Knitting Bones by Monica Ferris Read Free Book Online

somewhere with…someone else?”
    Allie laughed softly. “That won’t happen. But if it did, that would be worlds better than what I’m terrified has happened.”

    A LLIE wasn’t gone ten minutes before Godwin was at the door again. “Well? Well?” he demanded.
    “I said I’d make some calls to find out what the police are thinking,” said Betsy.
    “You’re not going to try to find him?”
    “How on earth can I do that?” she retorted, gesturing at her leg.
    “By asking me to help,” said Godwin, with an air of stating the obvious.
    “Oh, I don’t think—”
    “Then you should, my dear, you should. For who has sat admiringly at your tender toes, absorbing your methods? Moi! All you have to do is tell me where you would have gone, if you could go, and I will go there, ask any questions you would want asked, and bring the answers back to you.” He assumed a “thanks for your applause” pose, arms wide.
    “Oh, Goddy, I don’t know,” she said. Godwin was intelligent, clever, and imaginative—it was this last that made her doubtful.
    “Why not?” he asked. “I’ve already told you something nobody else knows, that Bob Germaine is gay.”
    “Now, hold on,” said Betsy. “We don’t know that.”
    “I’m sure Allie Germaine denied it—”
    “I didn’t ask her,” said Betsy. “She is in far too much distress to be asked a question like that right now.”
    “Oh, but that’s the big question, the question that needs answering, the question that could lead to the solution to this thing!”
    “I did ask her how she would feel if he were found in a hotel room with someone else, and she said that would be worlds better than finding him dead.”
    “Well…yes, I suppose, if that’s the alternative,” said Godwin. “But surely he’d’ve been found by now if he was killed in a car crash or something.”
    “I don’t know. Every so often there’s a news story about someone who ran off the road and no one saw the wreck for days, even weeks. That’s what she’s thinking happened, and she’s upset that the police are searching for a thief when they should be looking for an accident victim. She says he sometimes goes for a long drive after giving a speech, to cool off, settle his nerves.”
    “Or,” said Godwin, “maybe he went out partying to celebrate.”
    “With the check in his pocket? That sounds kind of irresponsible.”
    “Maybe he left the check in his car, in a good hiding place. Maybe the car got stolen—it was a new Lexus, after all—and he’s too ashamed to admit where he was. And it didn’t get cashed because the thief didn’t find it.” He beamed at her. “See? I’m thinking like a detective already!”
    Betsy nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, you are. Well, let me make my phone calls first, then we’ll talk about you going out to sleuth.”

Six
    B ETSY was in her small kitchen, moving awkwardly on her crutches—the old-fashioned kind that offer support under the arms—while she got out the crackers, then stirred the pan of soup heating on her stove. She couldn’t think how she would transfer the soup to a bowl and the bowl to the table, and so proposed to eat it out of the pan.
    Sophie had already learned that for the time being (though she didn’t know there was to be a limit on it) she was allowed on the counter, because Betsy couldn’t put the animal’s bowl on the floor and so fed her up there.
    Then the doorbell rang. With an aggravated growl, she swung around clumsily to head for the intercom near her front door. The bell had rung again before she got there.
    Holding down the intercom button, “Yes?” she said in her crispest voice, a warning to someone with something to sell.
    “It’s me, I’ve got news!” Godwin, sounding cheerful.
    Her physical therapist had been here earlier and had her doing more leg lifts than she ever thought she could. Her leg still ached, and she was in no mood for chirpy conversation. But Godwin said he had news, and if he