Lost Girls by George D. Shuman

Author:George D. Shuman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2008-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

15

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Sherry Moore sat with the telephone receiver on her lap. There was an overnight bag kept packed by her front door. She thought about it a long moment before she dialed. She had never asked Brigham to travel with her before, but her friend had seemed listless these last few months. She wondered if he wouldn’t appreciate a diversion, a variation in his routine.

She picked up the receiver after a moment and dialed the number.

“Hello?” he barked.

“Mr. Brigham,” she said merrily. Sherry had always been uncomfortable calling the retired navy admiral by his first name, Garland.

“Sherry,” he said pleasantly.

“I heard from Interpol this morning and was thinking I might ask a favor since you don’t have classes tomorrow.”

“Do tell,” he said. She could hear the sound of a television in the background.

It wasn’t like Brigham to be watching television during the day. It wasn’t like him to be inside the house, for that matter. Even in winter he was constantly tinkering in his yard, burning leaves or playing with his log splitter, hauling cartloads of firewood behind his little tractor.

He’d seemed bored lately. Bored of his university classes. Bored of his Thursday-morning breakfast club or whatever they called themselves. Bored or just in a rut, she thought. Sherry knew how easy it was to smile your way through life without ever letting on you were not well on the inside. She had managed to hide it for the better part of a year when she was coming apart at the seams over the death of John Payne.

“Jamaica,” she said cheerily. “I’ll know in thirty minutes or so.”

“A pleasant island as long as you stay out of the cities. We’ll be sunbathing, I take it? Somewhere by a tiki bar.”

Sherry wondered if her neighbor hadn’t been into his bottle of port this early in the morning.

“Here’s the deal,” Sherry said, wanting to keep it light. “We land in Kingston, take a quick cab to a hospital, I’m in and out of a morgue and we are on the way to Ocho Rio for a night on me.”

“Sounds fabulous, can I think it over?”

Brigham knew, of course, she was going with or without him. “It’s a very worthy cause, Mr. Brigham.”

“I’m thinking,” he said.

“You have thirty minutes and I’m calling a cab.”

“I’m in,” he said abruptly.

“Damned right, you’re in,” she huffed, “and Mr. Brigham?”

“Sherry?” he answered.

“Thank you for always being there.”

Sherry replaced the receiver and sat in silence. She would never wish on anyone what she had gone through last winter—that darkest chapter of her life and a depression so prevalent that it had threatened to kill her. Only Brigham had saved her. Saved her life, for that matter.

She would make it a point to keep an eye on her friend from now on. If he was slipping into a funk and needed some diversion, she intended to be there to do something about it. She intended to save him this time.

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.