Heart of the Night by Barbara Delinsky Read Free Book Online Page B

visit.”
    Setting down her pen, she rose and poured two cups of coffee. After she’d given Will his, she put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I think I’ll wander around for a few minutes. I’ll be back.”
    Heading out of the kitchen, she passed through the large foyer, continued on through the living room, and cautiously opened the library door. Sam Craig was on his knees on the carpet, gently pushing something Savannah couldn’t see into a plastic bag. His partner, Hank Shanski, was carefully dusting the part of the bookshelf that had been disturbed. They wore their jackets to protect them from the cold air blowing from the broken glass door.
    At her appearance, they both looked up. With a smile, Sam asked, “How’s it going?”
    She answered eloquently by raising her eyebrows. Clasping the coffee cup for the warmth it yielded, she looked around. The scene was much as Will had described. Had she not been prepared for the damage, she would have been far more upset. Right now her professionalism overrode any panic she felt within.
    â€œHow about here?” she asked. “Are you finding much?”
    Hank answered first. Of medium build, he was the more easygoing of the two. Totally dedicated to his work, the row of studs in his left ear was his token rebellion. “Lots of prints. Lots of prints. Of course, unless these books have been wiped down real good sometime in the last fifty years, we could be cataloguing prints of several generations of Vandermeers.”
    Savannah would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so frustrating. “That’s swell. We can fingerprint Will for reference and probably get a makeup or perfume bottle with Megan’s prints on it, but the Vandermeers of days past?” Pulling her blazer more tightly around her, she shook her head, then turned to Sam. “Anything over there?”
    Sammy Craig was the true freethinker of the duo. One need not look at the patches in the knees of his jeans or the faded Snoopy that graced the front of his sweatshirt or the dark, wavy hair that fell to his shoulders to guess that. One look in his clear brown eyes and anyone could tell that he was daring. His most invaluable skill as a detective was his imagination. In some respects she felt it was a waste to have him searching for samples for the lab, rather than working in the field, but she trusted Sammy more than any other cop. She wanted him here with Will.
    Sam looked at her and said, “I’ve picked up some bits of dirt—probably from the garden—and a couple of fragmented footprints. Whether they’ll tell us anything, I don’t know.” He sat back on his haunches. “We’re dealing with pros. Whoever did this didn’t make any mistakes. I checked the patio, but there’s nothing—no trampled shrubbery, no broken branches, no discarded gloves. They picked their day well. If there were any tracks over the lawn, the rain has obliterated them.”
    He glanced at the French doors. “I looked real close at those. The break was definitely from the outside, probably made with a large mallet of some sort.” He smirked at Savannah. “Not your croquet variety. Whoever did this brought his own tools, then took them away with him when he was done.”
    Pensive, she nodded. “Have you been through the rest of the house?”
    â€œNot yet. Did Vandermeer find anything disturbed anywhere else?”
    â€œNo.”
    Sam looked around the room. “My guess is that everything took place right here. The kidnappers knew that Megan would come downstairs at some point during the night. There’s no covering on the French doors, so once she put on the light, she was in a goldfish bowl. They broke through the glass, opened the door, grabbed her, dropped the note on the desk, and walked out.” He looked at Savannah with intently curious eyes. “What I can’t figure out is how her