Edgewise by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page B

them clapping and laughing at the marching Santas was a more endurable pain than sitting at home, in her dark and empty house, waiting for phone calls that came less and less frequently.
    She spent Christmas Day with Agnes and Ned and the children. Before lunch they bowed their heads around the table and said a special prayer for Tasha and Sammy and their safe return. Lily had bought Tasha the new Bratz disco doll, and a talking robot for Sammy. She wrapped their presents in gold and silver and left them under the tree, as a way of showing that they were not forgotten, and that she expected them to be home soon.
    She was standing in the kitchen with Agnes, talking and drinking a glass of red wine, when Ned came in and said, “Lily? Couple of gentlemen visitors for you.”
    For a split second she thought:
Not Special Agents Rylance and Kellogg, please. Not with bad news, not on Christmas Day.
But then Bennie Burgenheim appeared, with snow melting on the shoulders of his big red padded windbreaker.
    â€œLil! Happy Christmas!” He came tip-toeing into the kitchen and gave her a kiss. “I brought you a present,” he said. He turned around and held his hand out. In the doorway behind him stood a thin-faced man wearing a long black overcoat and carrying a gray wide-brimmed hat. The man gave Lily a small, tight smile and lifted up his hat by way of acknowledgment. He had dense black eyebrows and black glittery eyes and a narrow, bony nose. His chin was blue, as if he hadn’t shaved since the day before yesterday.
    â€œLily, want you to meet John Shooks. John—this is Lily Blake, whom I was telling you about.”
    â€œBennie,” said Lily, trying not to sound too irritated. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?”
    â€œFor sure. John is the private detective who helped out my brother Myron. I thought since Christmas had come and the FBI still hadn’t found where Tasha and Sammy were taken to, maybe John could have a try.”
    â€œBennie, I know you mean well. But I really believe that the FBI is doing everything that anybody possibly
can
do.”
    â€œI’m sure they are, Lil. But what do you have to lose? You know what it’s like when we’re having a tough time shifting an unattractive property. Sometimes it helps to bring in somebody new, so that they can look at the problem from a fresh point of view.”
    â€œAgreed,” said Lily. “But selling a clunker is a whole lot different from hunting for somebody who’s taken your children. Those FBI agents told me that they have very carefully planned procedures, so that they don’t spook the people they’re looking for.”
    â€œOf course they do, Mrs. Blake,” said John Shooks, “and quite right, too.” He had a dry Minnesota accent like a creaky door, and a slight lisp, so that “course” came out “coursh.” He stepped forward and put down his hat on the kitchen counter. “One of the great difficulties when you’re looking for parental kidnappers is that their victims are often willing accomplices to their own abduction.”
    â€œWhat do you mean? My children wouldn’t have gone with their father willingly.”
    â€œMaybe not to begin with, granted. But you can guarantee that he’s giving them the time of their life. And you can also guarantee that he’s been working on them since day one, undermining their feelings for you. It doesn’t take much.”
    Agnes snapped, “Tasha and Sammy could never stop loving their mother,
ever
, no matter what Jeff might say to them.”
    Shooks raised one eyebrow. “With all due respect, ma’am, young children can be very easily manipulated. They’re young children, after all: they’re
supposed
to be suggestible. That’s how they learn things. And it doesn’t take much in the way of amusement parks and rocky-road ice cream to convince a pre-teen kid