All The Hidden Pieces by Jillian Thomadsen

Author:Jillian Thomadsen [Thomadsen, Jillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romantic suspense
Publisher: Jillian Thomadsen
Published: 2018-04-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

January 11, 2010

Monday morning in Vetta Park was bitterly cold, a cloudy blanket settling in the air. Greta looked outside the window and marveled at the continuity from lawn to sky – everything a pale, crystal white. She met John at the front foyer area and then drove with him to St. Louis Investigations. She would have preferred to meet with Colt Bundy unaccompanied, but John’s winter break was long – a stretch of three weeks across December and January to allow for school building renovations.

Colt met them at the elevators. He shook Greta’s hand and then grinned widely when he saw John. “Well, hello John,” Colt said. “Nice to make your acquaintance.”

John smiled shyly and the trio walked down the hallway into Colt’s corner office. Greta and John settled into one of the leather sofas while Colt bent over behind his desk. When he emerged, he was holding a thin novel with a colorful cover. The Kidnapping at Busch Stadium.

“Here you go,” Colt said, offering the book to John. “It’s a book by a local author. When I was your age, I loved mysteries. May be why I got into the business.”

John took the book and leafed through it. Greta could see that there were no pictures to provide contextual support. The print was smaller than usual for him. It was also an exceptionally long novel for him – maybe one hundred pages longer than the longest book he’d ever read by himself.

“You can read that while I talk to your mom,” Colt added.

“Thanks,” John muttered. “The ki…the kin…the kindergarten at Busch Stadium.”

Years of special education hadn’t affected John’s strategy: Say the words he’d memorized with no hesitation, and guess wildly at the words he didn’t know based on the first letter.

“It’s not kindergarten, sweetheart,” Greta said softly. “The word is kidnapping.”

She didn’t want to seem punitive or critical – but she felt he needed correction. The word kidnapping was phonetically realizable if he just took the time to tap out the syllables.

“Oh, this book is probably not meant for his age,” Colt said. “It’s meant for fourth grade and up. What is he, eight, nine years old? I can see if I have something.”

“He’s eleven,” Greta said, and then an uncomfortable silence ensued, in which Colt nodded and looked down at his notepad, John closed the book and silently ran his fingers across the cover page, and Greta sat up straighter in her seat and said nothing.

It wasn’t Colt’s fault; John had a certain look that made his age difficult to pinpoint. For an eleven year old, he had a smaller stature and a skinny build – legs sinewy, arms gawky. He hadn’t yet approached puberty so his voice was still a shade higher than many of his classmates and he didn’t display so much as a shadow of facial hair.

But lately John had also started adopting some of the character traits endemic to adolescence. Activities that had once given him joy now made him sullen. Once chatty, he was now more often laconic and annoyed by the task of answering her questions.

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