Shattered by Jay Bonansinga Read Free Book Online

was drumming his silverware on his plate, while Rachel and Mary sat like good little girls with their hands folded for grace, and Ethan scratched invisible pictures on his highchair tray. Helen took her seat, and Henry tried to concentrate on the dinner prayer. “Thank you, Father, for these Thy gifts which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, amen.”
    Everybody parroted his amen, and then the bowls were passed, and meat was sliced, and food was spooned onto plates, and Henry tried to act nonchalant, smiling at his little girls, winking at his wife, grinning at his sons, while somewhere way back in the beehive of his psyche, he was plotting, scheming, trying to figure out what to do about this annoying, nosy agent from the FBI, this handsome black pest.
    By the time dessert was served—Henry’s favorite: sponge cake with Hershey’s chocolate sauce—he knew exactly what he was going to do about Grove.
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    That night, Grove took the red-eye back to Virginia. It was a blustery spring evening across the Eastern seaboard, and the flight was delayed for a little over an hour due to lightning storms over the Smoky Mountains.
    Grove took advantage of the downtime on the tarmac at St. Louis International to text-message the Ripper task force. He told the key people back at Quantico about the breakthrough with the eye surgeon, and he lit a fire under the lab people to put a priority rush on the DNA samples from the Adams County scene. This was the final act before apprehension. Grove could sense it like the whiff of sulfur before a match head ignites: He was going to catch this son of a bitch. Very soon.
    Hopefully before the bastard had a chance to kill again.
    Grove’s plane finally got airborne around 7:30, and hammered up through the turbulent atmosphere with Grove holding on to his armrests and loose file folders for dear life. He had grown so accustomed to flying that he rarely even buckled his seat belt, but tonight was different.
    Tonight he buzzed with nervous tension, and was hyperaware of the flickering slipstream of icy rain outside the hermetically sealed fuselage. He tightened his belt and loosened the collar of his crisp blue oxford-cloth shirt. He still wore his Armani jacket with the orchid silk hankie tucked into the breast pocket, and the sterling cuff links fastened tight. He still looked neat, and orderly, and professional—like a successful black attorney or a renowned African American captain of industry—all of which helped him think and stay organized.
    In fact, for most of that short, bumpy flight back to Reagan International, he made lists in his notebook, in his tight, obsessive ballpoint scrawl: people to brief on the latest developments in the Ripper case, calls to make the next day, tactical assignments to make once the Ripper was identified. The two-hour journey passed in a flash, and before Grove even realized it, the plane was on its descent into Reagan.
    The airliner landed in a flurry of noise and flashing silver light.
    Ten minutes later, Grove was inside the terminal.
    â€œI’m also going to need you to run a check of all the major medical schools in the Mississippi River Valley region,” he barked into his cell phone as he strode through the glass tunnels of Reagan International Airport. He had his raincoat slung over his shoulder now. He had only been on the ground for a few minutes but already had a team of four people on a conference call. On the line were a couple of data specialists at Quantico, Agent Menner in St. Louis, and Dr. Wendal Booth, the head of the School of Ophthalmic Surgery at Iowa City Medical Center.
    â€œMay I ask what you’re looking for?” Doctor Booth’s tobacco-cured voice broke in.
    Grove told him he was looking for anything out of the ordinary, any record of failed ophthalmology students, dropouts, disciplinary problems.
    â€œThat’s a wide net,” the doctor said with a