Read Online In the Grey by Claudia Hall Christian - Free Book Online

straight to Mommy.”
    “ How do you know?” Alex
asked.
    “ Because this is one of
Mommy’s,” Hector James said.
    His voice was so matter of
fact that Alex found herself nodding as if she already knew the
information.
    “ I’ll show you how you can
tell,” Hector James picked up the nanodrone and turned it over.
“See this dot?”
    He pointed to a tiny light
blue screw.
    “ That’s Mommy’s dot,”
Hector James said. “She made them at our kitchen table. I helped
her put on the dots.”
    “ Did she make a
lot?”
    “ Mmm,” Hector James looked
up to think. “More than a thousand, I think. She used to keep track
on the refrigerator. But Daddy gave her the plans
and . . .”
    “ Hector?”
    “ No, Troy Olivas, my daddy invented
fairies for my mommy,” Hector James voice rose with emotion. “Hector
was not my daddy.
He was not nice or funny or sweet, and he did not love me.”
    The boy leaned back into
her.
    “ He was really bad,”
Hector James said.
    Alex felt the boy’s body
quake. She glanced down, and he was crying.
    “ You want to see them
again?” she asked.
    Hector James
nodded.
    “ More hot chocolate?” Alex
asked.
    Hector James nodded. He
hopped off Alex’s lap, and she got up to make his hot chocolate.
She made herself a macchiato while his milk warmed. Hector James
stood in front of her desk. He touched one item and then the next.
When she came back with their drinks, he was holding the gold
bee.
    She set the drinks on the
shelf and sat down. He climbed on her lap with the gold
bee.
    “ That’s a pretty bee,
isn’t it?” Alex smiled.
    “ I don’t like it,” Hector
James said.
    “ How come?”
    Hector James
shrugged.
    “ Have you’ve seen it
before,” Alex said.
    Hector James
nodded.
    “ I don’t know where,”
Hector James said. “I think it has a hidden
compartment.”
    “ That’s kind of
weird.”
    “ Yeah, that is weird,”
Hector James shrugged and set the bee in his lap. He picked up his
hot chocolate. “I don’t know where I’ve seen it,
but . . . do you have to know? Maybe Hermes
remembers it. I can go get him.”
    “ Why don’t we just watch
our pictures and rest for a bit?”
    She felt Hector James’s
head nod against her shoulder. She turned on soothing music and
watched the light from the photos dance off the boy’s curly dark
hair. He made it through about half of his chocolate before falling
asleep. She took the cup and the bee and set them on the
shelf.
    Rather than move on to
what was next, Alex used this quiet time to think. She was so lost
in thought that she didn’t notice the slideshow had ended. Feeling
eyes on her back, she turned in her chair to find Troy standing in
the doorway. He smiled at Alex, picked up his son, and carried him
up the stairs. Alex watched them go and sat staring at the door for
a moment.
    She spun in her chair and
started making calls. By the time John got home, she was humming,
“When you wish upon a star” and responding to email.
    “ Happy?” John asked from
the doorway.
    Maggie jumped up to greet
him.
    “ That you’re home,” Alex
got up from her chair. “Want to see how much?”
    “ Why don’t I take Maggie
out while you lock up?” John asked.
    She turned off her
computer and the gas fireplace before locking up her office. She
met John and Maggie on their way in the side basement door. With
Maggie leading the way, John chased Alex upstairs.
    F

CHAPTER
SIX
     
    Saturday
morning
    November 6 – 9:27 a.m.
MDT
    Denver,
Colorado
     
    “ Olivas,” Sergeant Dusty
said from the doorway of the team workroom.
    “ I’m right in the middle
of . . .” Troy pointed to his computer
screen.
    “ The LC would like to see
you now,” Sergeant Dusty said.
    “ I . . .”
Troy pointed to his computer screen again.
    “ Now ,” Sergeant Dusty said.
    Troy glanced around the
room. He’d been so focused on what he was doing he hadn’t paid much
attention to what was going on around him. He scanned the