Read Online To the Bone by Neil McMahon - Free Book Online

clicks of the mouse would then deliver action like they had just seen, with the star billed in the film credits as Eve Eden.
    â€œThis girl must have had money, huh?” Larrabee said. “Maybe her family?”
    â€œI don’t know. Why?”
    â€œBecause that guy D’Anton doesn’t take on anybody who doesn’t. But if she was rich, why would she do the porn? For kicks?”
    Monks had not thought about that, obvious though it was. “I don’t know anything more about her.”
    â€œI’m sure there’s more to her story,” Larrabee said. “I can keep looking, if you want.”
    â€œI don’t think so, Stover. It’s not like it matters. Just me being sappy.”
    â€œWell, let me know if there’s anything else.”
    Monks said thanks and left. There wasn’t anything else, but to wait—for Roman Kasmarek’s appraisal, for the medical examiner’s autopsy, and to find out if the beating Monks had taken over the past hours was going to continue.

7
    A fternoon sunlight filtered through the tall windows of Julia D’Anton’s studio, illuminating slowly drifting particles of limestone that settled onto the dusty old hardwood floor. Her strong fingers worked at the stone with a wooden mallet and the hand-forged iron chisels she had brought back from Tuscany more than twenty years ago.
    The block was one-quarter life size. Julia had started by sketching a live model, then roughing out the sculpture in clay. Now the model was back, to lend living nuance to the flow of the stone. Her name was Anna somebody, a softly pretty and somewhat sulky girl in her late teens, full-bodied and large-breasted. In the past, Julia had preferred working with marble, and women with lean, well-defined musculatures, but now she did not want to look at either—maybe ever again.
    She had been shaping the face with small tooth chisels, trying to render expression from the blank oval. It was not going well. Her hands were getting tired. When that happened, they started to tremble and lose control. Anna was posed nude, sitting up, with her legs curled beside her. Her face was turned in profile and down, as if she were contemplating a flower in the garden where the sculpture would probably end up. She looked like she was almost asleep.
    Julia gave the chisel a delicate tap along the bridge of the nose. A hairline crack appeared, a tiny fault in the stone that she had not seen. She pressed a fingertip over it, but she knew already that it could not be repaired. She thrust the clawed chisel in and gouged out a chip the size of a small nailhead. It would mean a restructuring of the entire face. Hands shaking now with anger, she slammed down the tools on the workbench.
    Anna’s body jerked with the sound, her eyes flicking open.
    â€œIs something wrong?” she said.
    â€œIt’s all wrong. All this work I’ve gone to, and it’s just getting worse. You are wrong. Your bones might be all right, but everything from there out is impossible.”
    The girl’s mouth twisted in a little grimace of resentment.
    â€œIs there anything I can do?”
    â€œTry to look a little less bovine.”
    Anna’s face turned suspicious. “I don’t know what that means.”
    â€œLike a cow, darling.”
    Anna’s mouth opened, then her eyes went teary. “You have—no right,” she blurted out. She stood, grasping for her robe and flinging it around her shoulders, trying to look dignified but without the necessary presence.
    â€œIt’s no use going knock-kneed trying to hide your bush,” Julia said coldly. “It only makes your thighs look fatter.”
    Anna turned away with a flounce and started toward the studio’s changing room.
    â€œI didn’t say the session was over,” Julia said.
    â€œYou can’t keep me if I don’t want—”
    â€œIf you leave here without my permission, you will