Read Online The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery (Lena Dane Mysteries) by Melissa F. Olson - Free Book Online

skill level by a freshman.” She pulled out Nate’s last project, a human hand sculpted in potter’s clay, from a box on her desk. A string wrapped around the index finger, leading to a dangling tag with Nate’s name and class period written on it. He focused on the tag, zeroing in on the swirling, graceful ‘A’ in Winnepeg’s handwriting.  
    The art teacher had paused, waiting for Nate to jump into the conversation, but he was too used to silences to fall for that kind of thing anymore. “Anyway,” she went on, “I saw the whale you’ve been working on, and I wanted to talk to you about appearing in the all-district art show in April. Entries were due two weeks ago, and it’s pretty competitive, but I’m on the committee and I’d really like to include your work. What do you think?” She smiled brightly at Nate, pleased with herself. This was probably every teacher’s dream, Nate thought, singling someone out for encouragement, trying to create an important place for themselves in the life of one of the kids. Racking up successes to be discussed at their retirement parties.  
    Nate didn’t need the attention. He stood up. “Thank you, but no,” he said politely. “Excuse me, I need to get to class.”  
    He left Winnepeg sitting openmouthed at her desk, grabbed his backpack and the small Orca sculpture and left the classroom. When he was safely in the hall Nate jerked his thumb over the little whale’s back, breaking off the hollowed dorsal fin. He dropped the whole thing into the garbage and hurried to Algebra just as the next bell rang.

    That night there were three hangup calls on my cell phone, more asshats who wanted me to know they hadn’t forgotten about Matt Cleary. Years of training as a cop –not to mention a lot of time helping Bryce with middle-of-the-night calls from Ruby– kept me from just turning off the damn ringer, so I woke up every time. When the alarm finally went off I woke up more exhausted than when I’d gone to bed.
    I decided to throw myself into Nate’s case to keep from falling asleep on my desk, starting with the former Savvy agents in New York. I found Casey Dickerson right away, but he had no memory of Jason Anderson or his book. I had to call three agencies to find Jennifer Wu – she’d moved around since arriving in New York – but when I finally got through to her assistant I spent fifteen minutes trying to convince him that I didn’t have a book proposal to pitch. Finally, Jennifer Wu got on the phone and I introduced myself.
    “Jason Anderson? I really don’t remember the name.” She had a thin, high-pitched voice with a hint of a New Yawk accent, which was sort of a funny combination.
    “He wrote under the name J.P. Hashly,” I said helpfully, and described Sunset Dies for her.
    “Oh, yeah, that was really towards the end there,” she squeaked. “I think that was Nat’s book – Natalie Patton. She retired to Canada.”
    “Do you remember anything about the author?”
    “I did meet him briefly,” she replied. “Now we do everything via email and phone, but back then, there was more contact. I think he came off as a little...how shall I put it... pretentious as hell . Annoying guy.”  
    This from the woman who made Minnie Mouse sound like Al Green. Wu swore she didn’t know where Jason was now, and didn’t have any forwarding information for Natalie Patton. She was obviously losing interest in the conversation. “That’s okay. One other question,” I said hurriedly. “If a client of Savvy’s wanted to break into screenwriting, would you guys have handled that yourselves?”
    A pause. “No, we were strictly books. Nat had a few contacts at the LA agencies, though, so she might have been able to point someone in the right direction.”
    “Do you know which agencies?”
    Big sigh. “I don’t remember the names...but I guess I could dick around on the internet for a bit, try to come up with them.”
    “That would be great.” I gave