Read Online The Laura Cardinal Novels by J. Carson Black - Free Book Online

haven’t noticed, I’m a big kid.” Confident smile.
    “All the days she’s walked home from school, nobody, nothing stuck out in your mind?”
    “I don’t notice who comes and goes. They’re just kids.”
    He seemed increasingly uncomfortable. It occurred to her that he could be hiding an interest in young girls.
    Something not right about him. She remembered what Buddy Holland had said, that CRZYGRL12 could be an e-mail address or a chat room name. She lowered her voice, her inflection friendly: You and me in his together. “You said you have a computer. Do you know anyone with the e-mail address CRZYGRL12?”
    He blinked. “What?”
    “CRZYGRL12? Maybe Jessica’s e-mail? You wouldn’t know if she had a computer, would you?”
    “Why would I know that?”
    Angry. Offense was the best defense .
    Without conscious thought, Laura shifted her weight to her back leg. Aware of the gun under her jacket. She made her voice even quieter, non-threatening. “Sir, could you tell me about your conviction?”
    His eyes turned hard. “You can call my probation officer.”
    She waited.
    “Criminal damage,” he said, his voice as hard as his eyes. “I broke into my ex-wife’s house and tore up her clothes.”
    “Her underpants,” Laura said, sounding as if it was something that happened every day.
    “Right. Her underpants. Satisfied?” Anger radiated from him, making him seem bigger.
    She stepped back, hand near her hip. “Sir—“
    Suddenly he crossed the space between them, so quick she had to back up another couple of steps. His chin thrust out like a drill sergeant. “I said , are you satisfied?”
    “Yes,” she said. Keeping the calm in her voice, though she was anything but.
    He glared at her, his eyes like twin blue flames.
    “Good.” With a jerk of the head for emphasis, he walked into his house and slammed the door.

    Laura stood there for almost a minute, shame and anger riding a river of adrenaline. She had reacted in an acceptable way—stepping back to allow space between them so that she had room to draw her weapon—but couldn’t help feeling she’d looked weak. Would Victor have retreated like that?
    Lehman got a big charge out of intimidating her—in his mind, he had won. She looked back at the Lehman house. One of the blinds moved in the front window. He was watching her. She straightened her back, trying to ignore him. She’d planned to do something. What was it?
    The houses at the hairpin. That was it. Someone there might have seen something.
    She started up the road, careful to stay to the asphalt, scanning the ground on either side. She doubted she’d find anything; the general consensus was that Jessica had been picked up coming home from school, which would mean she didn’t get this far. But Laura looked at the ground anyway, trying to concentrate. Trying not to think of Lehman staring at her back. A hundred yards up, she noted a clearing on the left side of the road, and another turnout on the corresponding side. Several cars had turned around there.
    A dog barked at her from behind the redwood fence of the first house. She knocked and got no answer, stuck her card in the door with a request that the homeowner contact her when they got home.
    The second house was set back from the road, a faded green cinder block. The drapes were closed. A swamp box cooler rattled like a cement mixer. She thought she heard a TV set going, but no one answered her knock. Many people these days didn’t answer their doors—a safety issue. She left another card.
    On the way back to the car, Laura stopped at the turnout and examined the tire tracks. Many of them overlapped. One set of tread marks in particular caught her attention. A heavy vehicle, judging from the way the tracks sank into the ground. She could see corresponding tread marks on the other side of the road; he’d had to back and fill.
    The mud had dried, hardening into bas-relief. They’d make excellent plaster casts.
    She squatted