Read Online The Watchman by Robert Crais - Free Book Online Page A

the living room before she saw him, and startled so abruptly a geyser of water squirted into the air.
    “You scared the shit out of me.”
    “Sorry.”
    She was gasping the way people do, but she made an embarrassed laugh.
    “Jesus, say something next time. I didn’t hear you come back.”
    “Maybe you should put on something.”
    She had taken off her clothes except for a sheer bra and lime green thong panties. A gold stud glinted in her navel. She straightened to face him full-on, lifting her ribs.
    “I got hot. I told you it would be hot without the air. You want a bottle of water?”
    Pike said, “Don’t do this.”
    She went to the couch, sat, and put her bare feet up on the coffee table, staring at him between her knees.
    “Do what? Are you sure you don’t want to go to Paris? It’s cooler in Paris.”
    She stared into his eyes with the crooked smile slashing her face as if she and only she had discovered that everything in the world was about sex and Pike had never seen anything like her before.
    Pike said, “Who’s Don Pitman?”
    Her crooked smile vanished.
    “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
    “I need to know who these people are. He called me.”
    She closed her eyes. Her feet dropped from the table.
    “He’s one of the people from the government. It was Pitman and another one—Blanchette. Kevin. Kevin is a lawyer from the Attorney General.”
    “Are they running the show or do they work for someone else?”
    Her shut eyes squeezed tighter, like she was in pain but trying to control it.
    “Not now. I cannot talk about this anymore.”
    “I need to ask some things. I’m going to have to talk to these guys, and Bud, and your father.”
    “No more. Not now.”
    She leaned forward to put the bottle on the table, and her breasts showed round and full in her bra in the dim ochre light.
    “I have a tattoo on my ass. Did you see it this morning? I wanted you to see it.”
    Pike stared at her.
    “It’s a dolphin. I think dolphins are beautiful. You see them racing through the water. They have that wonderful smile. They look so happy, going fast. I want to be a dolphin. I want to be like that.”
    She came around the table and walked over to Pike and stopped in front of him. Pike shook his head.
    “Don’t.”
    She knelt and placed the flat of her hand on his shoulder, covering his tattoo.
    “Why did you have arrows? Tell me why. I need to know that about you.”
    Pike moved just enough to lift her hand away. He took her arms and gently pushed her back.
    “Please don’t do this again.”
    She stared at some point between them for a time, then returned to the couch. Pike studied her dark outline, half her face in a murky glow from the kitchen, the other half in shadows. Her eyes glistened in the light from the window.
    He said, “It’s going to be all right. You’re safe.”
    “I don’t know you. I don’t know these government people or Meesh or the Kings or anything about laundering money from South America. I only wanted to help. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what happened to my life.”
    The glisten spread to her cheeks.
    “I’m really scared.”
    Pike knew it was a mistake even as he went to the couch. He put his arm around her, trying to comfort her the way he had comforted people when he was an officer, comforting a mother whose son had been shot, calming a child who had been shaken in a traffic accident. And when he touched her, she snuggled into him, her hand going to his chest, then lower.
    Pike whispered, “No.”
    Larkin ran into the front bedroom, bare feet slapping. The door closed.
    Pike sat on the couch in the dark quiet house. He had been awake for thirty-five hours, but he knew if sleep came it would not last more than an hour or two. He took off his sweatshirt, then floated soundlessly through the house, going to each room, listening to the night beyond the windows, then moving on. When he reached Larkin’s door, he heard her