CHAPTER 1

Patty Bigelow hated surprises and did her best to avoid them. God had other ideas.

Patty's concept of a supreme being wavered between Ho-Ho-Ho Santa and a Fire-Eyed Odin thrusting thunderbolts.

Either way, a white-bearded guy bunking down in the clouds. Depending on his mood, dispensing goodies or playing marbles with the planets.

If pressed, Patty would've called herself an agnostic. But when life went haywire why not be like everyone else and blame A Greater Power?

The night Lydia surprised her, Patty had been home for a couple of hours, trying to wind down after a tough day in the E.R. Mellowing out with a beer, then another, and when that didn't work, giving in to The Urge.

First, she straightened the apartment, doing stuff that didn't need doing. She ended up using a toothbrush on the kitchen counter grout, cleaned the toothbrush with a wire brush that she washed under hot water and picked clean. Still tense, she saved the best for last: arranging her shoes--wiping each loafer, sneaker, and sandal clean with a chamois, sorting and re-sorting by color, making sure everything pointed outward at precisely the same angle.

Time for blouses and sweaters . . . the doorbell rang.

One twenty a.m. in Hollywood, who the heck would be drop- ping in?

Patty got irritated, then nervous. Should've bought that gun. She took a carving knife to the door, made sure to use the peephole.

Saw black sky, no one out there . . . oh, yes there was.

When she realized what Lydia had done, she stood there, too stunned to blame anyone.



Lydia Bigelow Nardulli Soames Biefenbach was Patty's baby sister but she'd crammed a lot more living into her thirty-five years than Patty wanted to think about.

Dropout years, groupie years, barmaid years, sitting-on-back-of-the-Harley years. Vegas, Miami, San Antonio, Fresno, Mexico, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana. No time for postcards or sisterly calls, the only time Patty heard from Liddie had to do with money.

Lydia was quick to point out that the arrests were chickenshit, nothing that ever stuck. Responding to Patty's silence when she collect-called from some backcountry lockup and wheedled bail money.

She always paid the money back, Patty granted her that. Always the same schedule: six months later, to the day.

Liddie could be efficient when she wanted to, but not when it came to men. Before, in between, and after the three stupid marriages flowed an endless parade of pierced, inked, dirty-fingernailed, vacant-eyed losers who Liddie insisted on calling her "honeys."

All that fooling around, but miraculously only one kid.

Three years ago, Lydia taking twenty-three hours to push the baby out, alone in some osteopathic hospital outside of Missoula. Tanya Marie, five pounds, six ounces. Liddie sent Patty a newborn picture and Patty sent money. Most newborns were red and monkeylike but this kid looked pretty cute. Two years later, Lydia and Tanya showed up at Patty's door, dropping in on the way to Alaska.

No talk about why Juneau, were they meeting anyone, was Liddie clean. No hints about who the father was. Patty wondered if Lydia even knew.

Patty was no kid person and her neck got tight when she saw the toddler holding Liddie's hand. Expecting some wild little brat, given the circumstances. Her niece turned out to be sweet and quiet, kind of pretty with wispy white-blond hair, searching green eyes that would've fit a middle-aged woman, and restless hands.

"Drop-in" stretched to a ten-day stay. Patty ended up deciding Tanya was real cute, not much of a pain, if you didn't count the stink of dirty...

 

"The denouement accelerates to breathtaking, heart-pounding speed."

 

"Sharply written and well-paced."

 

"[Kellerman is] a master of the grab-the-reader contest . . . The chills start within the first two pages."

 

"[An] adrenaline-fueled read."

 

"A perfect whodunit--a tale told with gusto . . . a thrilling, engrossing pace from the first page to the last."

 

"Delivers full measures of suspense, humor, and sleuthing."

 

Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman
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