Read Online Unspoken by Dee Henderson - Free Book Online

kid’s hockey team wearing Falcon jerseys.”
    “I’ll let you and Vicky set it up. Tell Margaret to put it on my calendar.”
    “What did Bryce have to say last night?”
    Paul hesitated.
    “What?”
    “What do you think of Bryce Bishop and Charlotte Graham?”
    Ann sat up, startled. “No way.”
    “I’m just reading the tea leaves, but I tell you, she has his head turning.”
    Ann picked up a pillow and covered her mouth, laughed, lowered the pillow enough to ask, “How much, one to ten?”
    “Sevenish. He’s intrigued. He doesn’t know what to do about that, but it’s got him thinking.”
    “She’s a very nice woman, Paul. Top-ten-caliber nice. Wow. The idea of it is enough to set your head spinning. It’s not going to happen, not in a thousand Sundays, but the idea of it . . . they would make very good friends.”
    “It’s going to be interesting to see that develop.”
    “She won’t tell him. I mean she will, but not directly. The security is too drummed into her thinking by now. But she’ll give him the road map if he wants to pick it up.”
    “He’s the one kind of guy I think about with Charlotte Graham and think . . . yeah. He’s another John Key in his own way.”
    “Oh, you bring interesting news tonight, Paul. I’m sorry I wasn’t around to hear it in person.”
    “Right now it’s just her selling Bryce some very nice coins. We’ll see if it goes further. I’m wondering if you want to go out to the Dance and Covey Gallery this weekend, see what new pieces she’s drawn recently.”
    “I’d love that. I wish she’d sell Lava Flows . When you realize it’s just colored pencils, you wonder what God was thinking when he handed her that gift. She’s good with simple mediums.”
    “She’s stayed with pen and pencils, and that may be part ofthe gift. She had the wisdom to learn her tools and stay within them even as the art progressed.”
    “Bryce and Charlotte . . . Give me a few days for that to settle in.”
    “If you hear anything on your grapevine, share the news.”
    “I will.”
    He nudged the folder she had been reading to shift the subject. “Your story or the case?”
    Ann got more comfortable on the couch, crossing into his space. “Baby Connor. Got a minute for an idea?”
    “Sure.”
    “From the summary report, the child was found buried near the walk path in the park. The boy was wearing a clean diaper and clean night sleeper. He was wrapped in the light-blue blanket that had been with him when he was abducted. The blanket was over his face, held closed with a small butterfly pin—the size of something you might wear on a lapel. The pin was not something the Hewitt family had seen before. The autopsy showed the child was a victim of ‘shaken baby syndrome,’ had died approximately three days after he was taken.” Her years on the force couldn’t keep out a slight tremor in her voice as she finished. Ann lowered the page. “I’m back to sorting out the clues about who we are looking for. Shake a baby to death suggests a guy not accustomed to being around a crying infant.”
    “Agreed.”
    “Someone bought diapers, baby clothes. Someone had a butterfly pin—the kind of thing a woman, or more likely a young girl, would have around. It was something lying around the house that was picked up and used after the baby died. Cops should have been looking for a home with other children in it, but I’m going to guess they didn’t realize that early in the investigation.”
    “A useful observation.”
    Ann sorted through the photos and offered two. “The clothingis new. So there wasn’t a very young child in the house with a sleeper already around that could be used. I would have guessed the clothing would be bought before the crime, but notice the sleeper is the right size for Connor. That’s either a lucky guess or someone was comfortable going out clothes shopping after the child was taken. The diaper’s correctly put on the child, the sleeper,