Spitting Image by Patrick LeClerc Read Free Book Online Page B

been in the shower, she’d been...distracted. But I really didn’t want to tell Bob about that.
    “This is good,” he said. “You’re sure this is hers, right?” He didn’t actually accuse me of having squads of strange women who left things at my place, but there was a cold glint in his one good eye.
    “Absolutely.”
    “OK,” he said. “Then I can work with this. And these.” He pulled a few strands of blonde hair from her brush. He wrapped the hairs around the necklace, just where the chain met the pendant. “Hold this in your left hand and think of her. Think of the necklace on her. How it looked. Imagine the metal warmed by her skin.”
    I did as he asked. I thought back to the first time I met her, how I’d noticed the necklace hanging just above the button of her blouse, almost at the shadow between her breasts.
    “Now hand it to me,” he said. “But keep the image of her wearing this in your mind.”
    He held the chain, let the pendant hang. He concentrated for a moment, then opened a road atlas of New England to the big area map at the front of the book. He began to swing the necklace in small, gentle circles, sweeping it across the map. His eye closed as he slowed his breathing, subtly shifting the motion of the pendant as it swayed over the map.
    After a few minutes, his hand seemed drawn back to one area. He swung the necklace over that section again, but from a different angle. After several more passes, he opened his eye, looked at the area to which the necklace appeared to gravitate. He flipped through the atlas, opening it to the smaller scale map of that region and repeated the process.
    I watched in silence, holding the image of Sarah, and of the necklace against the soft, white skin of her throat, as Bob narrowed his search. Eventually, he went to his computer, pulled up a satellite view of the area and zoomed in further, printing out a section and bringing it to the table.
    He repeated his actions with the necklace, zeroing in on a single point.
    He set down the necklace, let out a long breath and shook himself. Then he peered at the map.
    “There’s a cabin here. Isolated. The only access by a single, long gravel drive about a half mile off a paved road. The kind of thing a rich man builds out in the middle of nowhere when he wants to get away from things. Or when he wants to do things away from prying eyes. If I’m right, she’s there.”
    I nodded. That was the kind of place where she could easily be held captive. Far from any help even if she did escape. Out of range of inconvenient eyes and ears.
    There was also plenty of space to hide a body, but I didn’t dwell on that.
    “How sure are you?” I asked.
    “I’ve never done it this way before, but I know what it feels like when I find something, and I stand by this.”
    “It’s our best lead,” I said. “Unless you can think of a way to confirm it.”
    “Not without boots on the ground, as they say.”
    “That’s never very comforting to the guy wearing the boots.”
    He cracked a grim smile. “It’s the part we’re good at. The smart one is a prisoner right now, so let’s not try to be too clever here.”
    “What do you think?”
    “We can park my truck here.” He pointed to a spot where Route 16 followed the Androscoggin River. “They might know your car, but there’s no reason for them to know my vehicle. People park here all the time to launch canoes, so a truck parked there with nobody around won’t look suspicious. Then we work our way through the woods to the cabin and scout it out. If she’s there, we go get her.”
    “Sounds like a plan,” I said.
    “You got that cannon of yours in case they don’t like the idea of us going and getting her?”
    “I brought it in case my natural charm wasn’t enough.”
    “I always wondered why you feel like you need such a large caliber pistol,” he replied. “But now I understand.”

Chapter 8
    I PEERED THROUGH the leaves and studied the two men on the