Nemesis by Bill Pronzini

hadn’t been for Andrea, her alcoholism, her poisonous vindictiveness, he might have had outings like this with his own son while Joshua was growing up. Carnivals, ball games, barbecues, all the father-son closeness that she’d denied him … no, denied them both. Instead he and Joshua stood on opposite sides of the unbridgeable gap she’d created, strangers, the son hating the father because that was what he’d been taught to do. Andrea had died thinking she’d won, but there were no winners here. Only losers.
    Bobby, tired out, napped in the backseat on the drive home. Bryn sat quietly against the passenger door, saying little. The fits of deep depression were a thing of the past, or so she claimed, but she could still be moody on occasion. Easy enough to figure why tonight: the boardwalk crowds, the few rudely staring and smirking faces, an awareness of handicap-induced alienation from normal activities such as swimming and sunbathing. At down times like this, when she was still living alone, she would have turned to Runyon for support, or responded to his offer of it, and they’d have talked her through it. Now, even though he tried, she said only, “I don’t want to discuss it, Jake,” and lapsed back into a melancholy silence.
    She didn’t invite him in when they got back to her brown-shingled house in the Outer Sunset. “I’m tired, Bobby’s tired,” she said. “A good day, but a long one. You don’t mind?”
    â€œNo,” he said, “I don’t mind.”
    Bobby’s hug was longer, more affectionate than Bryn’s, his parting smile brighter. Quick brush of her lips over his, and she and the boy went inside arm in arm. Bobby looked back and waved before the door closed. Bryn didn’t.
    Winding down, all right. Like the summer. He felt it even more strongly as he drove home. From now on they’d be friends, because of the closeness they’d shared and because Bobby was his friend, but that was all they’d be. It made him a little sad, but not too much. Never any real doubt that the affair’s end would come sooner or later, even though there’d been a time when he tried to convince himself otherwise—he saw that clearly now. In the long run Bryn, the handicapped Bryn, was better off alone. And so was he.
    *   *   *
    There were no messages on his answering machine. And he’d had no calls on his cell all day. He sat up until eleven-thirty, half watching a movie and then the news. Neither phone rang during that time, either.
    *   *   *
    Monday was another Verity Daniels–free day. Until 8:15 that night, when the damn case went crazy on him.
    He spent the day wrapping up an insurance fraud investigation, then consulting with an attorney representing the wife of a deadbeat dad who’d skipped town owing five figures in child support. Dinner at another Chinese restaurant, not so much because he liked Mandarin and Hunan food as because it had been Colleen’s favorite and eating it always brought back some of the pleasant memories of their twenty years together. Home to finish out the rest of his evening routine: blanking out in front of the TV until it was time for bed. Or so he thought until his cell vibrated.
    As soon as he opened the line, before he had a chance to say anything, she made a half-grunting, half-crying sound, loud in his ear, and followed it with a rush of strung-together words. “God Jake oh God he was here he had a knife I thought he was going to kill me!”
    â€œSlow down, you’re not making sense.”
    Drawn breath like a steam hiss. Then, more coherently, “It was him  … the blackmailer. Here. Right here .”
    â€œIn your studio?”
    â€œNot at first, no, in the hallway. He … the things he said … and that knife against my throat…”
    â€œAre you hurt?”
    â€œNo. But he scared me