Mind Games Read Free Page A

homicide.
    Down by her feet, Harry rolled off his back and grumbled.
    ‘You said it,’ she agreed.

Chapter Four
    Marie Robbins’ widowed sister lived on Granada Boulevard in the heart of Coral Gables, the Spanish-styled city that was one of Dade County’s oldest neighbourhoods.
It was a single-storey, handsome, grey and white house with shutters at the windows and a front garden lush with palms, banyans, and a pair of beautiful floss silk trees.
    Frances Dean looked much as Grace had expected her to. Wrecked. Silver-grey hair that was probably normally elegantly coiffed, was today straggly; what make-up she’d made the effort to
apply had been smudged again through weeping. A black dress that might, in better circumstances, have made her look a sleek and quite attractive fifty-something, today gave her a sallow, shrunken
appearance. Grace wondered how Mrs Dean had lost her husband. It seemed unlikely that any disease, sudden collapse or accident, however harrowing, could have been quite as shattering a mind and
body blow as the one that had now wiped out her sister and brother-in-law.
    ‘Cathy’s resting,’ Frances Dean said soon after Grace had arrived, offered deep sympathy and been offered, in return, a seat on a soft white couch in her living room. ‘Or
meant to be.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor child. I don’t think she’s really slept, as such, since it happened.’
    ‘How about you?’ Grace asked, gently.
    ‘I don’t sleep very well at the best of times.’ Frances Dean remembered her manners. ‘May I bring you some coffee, Dr Lucca?’
    ‘I’d love some.’ Grace didn’t really want coffee, but she was aware that any activity, however trivial, was often preferable to the newly bereaved than just sitting and
staring. ‘If it’s not too much trouble?’
    ‘No trouble at all.’ She rose from her armchair and walked unsteadily towards the tall, generously proportioned doorway that led to the hallway and, presumably, the kitchen and
sleeping areas of the one-storey home. She paused, just short of the door, and turned back.
    ‘Would you like me to fetch Cathy right away, doctor? Or would you prefer to talk to me for a while first?’
    ‘Whichever you prefer,’ Grace said. ‘Whichever may be easier.’ She knew that nothing was easy, nor going to be.
    ‘I’m here, Aunt Frances.’
    The voice came from directly behind Mrs Dean, its owner invisible to Grace from where she sat. It was a young voice, soft and even.
    Mrs Dean turned around. ‘Cathy, honey.’ She extended her right hand to touch her niece but – though Grace felt it was probably not a deliberate snub – the girl, wearing a
white T-shirt and blue jeans, kept her own arms by her sides and walked around her aunt into the living room.
    Grace stood up. Her heart was beating fast and she felt unusually nervous.
    ‘Hello, Cathy,’ she said. ‘I’m Grace Lucca.’
    The girl stopped three feet away. ‘The shrink.’
    ‘That’s me.’ Grace smiled at her.
    ‘They kept sending shrinks to talk to me in the hospital. I didn’t feel like talking, so they all went away again.’
    ‘Cathy —’ Frances Dean stopped, looking uncomfortable.
    Cathy turned her face towards her aunt. ‘It’s okay, Aunt Frances.’ Her tone was kind, as if she felt
that the older woman needed more gentle handling than she did. ‘I think I’m ready now.’ She looked back at Grace. ‘Maybe it was the hospital. I just couldn’t seem to
say anything much there.’ She gave a strange, jerky little shrug. ‘I tried, but I felt like I was going to choke.’
    ‘And now?’ Grace asked.
    ‘I’d like to try.’
    It was more than Grace had expected, but she knew that her relief had to be premature.
    ‘I was getting some coffee for Dr Lucca,’ Frances Dean said, still over by the doorway. ‘Would you like something, Cathy?’
    ‘Uh-uh.’ Cathy shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Aunt Frances.’
    Her aunt left the room. Grace sensed she was glad