Supreme Justice Read Online Free Page B

kinesics.”
    “And fairies and Santa Claus?”
    “What great man was it who said, ‘Screw you, buddy, and the horse you rode in on’?”
    Bishop laughed. “Seriously, Peep, I appreciate this.”
    They said good-bye and clicked off.
    Checking his watch, Reeder realized he had just enough time to make his dinner with Amy.
    Wedged between a tiny dress shop and a BB&T Bank branch, DC Subs on Wisconsin Avenue Northwest was bigger than Reeder’s office, but not by much. Standing just outside the restaurant, waiting for his daughter, Reeder reflected on Amy’s birthday in a few days, and he still had no damn idea what to get her.
    He spotted her not quite a block away, coming from the direction of Georgetown University, where she was a freshman. Amy might as well have been her mother, a million years ago. Same brown hair, worn long like Melanie’s when she and Reeder first met. His nineteen-year-old daughter had her mom’s tall, slender frame, as well, wrapped up in a navy Georgetown sweatshirt with bulldog mascot, jeans, and running shoes.
    On her arm, goddamnit, was Bobby Landon.
    Reeder made his grimace turn into a smile as the couple approached.
    A twenty-year-old sophomore with dark hair nearly as long as Amy’s, Landon had been dating her since last October. He wore jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt for some apparent band under an unzipped hoodie with the Georgetown seal.
    Like most kids that age, Landon knew everything already. His save-the-world, far-left brand of progressive liberalism was already creeping into Amy’s conversations with her dad. Several past conversations with Amy and her boyfriend had devolved into near shouting matches.
    In Landon’s eyes, Reeder was the worst kind of liberal—a middle-of-the-road Clinton type. And in Reeder’s eyes, Landon was a naive joke. This kid thought that by taking all the guns and dumping them in the Grand Canyon or something, you could end gun violence. Sure, and if you just buried all nuclear weapons at the bottom of the ocean, the threat of nuclear war would disappear, right?
    Never mind that the technology was, hell, everywhere. Any asshole with a Wi-Fi connection could learn how to make a plastic gun, a dirty bomb—anything a twisted brain could come up with. Recent history was pockmarked with the reality of that.
    Shaking away such thoughts, Reeder kept smiling, nodding as they neared.
    Breaking away from her date, Amy came up, gave her dad a hug, and planted a tiny kiss on his cheek. “Dad, you don’t mind Bobby tagging along . . . ?”
    He minded, all right, but said, “Not at all. A pleasure.”
    Reeder nodded toward the young man, who managed a nod and a “Hey, Mr. Reeder” in return.
    The sub shop was, as usual, crowded, but they soon had their sandwiches, Reeder paying the bill—you’d think Landon could have at least offered, but then far lefties never paid for anything, did they? Then they managed to find a table in a corner.
    Reeder asked his daughter how her classes were going.
    Landon was absorbed in his veggie sandwich, aware that the father-daughter conversation didn’t include him.
    Amy shrugged. “Not bad. Okay.”
    “How long till finals?”
    “Started yesterday.”
    “Ready for ’em?”
    She just looked at him.
    Amy had been a straight-A student since birth. Such scholastic-oriented questions Reeder needed never to ask. But he was her father, and always did.
    With school matters covered, Reeder had no idea what to say to his only child. The apartment he’d set her up in near campus was not a good point of conversation. She had rather blatantly manipulated him into pressuring her mother to let her live off campus, alone.
    If only. Che Guevara here was probably sleeping over most nights, something Reeder didn’t want to think about, much less inquire over, and every time he brought up the apartment, Amy thought he was trying to control her with it, since Daddy paid the rent.
    Anyway, that’s how she’d reacted when he’d moved