Read Online The Ghost in the Doll (Fox Meridian Book 6) by Niall Teasdale - Free Book Online Page A

not. There have been a couple of tornado warnings for the next day or so. It’s early in the season, so it’s probably nothing.’
    Kit popped up beside Fox. ‘I have obtained a feed from the Doppler radar network, Mrs Meridian. There are no indications of tornado activity in the region currently.’
    ‘Thank you, Kit. You know, I don’t see how Tara managed before she got you. You’re like a little genie popping up with useful information.’
    ‘Not so much of the little,’ Fox said. ‘She’s taller than you.’
    ‘But I do have a genie costume,’ Kit added. ‘I’d demonstrate but, uh, it’s a little risqué.’
    Andrea turned and raised an eyebrow at her daughter. Fox held her hands up. ‘Don’t blame me. She wears it for her boyfriend.’
    ‘Vali, isn’t it? Lucky Vali.’
    ~~~
    ‘Anything useful come out of your interviews?’ Jonathan asked. They were sitting around the kitchen table for the daily ‘Fox watching her parents eat’ ritual.
    ‘Nothing I’d call definitive,’ Fox replied.
    ‘You sound alarmingly like your mother hedging around some politics she doesn’t like.’
    ‘Huh.’ Fox noted that her mother did not say anything to correct the analogy. ‘Well, the only thing I came up with that might lead somewhere was the surgeon. The people who knew who had operated on the… subjects sounds too clinical, but it’s what I’ve got. Anyway, they were all worked on by a guy named Harlan Napier.’
    ‘I can’t believe he’s responsible,’ Andrea said. ‘He’s very well respected.’
    ‘So it would seem.’
    ‘He’s fairly big in health and safety voting. Quite a large delegation in that category. Ross has been courting him to help with anything that may need doing regarding this MarTech biotechnology business.’
    ‘Well, I’ve nothing to suggest he’s done anything wrong. He’s just the man who’s done the work. It’s still quite possible this is all just a big coincidence. I take it you’ve met him?’
    ‘We both have. You remember, Jonathan. He was at that charity dinner just after New Year.’
    ‘To be honest, I remember his wife more than him. Christy? That’s right, isn’t it? Attractive, certainly, and the only woman in the room whose dress was more risqué than yours.’
    ‘Christina, yes. Of course, she married him for his money. Always had a taste for the finer things, but preferred not to work. When her husband died, she didn’t take too long over finding another.’
    ‘How’d he die?’
    ‘I’m not sure… I believe it happened in New York. Some kind of robbery, perhaps. It was all over the news channels at the time. “Local man dies in the big city.” That sort of thing. Everyone pointing out how dangerous it was and how it was all so much nicer here.’
    ‘Yeah, that sounds right. Go to the metros and get killed by a stranger. Stay home and get killed by your husband.’
    ‘Yes, well, that’s another attitude I had that has changed since I got involved with the Watch. Crime statistics have an irritating habit of destroying your illusions.’
    Fox grinned. ‘Aww, you’re just looking at them wrong, Mom. I bet if I gave Kit the stats and thirty minutes, she could have you believing this was the safest city on the planet.’
    Kit appeared beside the table with half a dozen charts hanging in the air beside her. ‘Oh, it wouldn’t take me thirty minutes. Statistics are wonderful, so long as you don’t care about little things like facts.’
    Andrea narrowed her eyes at the displays. ‘Didn’t we use several of those in our campaign to get the Watch formed?’
    ‘Yes, Mrs Meridian,’ Kit said brightly, ‘and the conclusions drawn from almost all of them are completely fallacious.’
    ‘Oh… You know, you should really start calling me Andrea, Kit. If you’ve got to the point of insulting my politics just like Tara does, we should be on a first-name basis.’
    3 rd April.
    Fox waited for the afternoon to go out looking for interviewees