Required reading

"Required reading," I said, smiling, embarrassed, "for the serial killer with a bang."
She was dressed in a stylish red pantsuit and a Burberry summer raincoat, a pile of briefs squeezed into her leather satchel. "I figured you could use a drink."
"I could," I said, tapping the book against the desk, "but I'm still on duty." I offered her a bag of Szechuan soybeans instead.
"What are you doing," she snickered, "heading up the department's new Subversive Authors wing?"
"Very cute," I said. "Here's a fact I bet you didn't know. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Warren Buffet made more money last year than the thirty poorest countries, a quarter of the world's population."
Jill smiled. "It's good to see you developing a social con-sciousness, given your line of work."
"There's something bothering me, Jill. The fake secondary device outside Lightower's town house. The note on the company form balled up in Bengosian's mouth. These people have made their motive clear. But they're trying to taunt us. Why play the game?"
She balanced a red shoe on the edge of my desk. "I don't know. You're the one who catches 'em, honey. I just put 'em away."
There was a bit of a pause. A stiff one. "You mind if I change the subject?"
"Your soybeans," she said with a shrug,replica louis vuitton handbags, popping one in her mouth.
"I don't know if this'll sound silly. I was a little worried the other day. Sunday. After we ran. Those marks, Jill. On your arms. Something got me thinking."
"Thinking about what?" she asked.
I looked into her eyes. "I know you didn't get those marks from a shower door. I know what it's like, Jill,fake uggs for sale, when you have to admit you're human, like the rest of us. I know how you wanted that baby. Then your dad died. I know you pretend that you can work everything out. But maybe you can't some-times. You won't talk about it with anyone, even us. So the answer is, I don't know about those marks. You tell me."
There was stubbornness in her eyes that suddenly turned fragile, something about to give. I didn't know if I had gone too far, but to hell with it, she was my friend. All I wanted was for her to be happy.
"Maybe you're right about one thing," Jill finally said. "Maybe those marks didn't come from a shower door."
Chapter 32
THERE ARE CRIMES that are brutal and inexcusable,link. Some-times they make me sick, but their motives are open. Now and then, I even understand. Then there are the hidden crimes,Replica Designer Handbags. The ones you are never meant to see. The kind of cruelty that barely breaks the skin but crushes what's inside, the little voice that is human in all of us.
These are the ones that really make me wonder about what I do for a living.
After Jill told me what had been going on between her and Steve, after I wiped her tears and cried with her like a little sister, I drove home in a daze. A pall had clung to her face, a whitewash of shame I will never forget. Jill, my Jill.
My first instinct was to drive over there that night and slap a charge on Steve. All along, the slick, self-righteous prick had been bullying her, hitting her.
All I could think of was Jill, the face I saw on her, that of a little girl. Not the Chief Assistant D.A., top of her class at Stanford, who seemed to breeze through life. Who put mur-derers away with that icy stare. My friend.