Fear Collector by Gregg Olsen Read Free Book Online Page B

Brie that she had somehow found the time to bake with pecans and brown sugar. It was gooey, salty, sweet, and completely decadent. Something wonderful that she thought would help take their minds off the long day. Shane had finished a weeklong special project for the bureau and wanted just to forget about all the politics that came with the job that he’d once thought was about catching the bad guys and making the world a better, safer place. Grace had office politics to contend with, too, and the crumbled marriage of Paul and Lynnette Bateman had been dissected over and over. There was nothing more to say about it. Besides, she had the concerns of the missing girl on her mind.
    “So you think there might be some liability with the Lancaster girl’s investigation stalling because of Goodman’s accident?” Shane asked as they sat on the deck of their Salmon Beach home and watched the seagulls and boaters pass by.
    “That’s what the mother thinks,” Grace said. “If Lisa’s been abducted and some scuzzball has her and kills her you can bet she’ll file a wrongful death on the department.”
    Shane offered her more wine and she held out her glass.
    “Any leads?” he asked. “That is, any you can tell me about?”
    She smiled and shook her head. It was kind of a game they played. Their lives were about crime, murder, violence, and the cases that consumed them, but they pretended that the information they held couldn’t really be shared—not if it hadn’t already been on the news or disclosed by someone else. Bureau policy carried more weight than the edicts issued by Lynnette Bateman.
    “No,” Grace said. “One minute she was on the phone and the next minute she was gone.”
    He put his hand in hers.
    “I’m sure this, even more than the bones at the beach, dredges up bad memories,” he said.
    She nodded. “Not my memories, but yeah. Bad ones.”
    “You’ll catch the guy,” he said.
    “I hope so. I wouldn’t want Ms. Lancaster to live through all the stuff we have had to endure in our family.”
    He nodded. “No one should have to,” he said.
    Grace took a big sip of her wine. “No one should have to live with a ghost.” She stopped as a kayaker came close enough to hear. She waited until the coast was clear, until it was safe to speak. “The funny thing about ghosts is that they can seem so real. Always there. Hanging over you. Almost taunting you.”
    “You’ll solve this, Grace. And you’ll solve the other one, too.”
    She nodded. Her mind racing back to the memories that were such a part of her. So deep. So entrenched. And yet like a ghost, not really there.
    Her phone vibrated and she looked down.
    “Mom calling. Did I tell you she came to see me today?”
    Shane shook his head. “Take the call. She needs you.”
    Grace wanted to say something about how she needed him right then, but she didn’t. She picked up the phone.
    “Hi, Mom, just talking about you . . .”

    After hanging up the phone, Sissy O’Hare looked out her kitchen window at the same view she’d seen in the O’Hares’ backyard since she and her husband, Conner, bought the house shortly after Tricia was born. The pregnancy had been a difficult one and doctors told her she should not have any more children. The house was for Tricia, a place to spoil an only child. A swing. A kiddie pool. A patio for riding her tricycle. Sissy held those memories and turned on the water. Steam rose and she squirted dish soap into the water. The pear tree on the far side of the yard was no longer producing decent fruit, but it was too pretty during its spring bloom to cut down. She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering. Tricia had begged to be pushed skyward there, higher and higher. Grace, too. The branch where Conner had strung a swing had broken off in a storm and a massive burl had formed, a gnarled hump of healed wood. As she looked out that window, she wondered about the bones that were being pored over by the scientists in