Micanopy in Shadow by Ann Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

for Cassadaga.”
    Brad was stirring in his crib, trying to pull himself up and climb out. John slipped a digital camera in his briefcase and left. He planned to photograph another Victorian house in Ocala. Brandy set the little boy in his high chair, fed him a breakfast of egg and cereal, and carried him into the bedroom. She sat him down with a large wooden puzzle while she showered, leaving the door open wide enough to glance out and see him. At the bathroom mirror she blow-dried her coppery hair. Should she look for a hair salon? Hope probably had her own silvery mane chopped off at a barbershop. For Hope, a stylist was out of the question.
    No woman is ever satisfied with her own appearance, and Brandy was no exception. Although her face had her grandmother’s bone structure, it didn’t have a classic oval shape. Once she had an assignment in Holland, Michigan. When she gazed at the round-faced, blue-eyed pedestrians, she knew these were her people, although most were blondes. She turned sideways, surveyed the curve of her stomach, and sighed. Still slim, but better watch the calories. After her critical appraisal, she led Brad back into the kitchen to let him help stack silverware in the dish drainer.
    North Central Florida’s crisp fall weather had not yet arrived. The air still felt moist and oppressive, but Brandy bundled the little boy into his jacket and overalls and carried him downstairs. It was only 8:30, time for a walk together. He held tightly to Brandy’s hand, stopped to admire the scarlet blossoms of the hibiscus and stooped to study a low-growing bed of golden Wedelia edging the sidewalk. Across the street an elderly man came out of the drug store. He paused and stared at her, although he didn’t look familiar. But everyone in town knew Hope. He probably also knew Brandy was the granddaughter.
    “Pretty,” Brad said, patting one of the flowers. Brandy bent down to listen to him and thought no more about the man watching her.
    Promptly at 9:30 Kyra rang the doorbell. A slim black girl in jeans and a Florida State tee shirt, her hair in cornrows, waited behind her. Kyra introduced her classmate as Sheshauna Hall, a native of Micanopy. Brandy saw the shyness in her chocolate-colored eyes.
    She held out her hand. “Glad to meet you here,” she said.
    Sheshauna nodded, eyes grave. While Kyra settled down on the living room floor with Brad, the other girl perched on the couch, clutching her copy of Statistics for Social Work . She eyed Brandy with frank curiosity, but remained silent. Perhaps Kyra had told her friend about Brandy’s quest.
    It was time for her interview with Shot Hunter. A few minutes later Brandy drove her Prius slowly down a narrow road in the northwest corner of town, peering at mailbox numbers. Cottages here were widely spaced and set between tracts of undeveloped woodland. At 10:00 she pulled up before a small, white frame bungalow with a hip roof. “C.K. Hunter” was the name on the mailbox. A brick walkway and two steps led to a plain front door flanked by a low viburnum hedge. Narrow green shutters trimmed both front windows. As Brandy stepped out of her car, she noticed a small silver car parked beside a vacant lot in the next block. She saw no one on the property. For a moment she was curious. Then Hunter’s door opened and the retired Sheriff’s Office captain stood in the doorway.
    “O’Bannon?” He moved aside. “Come on in. I have a few minutes.”
    Hunter looked about sixty-one or two and stood a compact 5’8”. As Brandy held out her hand, she took in the salt and pepper hair—thinning only a little—the tanned, deeply lined face and the creases around light-colored eyes. Hunter’s gaze was sharp, but his face closed. Above a wide jaw and cheekbones, his forehead narrowed to a hairline that shaded from brown to gray. He wore a tidy, open-necked polo shirt and pressed jeans. Brandy would have spotted him on the street as law enforcement.
    A blue couch,