Brooklyn Bones Read Online Free Page A

work. I had to get some real work done myself, work as in, at my job.
    After a long day buried in meetings and reports I came home at last to an empty house and a note “At Melissa’s—invited to dinner, watching a video. Cops here, went over the fireplace again, but said we could take down tape.”
    It felt like a reprieve. I would have complete silence, dinner, a glass of wine, and the paper I hadn’t had time to read in the morning. Before any of that, though, I felt I had to take a look at that fireplace.
    It must have been a lovely one when it was new. It had glazed green tile on the surround, plus a floral tile border and pressed metal trim. All the inside work was gone, gas jets or andirons or whatever had been there at the beginning. Perhaps it was removed when the body was put there. I flinched, unwillingly picturing it. The questions came back. Why was it put there? Buried? Hidden? Was the fireplace walled over then, to hide it all? Or had that been done years earlier, when it stopped being used, and then the wall was ripped out and put back?
    My appetite was gone. I poured a glass of wine and escaped to the deck. If I lit the candles out there on the table, I could read the paper, too. I wanted to think about the impersonal world outside my house, this refuge that no longer felt so safe, where a girl my daughter’s age had seemingly disappeared a long time ago. I didn’t want to think about who must have been looking for her way back then, or the terrible sadness if there was no one to look.
    Actually, I felt a sudden need to hear my own daughter’s voice.
    “Hey, Joan. It’s Erica. Is my child there and available?’
    “Sure.” Instant relief. “They’ve finishing the dishes. Erica, she was so helpful tonight, and such good company. She’s a sweetie.”
    “Are we discussing the same child? Chris, the one who only grunts at me? When I’m lucky?”
    Joan laughed. “She’s wonderful here.”
    “Oh, yeah, and Mel is wonderful at my house, too. What’s she like at home?”
    She sighed. “The demon seed, of course. I’ll get Chris. Hold a sec.”
    “Mom?”
    “Hi, hon. Just wondering when you’ll be back. Should I wait up? How will you get home?”
    “Mom, I’m fifteen, and I’m a whole six blocks from home. Both of Mel’s parents and her brother are right here. What more do you want?”
    “I want know how you are getting home, if it will be late.”
    “Don’t know, but someone will walk me. Stop babying me!”
    “It’s a legitimate question for a mother to ask, and I don’t appreciate the whining. Joan told me how wonderful you are and I asked her who she was talking about.”
    A long silence, then in slightly more civil tone she said, “It’s all good, mom. I’ll get home safe.”
    “All I needed to know.” I banged the phone down, but I was relieved. She was exactly where she said she would be, safe and happy.
    Later, I happened to look out the front window from upstairs, as she came up the block with Melissa, their two heads bent together in serious conversation. They were squeezing in as much girl time as possible before Mel went off for a month at art camp. That was the summer Chris wanted too, but there was no way I could pay for it.
    Mel’s parents followed a discreet distance behind, arm in arm, a couple out for an evening stroll. All of them together looked like a family. I wondered with a pang if Chris felt that way too, as if this fulfilled some idea of family for her. Was that why she spent so much time there? Would it have been different if her father were with us?
    She had gotten all grown up this year, my little girl, suddenly beautiful with legs a mile long. She was turning into someone new and I didn’t know how to keep up. It had happened overnight, behind my back.
    When she came upstairs she went straight into a thirty-minute shower, with music blasting out over the rushing water, and then she disappeared into her room. I crawled into bed, thinking that this