Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,7
last night to come straight home. Leo had suggested they get a drink, talk about the case, and Michael had taken him up on the offer, using the excuse to toss back a couple of bourbons and take the edge off what he’d seen.
“Eleven…” Tim counted. “Twelve…”
Gina said, “You smell like an ashtray.”
“I didn’t smoke.”
“I didn’t say you did.” She dropped a handful of Cheerios into the box and held out her hand for more.
“Fourteen,” Tim continued.
“I just needed some time.” Michael poured coffee into the mugs. “Leo wanted to talk about the case.”
“Leo wanted an excuse to get shitfaced.”
“Uh-oh,” Tim sang.
“Sorry, baby,” Gina apologized to their son. She softened her tone. “You skipped a number. What happened to thirteen?”
Tim shrugged. For the moment, he could only count to twenty-eight, but Gina made sure he hit every number along the way.
Gina told Tim, “Go get dressed for Ba-Ba. She’ll be here soon.”
Tim stood and bounced out of the room, skipping from one foot to the other.
Gina dropped the Cheerios into the box and sat down with a groan. She had pulled a double shift this weekend to pick up some extra money. The day hadn’t even started and already she looked exhausted.
“Busy night?” he asked.
She took a sip of coffee, looking at him over the steam rising from the mug. “I need money for the new therapist.”
Michael sighed, leaning against the counter. Tim’s old speech therapist had taken him as far as she could. The kid needed a specialist, and the good specialists weren’t on the state health insurance plan.
“Five hundred dollars,” Gina said. “That’ll get him through the end of the month.”
“Christ.” Michael rubbed his fingers into his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. He thought about the BMW and the Lincoln he’d seen at Grady Homes last night. Tim could see fifty specialists for that kind of money.
“Take it out of savings,” he said.
She snorted a laugh. “What savings?”
Christmas. They had raided their savings for Christmas.
“I’m gonna ask for another shift at the hospital.” She held up her hand to stop his protest. “He’s got to have the best.”
“He’s got to have his mother.”
“How about your mother?” she shot back.
Michael’s jaw set. “I’m not going to ask her for another dime.”
She put down the mug on the table with a thump that spilled coffee onto the back of her hand. There was no way to win this argument—Michael should know, they’d had it practically every week over the last five years. He was already working overtime, trying to bring in extra cash so Tim could have the things he needed. Gina took weekend shifts twice a month, but Michael drew the line at her working holidays. He barely saw her as it was. Sometimes, he thought she planned it that way. They weren’t a married couple anymore; they were a partnership, a nonprofit corporation working for the betterment of Tim. Michael couldn’t even remember the last time they’d had sex.
“Cynthia called last night,” Gina told him. Their spoiled next-door neighbor. “She’s got a loose board or something.”
“Loose board?” he repeated. “Where’s Phil?”
She pressed her palms to the table and stood. “Botswana. Hell, I don’t know, Michael. She just asked if you could fix it and I said yes.”
“Did you want to consult with me about that first?”
“Do it or don’t,” she snapped, tossing the rest of her coffee into the sink. “I need to get dressed for work.”
He watched her back as she made her way down the hall. Every morning was like this: Tim making a mess, them cleaning it up, then some argument about something stupid breaking out. To top things off, Barbara would be here soon, and Michael was sure his mother-in-law would find something to complain about, whether it was her aching back, her paltry social security check, or the fact that he’d given her a retarded grandson. Lately, she had taken to leaving articles on Gulf War Syndrome taped to the refrigerator, the obvious inference being that Michael had done something horrible over in Iraq that had brought this scourge on her family.
Michael went into the bedroom and dressed quickly, skipping his shower so he wouldn’t have to go into the bathroom and deal with Gina again. He saw Barbara’s Toyota pulling into the driveway and grabbed his hammer out of his toolbox, sneaking out the back door as she came in the front.
Part of the chain-link fence around the backyard had been taken out by a tree during the last ice storm