Hocus: an Irene Kelly mystery by Jan Burke

Author:Jan Burke
Format: mobi
Tags: Detective, Mystery & Detective - General, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Detective and mystery stories, Crime & mystery, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Irene (Fictitious character), Fiction - Mystery, Fiction, Mystery fiction, Suspense, Women Sleuths, Women journalists, Kelly, California, Irene (Fictitious chara, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Crime & Thriller
ISBN: 9780684803449
Publisher: New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, c1997.
Published: 2010-04-07T05:00:00+00:00

"I don't know. Maybe not until this is over."

"Kelly--"

"Gotta go, John. Bye."

Cassidy didn't try to talk to me when I got back to the car. I appreciated it. As we made our way to Bea's house, I wondered if she'd like to slam the door in my face, too.

I tried to remember what orange blossoms smelled like.

I was wrong about Bea. She was fussing over me from the moment I walked in the door. "I hope that reporter parked out front didn't bother you," she said, putting an arm around my shoulders as if I were not of the same genus and species as the fellow from the Californian.

"No," I said, "he didn't make it out of his car in time to question us."

"Mike and Cassie went home," she said. "They've got two little ones," she explained to Cassidy. "I invited Greg to stay for supper."

I watched Cassidy, who had warned me, just before we got out of the car, to follow his lead where Greg Bradshaw was concerned. Cassidy had his hands full of cases from the trunk of the car, but he nodded toward the Bear.

"Glad we'll have a chance to get to know one another better," he said.

Bradshaw smiled. "Yes, me too. Need help with those cases?"

"Oh, I'll manage, thanks. Mind if I set up camp in that back room, Mrs. Harriman?"

"Not at all--Oh, that reminds me. Irene, Rachel called. She's bringing some overnight things up here for you. I told her to plan on staying over, but I think she wants to get back home to Pete."

"I can understand that," I said. "Need any help in the kitchen?"

"Oh, it's just roasted chicken. Won't be ready for about another forty minutes."

She sat down next to Greg again, and he took her hand. I wondered briefly about the gesture, then decided not to read too much into it. She was worried, I knew, and I regretted making her wait so long to hear more about what had happened to her son. I asked her to catch me up on news of her grandchildren. It made better than average small talk.

Cassidy came back into the room and wandered over to the mantel, picked up a photograph. Bea had family photographs everywhere, but the one he held was my favorite. Frank's favorite, too, I remembered. In it Frank stood next to his father, whom he strongly resembled. They were both in uniform. Brian Harriman's arm was around his son's shoulders, his pride evident.

My thoughts wandered for a moment to the missing photographs, the ones that might have included his sister Diana.

"The people who have Frank didn't choose him at random," Cassidy said, gently replacing the father-son photograph, bringing my attention back to Bea and Greg. "He was deliberately targeted."

Cassidy did his best to prepare them for the upcoming press conference, although he provided them with only a little more information than I had given John.

When he first mentioned the Ryan-Neukirk murders, only Greg seemed to recognize the case by name. But the moment he said "two young boys in a warehouse basement," Bea drew a sharp breath.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.