Read Online Call Of The Witch by Dana Donovan - Free Book Online Page A

about
your son.”
    Karina Martinez seemed surprised. “No?”
    “ Please. We just have a
few questions to ask you. May we sit down?” Carlos motioned toward
a sofa and a chair in the living room, which also happened to be
the dining room, and from the looks of things her bedroom, too. I
took the chair. Carlos and Martinez took the couch. They sat so
close their knees nearly touched. Carlos pointed to the phone on
the wall by the kitchen. “Señora, is your telephone
working?”
    She glanced at it only briefly. “Sí, when I
used it last time it worked okay.”
    “ Mr. Brewbaker tells us he
tried calling you several times this afternoon. He said he got no
answer.”
    Her expression remained unchanged.
    “ Were you out?”
    “ No.”
    “ Did you hear the phone
ring?”
    She shook her head.
    “ You were home all
afternoon, but you did not hear it ring?”
    “ Yes, I have been here
since noon when I returned from the bank.”
    Carlos looked at me and gestured toward the
phone. I went to it, picked up the receiver and listened. A dial
tone told me it was working, but I noticed the ringer was turned
all the way down. “The ringer’s off,” I said.
    Karina Martinez offered no explanation.
Carlos said, “Ma'am, did you see Mr. Brewbaker this morning?”
    She nodded.
    “ Did you see Kelly
Brewbaker, too?”
    “ Of course.”
    “ What time was
that?”
    I could see her eyes grow round with worry.
“Is something the matter, Detective?”
    “ Please, just answer the
question. What time did you last see Kelly Brewbaker?”
    “ Nine o’clock this
morning.”
    “ Nine o’clock? Are you
sure?”
    “ Sí.”
    Carlos and I exchanged glances. We now had a
definite timeline for figuring a worst-case scenario. It had been
nine hours and forty-five minutes since anyone had seen Kelly
Brewbaker alive. Based on the mile-a-minute estimate, we imagined
her nearly six hundred miles away already.
    “ Señora.” Carlos took her
hand and held it gently. “Kelly may be missing,” he said,
deliberately omitting the fact we knew she had been kidnapped.
“We’re trying to find her. Can you tell us what she was wearing
this morning when you saw her?”
    I could see her hands trembling now. “Miss
Kelly is missing?”
    “ Please. Try to think.
What was she wearing?”
    Her eyes drifted to a shadowy nook across the
room where her last memories of Kelly came to life. “Her riding
shirt,” she said. “She wore her favorite riding shirt today. A
white pull-over with half sleeves and a horse stitched here.” She
placed her hand over her heart to indicate the location of the
embroidery.
    “ Was she supposed to go
riding today?”
    “ No. Not today, but she
loves that shirt.”
    “ I see. What
else?”
    “ Blue jeans, the
bleached-out kind with holes in the pockets and knees, like the
teenagers wear.” Her eyes came back to Carlos with a quizzical
look. “They buy them that way now. Can you believe it?”
    “ It’s the fashion,” he
said.
    Karina shook her head. “Good money for rags
if you ask me. Mr. Brewbaker does not approve of them. But Kelly
does what she wants to do when Mr. Brewbaker is not at home.”
    “ Is Kelly
rebellious?”
    She smiled thinly. “No, Detective. Kelly is a
good girl. Mr. Brewbaker loves her, but he is strict, old
fashioned. Mrs. Brewbaker is more understanding of such things. She
likes to spoil Kelly and lets her wear whatever she wants to wear
on weekends.”
    “ Tell me about this
morning. You went to the Brewbaker house. Why did you do
that?”
    “ To pick up my pay
check.”
    “ Did Mr. Brewbaker ask you
to stay awhile so he could go to work?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ So you
stayed.”
    “ For a while.”
    “ But then you left. You
didn’t wait for Mrs. Brewbaker. Why?”
    “ Detective, I could wait
no longer. If I waited, I would have missed my bus and have to wait
another two hours for the next one. By then the banks would have
closed. I had to cash my check or my son would….”