Except for the Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

furious.
    So she’d left. She’d crammed a change of underwear and her diaphragm and her stash and a half-finished paperback into a tote bag, stuffed her wallet in her purse, and slammed out of the apartment. She’d gotten in her car and started to drive. After a few miles she’d realized that she was going toward Massachusetts, meaning that she was going to the Cape. It was, after all, the only place that meant anything to her. If she found Jeff, fine. If she didn’t, fine. There was always the booze and the pills. Xanax. Nirvana in a capsule.
    And then, trick or treat, Halloween in July, the whole world had tipped, tilted toward her.
    So that, treat and not trick, she was in command. Completely, accidentally, incredibly in command. Money was only money, grades were just grades. But the law was the law, never mind the benefit balls or the dinners with senators or Forbes magazine. It all came down to the law, a tooth for a tooth, kill or be killed.
    Diane Cutler. Goddess for a day. Whatever power Preston Daniels had, she could cancel it out. Fuck with Diane Cutler and she’d press the button. All fall down.
    But where was the pleasure; which way was the high? They hated each other, she and Preston Daniels. Sometimes it seemed that her hatred for him was the center of her life, all that kept her focused.
    So why, now, was the void still there? Her finger was on the button, her foot was on his throat. So why did—?
    The toilet was flushing, the bathroom door was coming open.
    “You, too, eh?” He looked down at the floor, found his shorts, sat on the edge of the bed, began pulling the shorts over his knees, his buttocks. Jeff was only twenty-two, but already a roll of fat circled his waist. “You can’t sleep either?”
    She made no reply.
    “I’ve got to drive into Boston. One of the pants pressers broke down Saturday. It’s a steam coupling.”
    Silently she nodded, watched him dress. If he cared anything about her, really cared, he’d come to her, kiss her, caress her. He’d want to make love to her in the light of morning, not always in the dark, not always stoned. He’d tell her how beautiful she was, naked.
    He rose from the bed, went to the window, adjusted the blinds. “The fog’s in.”
    “Is that a fact?”
    Would he hear the sarcasm, pick up on the contempt? Last night, they’d seen something terrible. In bed, desperate, stoned, they’d clung to each other, turned each other inside-out. Yet now he was standing across the room, looking out the window, telling her the fog was in. He was dressed in black jeans and saddle-buckled black boots and a plaid work shirt, a biker without a bike, the story of Jeff’s life.
    He turned away from the window, looked at her, frowning, his thick eyebrows almost meeting above dark, grudging eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “What’s what supposed to mean?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    She sighed, pushed herself up against the headboard, covered herself. In daylight, she knew, her breasts wouldn’t turn him on. He’d look, then look away. “Why do I get the feeling that this conversation isn’t going anywhere?”
    He moved away from the window, came toward her. But, a few feet from the bed, he stopped, stood looking down at her.
    “So what’ll we do?” he asked. “About last night, about what we saw.”
    Suddenly she realized that she was looking away. Suddenly she couldn’t meet his gaze. Why?
    “We gotta talk,” he said. “It’s crazy, not talking about it.”
    “Don’t worry. Go to Boston. Don’t worry.”
    “Don’t worry?” Suddenly his voice rose, a loud, plaintive lament. Followed, instantly, by a quick, cautious look at the wall. Could they be overheard? “Christ—” Voice low, he stepped closer to the bed. “Christ, someone died out there. We should do something.”
    “Not ‘we,’” she answered. “Me. I’ve got to do something. Not ‘we.’ You go to Boston.”
    “Oh, yeah?” It was a hostile, petulant