Read Online Heart of the World by Linda Barnes - Free Book Online Page A

bright blue ink. “I got her locker number: 2336. The bastard wouldn’t open it, so I pled my case with the janitor. Read me the riot act on First Amendment rights.”
    Where else but Cambridge can you find a janitor in touch with the First Amendment? “When does he go home?” I asked.
    She shrugged. “You know the kind of guy, looks like he lives here. Oh, yeah, I got the flyers. Guy at Kinko's said it was his third missing-kid sheet this week.”
    It was going to come to that, sticking her picture up on street signs and telephone poles, on community bulletin boards in Shaw's and Whole Foods, like a lost dog. I tried not to think about all those kids with their faces on the backs of milk cartons.
    I said, “Where's the janitor now?”
    â€œI told you, he's not gonna—”
    â€œFind him and stay with him, come on to him, whatever. I’m gonna do her locker and I don’t want interruptions.” “Bust the lock?” she said eagerly.
    â€œKeep him occupied.”
    Locker 2336 was on the second floor down a long hallway of locker-lined walls broken by classroom doorways. The linoleum gleamed underfoot, and the low hum of a polisher buzzed along an intersecting corridor. The tubby janitor had his back toward me as he shoved the machine, heading away from my destination with a long path yet to shine. If he was the same janitor who’d given Roz the legal two-step, I hoped she’d have the brains to let him work.
    I’d transferred a prybar from the car trunk to my backpack, just in case, and I was tempted to use it simply because it would have felt good,the exertion, the satisfaction of twisting metal. I hadn’t played volleyball or gone swimming at the Y, hadn’t gotten any of the physical exercise I normally get, and I could feel tension knotting my neck and shoulders. I regretted the prybar as I manipulated the lock, but there was no need for it. You’re a PI and you can’t bust a school locker without a bar, it's time to find a new racket.
    My cell rang, and I grabbed it, willing Paolina's voice, hoping the janitor hadn’t heard the sound.
    â€œDinner?” Sam's baritone. “We could try the Harvest.”
    Not Paolina. I tried not to let either disappointment or accusation seep into my response. “I don’t think I’ll have time.”
    â€œYou haven’t found her?”
    â€œNo. Sam—”
    â€œYou gotta eat—”
    I might have to stuff fuel down my throat, but there was no way I could see myself sitting at a white-tablecloth restaurant poring over a menu. “This isn’t a great time to talk.” I’d follow up on Mooney's idea later; I had the locker to crack now.
    â€œYou think I oughta talk to Marta? She might—”
    â€œSam, no. I appreciate it, but…” He believes women confide in him. What they do—what Marta does, anyway—is flirt with him. She’d shoot the breeze all night, tell him anything he wanted to hear.
    â€œLet me do something,” he said.
    I closed my eyes and listened to the faint hum of the polishing machine. Should I ask whether some organized crime hit man might have snatched my little sister? Instead I said, “Marta's got a new guy named Gregor Maltic.” I spelled it. “You might—”
    â€œI’ll see if anybody knows him. And you gotta sleep, right, so I’ll come by later.”
    He hung up before I had time to reply. Plenty of time to ask about Mob-related complications tonight, I figured, so I stowed the phone and opened the locker as noiselessly as possible, imagining my little sister's hand, warm on the same metal, less than a week ago.
    The first thing that hit me was the smell, a combination of scents, floral, citrusy, musky, overwhelming. Lined on the top shelf, a row of tiny bottles and flasks glittered: perfume, cologne, and toilet water. My little sister started collecting cosmetic-counter