Lullaby - Ace Atkins

261 Pages·2016·0.85 MB·English

by  Parker Robert B

NOVELS BY ROBERT B. PARKER

THE SPENSER NOVELS
Sixkill
Painted Ladies
The Professional
Rough Weather
Now & Then
Hundred-Dollar Baby
School Days
Cold Service
Bad Business
Back Story
Widow’s Walk
Potshot
Hugger Mugger
Hush Money
Sudden Mischief
Small Vices
Chance
Thin Air
Walking Shadow
Paper Doll
Double Deuce
Pastime
Stardust
Playmates
Crimson Joy
Pale Kings and Princes
Taming a Sea-Horse
A Catskill Eagle
Valediction
The Widening Gyre
Ceremony
A Savage Place
Early Autumn
Looking for Rachel Wallace
The Judas Goat
Promised Land
Mortal Stakes
God Save the Child
The Godwulf Manuscript
THE JESSE STONE NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues (by Michael Brandman)
Split Image
Night and Day
Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage
THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS
Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor
ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER
Blue-Eyed Devil
Brimstone
Resolution
Appaloosa
Double Play
Gunman’s Rhapsody
All Our Yesterdays
A Year at the Races (with Joan H. Parker)
Perchance to Dream
Poodle Springs (with Raymond Chandler)
Love and Glory
Wilderness
Three Weeks in Spring (with Joan H. Parker)
Training with Weights (with John R. Marsh)

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York
10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,
Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL,
England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) •
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of
Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New
Zealand(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee
Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand,
London WC2R 0RL, England Copyright © 2012 by the Estate of Robert B. Parker All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without
permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the
author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data Atkins, Ace.
Robert B. Parker’s lullaby / Ace Atkins.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-58492-7
1. Spenser (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Mothers—Crimes against—Fiction. 3. Private investigators—
Massachusetts—Boston—Fiction. 4. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title. II. Title:
Lullaby.
PS3601.T487R63 2012 2012006193
813'.6—dc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses,
companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the
time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for
changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not
assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To Joan.
Always the inspiration.
Contents

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
1

I
spotted the girl even before she knocked on my door. I was gazing out my
second-floor office window down at Berkeley Street, eating a cinnamon donut
and drinking coffee with a little milk and sugar. The girl looked lost among the
businesspeople and tourists hustling along the icy sidewalks. She wore a pink
Boston Red Sox cap and an oversized down parka with a fur collar, and stared
up at the numbers on the office buildings where Berkeley intersects Boylston.
When she stopped at my building, she folded up a piece of paper and
crossed the street with a lot of purpose. I had an open box of donuts and an
uncashed check on my desk from Cone, Oakes. I’d done a little work for Rita
Fiore and had been paid handsomely.
The winter had been dark, bleak, and endless, but sometime in the last hour
I had actually seen the sun. My computer was playing Helen Forrest singing with
the Harry James Orchestra. Life was full of promise.
I had a bite of donut just as I heard the knock on the door.
I opened it.
“You Spenser?” asked the girl in the pink Red Sox cap.
“The one and only.”
“People say you’re tough,” she said.
“Did they mention handsome and witty?”
“That you aren’t afraid to use a gun.”
“Only when my feelings get hurt.”
Her accent was South Boston, maybe Dorchester. Henry Higgins could
have told me her exact address. I figured her for fifteen or sixteen. She stood
about five-foot-five with straight reddish brown hair spilling from the Sox cap.
Her eyes were green and very large, made slightly ridiculous with heavy