t why. This case had been bad enough the first time. Having to go through it all again was bringing back ghosts, because during the last trial, his father, Detective André Jordain, had died.
    Jordain had been back to New Orleans often since moving to New York. He’d been to the cemetery where his dad was buried. But this was different.
    He couldn’t stop the memories from washing over him. The defendant’s mother had shook him up, and whenever he was unnerved, the dam he’d erected to keep the past from seeping into the present leaked.
    Jordain passed through the cool lobby and proceeded to the courtroom. He stopped in the hallway and looked in. Five years earlier, Jordain had been on that stand when his lieutenant had walked in and stood, as if at attention, at the back of the room. Noah had wondered why he was there. But he didn’t find out until after he had finished his testimony: His father had died.
    He stared at the spot where he’d been when he’d heard. The ghosts were demanding their time.

Six
     
    A t noon, Nina Butterfield popped her head into my office. She was dressed in a three-quarter-length, copper-colored fur coat that matched her hair, and was holding up a pair of ice skates, swinging them in the air.
    “You want to take a break?” she asked, her amber eyes sparkling.
    I did but, preoccupied with Bob, told her I didn’t think I should.
    “You never need to get out more than when you don’t think you should. I know these things. I’m a therapist. Now, come on. I cleared your schedule with Allison. She said you’re free.” It sounded like a suggestion but it wasn’t. More often than not, she knew what was best for me. More often than not I recognized that.
    At least twice a week Nina and I went out together at lunchtime. Sometimes to eat, but usually to walk, either in Central Park, which was only two blocks west of the institute, or wherever we wound up, exploring stores that we’d never noticed before, taking in exhibitions at museums or shows at art galleries. In the winter, when strolling in the street wasn’t as enticing, we went ice-skating.
    Outside, we pulled on our gloves and buttoned up our coats. Someone else might have turned back because of the snow and gray sky. Not Nina. She was fearless about venturing out into a potential storm.
    She’d taught me how to skate when I was an eight-year-old without a mother and she was a childless divorcée who hadn’t yet realized she’d inherited me. Then years later, she’d taught my daughter.
    “Dulcie hasn’t been skating at all yet,” I told her as we walked into the