Read Online Without Warning by David Rosenfelt - Free Book Online Page B

to be. “It’s not here,” he said. Then he turned more pages and said, “Neither are the next two.”
    “Right.”
    “Did you take them out?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “Then where are they?
    “I was hoping you knew,” I said.
    He looked bewildered. “It’s not possible.”
    “Could you have misnumbered them?”
    He frowned, as if I had suggested something ridiculous. “Jake, it’s the murder book.” Then, “It’ll be in the archives.”
    We called in Joanie Patrick, who was responsible for scanning documents into the computer bank and maintaining the archive. We told her what we wanted, and she sat down at the terminal at my desk. She typed something at warp speed, and within seconds signaled for us to come stand behind her.
    “Okay, now what pages are you looking for?”
    “129 to 131,” I said.
    She scrolled down, and then shook her head. “Not here.”
    “Is there any way to tell who scanned it all in?” Hank asked.
    Joanie looked something up on the document, and then said, “I did.”
    “So what do you think could have happened?” I asked.
    She shrugged. “I just scan what’s in the book, Jake. No reason for me to look at page numbers. It’s not brain surgery.”
    We talked about it, and Joanie mentioned that the computer archive was installed three years prior, which was well after Jenny’s murder. After that, documents were scanned as they were received, but this one would have been part of a backlog of files that were all put in at once.
    “So the pages could have been removed any time in the year between the creation of the book, and the time you scanned them in?”
    She nodded. “That’s right.”
    She left, and Hank and I sat and kicked around the possibilities for a while. He refused to accept the possibility that he made a mistake and was positive that the book had been tampered with. “It wasn’t under lock and key, Jake. The case was closed.”
    “You think you can figure out what is missing?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
    “I’ll try, but I doubt it. It’s four years ago, and it’s three pages out of three hundred.”
    I handed him the book. “Try.”
    He took it from me and nodded. “Yeah. Looking forward to it.”

 
     
    Matt Higgins was the most popular man in town. He couldn’t walk down the street without being approached and talked to by his friends, as well as people he had never recalled speaking to in his life.
    His article had exploded into the town’s consciousness that morning and was already being picked up by national news outlets. But outside of his story, there was nothing more that anyone knew, and no flow of information to tap into.
    So everyone looked to Matt, assuming he was plugged into the situation and had more information than he had so far revealed. While the latter part was true, he was not about to gossip about it, so he good-naturedly deflected all questions.
    “Check the paper tomorrow,” was all he would say, and then laugh when the response to that was decidedly unfavorable.
    After a quick lunch at the diner, during which he was approached at least a dozen times, he went back to the office to work on the story for the following day. Katie was there; she had been spending much more time at work ever since the hurricane struck and saw no reason to stop now.
    “They’re swarming out there,” he said, and she knew exactly what he meant.
    “Nothing like a serial killer to generate conversation.”
    He laughed. “Good thing he’s our serial killer.”
    “You taking this seriously enough, Matt?”
    “Katie, I’ve never taken anything more seriously in my life. Time to go to work.”
    He had more than enough for the next day’s story; he estimated that he’d left enough out of the first piece to leave him with at least three days worth, if he dribbled it out conservatively.
    What really concerned him was the specter of the national media, who likely would soon be on the scene and digging. Matt would need to stay ahead of