Perfect Match Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the end, it turned out that he'd learned too well from Nina's letters, and he moved bac k to Biddeford, simply because he could not stay away.
    “And then,” Nina says, “a pig leaped into the butter dish and ruined the whol e dinner party.”
    “No shit?” Patrick laughs, caught. “What did the hostess do?”
    “You're not listening, Patrick, goddammit.”
    “Sure I am. But Jesus, Nina. Brain matter on the passenger seat visor that do esn't belong to anyone in the car? Might as well be a pig in the butter dish you're talking about.” Patrick shakes his head. “Who leaves his cerebral cort ex behind in someone else's rig?”
    “You tell me. You're the detective.”
    “Okay. My best guess? The car's been reconditioned. Your defendant bought it used, never knowing that the previous owner drove to a secluded rest stop a nd blew his brains out in the front seat. It got cleaned up well enough for resale value . . . but not for the indomitable Maine State Lab.” Nina stirs her coffee, then reaches across to Patrick's plate to take a French f ry. “That's not impossible,” she admits. “I'll have to trace the car.”
    “I can get you the name of a guy we used as an informant once-he ran a reco nditioning business before he started dealing.”
    “Get me the whole file. Leave it in my mailbox at home.” Patrick shakes his head. “I can't. That's a federal offense.”
    “You're kidding,” Nina laughs. “It's not like you're leaving a bomb.” But Pat rick doesn't even smile; for him the world is a place of rules. “Fine, then. Leave it outside the front door.” She glances down as her beeper sounds, pull s it from the waistband of her skirt. “Oh, damn.”
    “Problem?”
    “Nathaniel's preschool.” She takes her cell phone from her black bag and dial s a number. “Hi, it's Nina Frost. Yes. Of course. No, I understand.” She hang s up, then dials again. “Peter, it's me. Listen, I just got a call from Natha niel's school. I have to go pick him up, and Caleb's at a job site. I've got two motions to suppress on DUIs; can you cover for me? Plead the cases, I don 't care, I just want to get rid of them. Yeah. Thanks.”
    “What's the matter with Nathaniel?” Patrick asks as she slips the phone back into her bag. “Is he sick?”
    Nina looks away from him; she almost seems embarrassed. “No, they specifica lly said he wasn't. We got off to a rocky start today; I'm betting he just needs to sit on the porch with me and regroup.”
    Patrick has spent plenty of hours on the porch with Nathaniel and Nina. Their favorite game in the fall is to bet Hershey's kisses on which leaf will drop from a given tree first. Nina plays to win, just like she does with everything else in her life, but then she claims she is too stuffed to r eap the bounty and she donates all her chocolate to Nathaniel. When Nina is w ith her son, she seems-well, brighter, more colorful-and softer. When they ar e laughing with their heads bent close, Patrick sometimes sees her not as the attorney she is now but as the little girl who was once his partner in crime .
    “I could go get him for you,” Patrick suggests.
    “Yeah, you just can't leave him in my mailbox.” Nina grins and grabs the oth er half of Patrick's sandwich from his plate. “Thanks, but Miss Lydia made a personal request to see me, and believe me, you don't want to get on that w oman's bad side.” Nina takes a bite, then hands the rest to Patrick. “I'll c all you later.” She hurries out of the bar before Patrick can say good-bye. He watches her go. Sometimes he wonders if she ever slows down, if she's movi ng so fast through her own life that she cannot even realize the physics of t he trajectory she's taken: Bend the curve of time, and even yesterday looks u nfamiliar. The truth is, Nina will forget to call him. And Patrick will phone her instead and ask if Nathaniel is all right. She'll apologize and say she meant to get back to him all along. And Patrick . . .