Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker Read Free Book Online Page B

Will's life: his last paper clip, his last Board agenda, his last aspirin. Then I closed it and put it on the bottom of the floor safe and set the treasure box on top.
    I checked the handgun, wiped it with the oilcloth on which it sat, always loaded and always ready, then shut the safe door and spun the lock.
    I walked into the living room and everything looked different. Exactly the same, but totally different. I studied the buffed maple floor, the black sofa and black chair and black ottoman, the magazines neatly in their rack, the chrome reading lamp. I looked at the white walls with the framed posters of race cars, the cheap print of Michaelangelo's "God Creating Adam" and my many framed photographs of Will, Mary Ann, Will, Jr., and Glenn.
    In the kitchen I sat and looked down at the white and black checkerboard tile, the white walls and cupboards and counter and fixtures. The dinette was chrome with white padded chairs and a white vinyl tabletop. Faintly institutional. I'd painted and furnished the place myself. I kept it clean as an operating room. It all seemed so irrelevant now, so absolutely without meaning. At five-thirty that afternoon, a news conference called by Savannah’s father was carried on all four network news broadcasts.
    Her name was Savannah Blazak, she was eleven years old, and she been kidnapped three days ago, Monday afternoon.
    The girl's father was Jack Blazak of Newport Beach. I knew him on sight because he was one of the county's richest and most powerful men. And an acquaintance of Will's. His wife, Lorna, stood at his side during the conference. Along with the Jack Blazaks, FBI special agent Steve Marchant was on hand to answer questions. They had three recent pictures of Savannah, whom her father described as "very intelligent, very sensitive, very imaginative."
    She'd vanished from their home three days ago—sometime Monday morning, Jack said—and he received a ransom demand shortly thereafter. He stuttered briefly, sighed, then admitted that he and his wife had a agreed to pay the ransom demand out of fear for their daughter's life. Part of the demand was that if they went to the authorities, Savannah's would be mailed to them in "an overnight freezer-pack, UPS."
    Blazak's larynx bobbed in his throat as he confessed that "after a three days of living hell," his attempt to ransom his daughter had not been successful." But he had had reason to believe that this evening, Thursday, he could make the payment to Savannah's kidnappers and secure her safe return. When he heard this morning on the news that a girl named Savannah, matching his daughter's description, had fled a murder the night before, he contacted the FBI immediately.
    Blazak begged everyone watching to look out for his daughter. He offered a reward of five hundred thousand dollars for information leading to Savannah's safe return. Absolutely no questions asked.
    Steve took over to explain where and when Savannah was last seen and what she was wearing. He answered questions and gave out a hotline number. He wanted everyone to know that the Bureau was pursuing this with every resource it had, that the safe return of Savannah Blazak was a priority.
    Steve looked eager, a little angry. Jack Blazak looked like he'd been dragged behind a school bus for ten miles. Lorna Blazak looked lovely and fragile and almost absent from the proceedings.
    The next segment was all about Will. "Bloodbath in Anaheim. Orange County Runs Red." News footage of the Lind Street alley, UCI Medical Center, the closed door of his office in the County Building, clips of him in meetings of the Board of Supervisors. They'd gotten a few seconds of us coming down the street toward the home in the Tustin hills, and some footage from behind as we walked toward the front porch.
    Even a picture of me, with "sources within the Sheriff Department confirming" that I'd fatally shot two of the killers while trying to protect my father. One other was reported dead, one