FBI Profiler 06 - Say Goodbye

Author:Lisa Gardner [Gardner, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Suspense, General, Mystery Fiction, Georgia, United States - Officials and Employees, Missing Persons
ISBN: 9780553588095
Google: QIzoOpnUoVUC
Amazon: 0553588095
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2008-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

“When food is short and spiderlings are hungry, they may even eat each other.”

FROM Spiders and Their Kin,

BY HERBERT W. AND LORNA R. LEVI, A GOLDEN GUIDE FROM ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, 2002

THE BOY WAS BACK. HE RETURNED ONE BRIGHT AFTERNOON, obediently knocking on her back door, so she put him to work splitting firewood. He labored for over an hour, long enough to shed his shirt, revealing his scrawny chest, painfully bony ribs. Afterward, she made him a cheese omelet, with four thick pieces of toast and two glasses of milk. He ate it all, sopping his toast along the plate to get the last of the omelet grease, then licking each finger.

They moved on to inside chores. She showed him how to jam kindling into the window frames as extra security. Then sent him to the basement for her box of Christmas ornaments. He returned with the box in both arms and a fat brown house spider on his shoulder. When she tried to swish the spider off him, he got offended and insisted on sitting in her kitchen, playing with the thing as if it were a pet.

“Spiders won’t hurt you,” he told her. “Spiders kill insects, not people. ’Sides, spiders are really cool. Have you ever tasted a spiderweb?”

She left him with his pet and tied Christmas bells around the handles of her front and back doors, the poor woman’s home security system. She had a few final chores to do, but first, she needed to run two errands.

“Well, child, are you coming or not?”

He scrambled to his feet. “Where are we going?”

“Hardware store.”

She struggled into her coat, her hat, her gloves. The boy only had on a thin shirt, so she sent him upstairs to Joseph’s room. He returned with a flannel top that fell almost to his ankles. She dug through the entryway closet until she found one of her mother’s old navy blue coats. That fit him better than her brother’s gear.

They hit the driveway, the boy stopping expectantly next to the garage.

“Don’t be foolish, child. God gave us legs for a reason.”

“God gave us cars for a reason, too,” the boy retorted, which made her cackle in surprise.

“Sold the car nearly ten years ago,” she informed him. “At my age, I have a hard enough time walkin’ a straight line, let alone drivin’ one.”

She headed down the hill, the boy falling in step beside her. She was too slow for him, so after a bit, he scampered forward and to the side, advancing, then retreating, in that puppylike way young boys had. He kicked at slush piles, jumped into puddles. Coated his borrowed clothes in muck.

It didn’t bother her. A fine young boy like him should be playing and jumping and getting covered in muck.

He should not, however, be spending his time with an old woman.

It took her nearly an hour before she arrived at the local hardware store. The boy walked in with her, but once inside, she lost track of him, having to concentrate.

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