Thread of Innocence (Joe Tyler Mystery #4) by Jeff Shelby Read Free Book Online

myself leaving Elizabeth or Lauren anytime soon, but I didn't want to shut the door, either. I wasn't sure any longer what I was qualified to do. The only thing I'd done for a decade was locate missing people. At some point, I was going to have start my life again and that would mean going to work. I didn't know what else I'd do, but I also didn't know if I'd be any good at looking anymore. My motivation was back in her bedroom.
    I worked my way through the emails and when I was about to close up, another popped up with “Congratulations” in the subject line. The email address wasn't one I recognized, a Yahoo exchange from J. Smith. I clicked on it.
    “Congratulations. You found her. Hope you don't lose her again. Be careful.”
    I read it at least six times, my heart beating faster with each reading. There was no signature and I knew the email address it had been sent from was phony, probably masked several times over so it couldn't be traced back to the sender.
    I touched the screen and ran my finger over the words. Probably someone messing with me. Someone who'd never met me, read that she was home and decided to mess with me. It happened. Families with missing kids were often tormented with bullshit emails and phone calls from people who were just looking to get under their skin, who got off on fucking with people. Someone had read that Elizabeth was found and decided to mess with me a little bit, probably some jackass in a basement with no life.
    Probably.
    I stared at it for another moment, then closed the computer. I didn't delete the email. I thought about it, then decided against it. I wasn't going to let it keep me up at night, but I wasn't going to forget about it either.
    Just in case it was something else.
    Lauren came home from her office around six. She'd gone back to spending part of the day at work, as long as she knew I'd be with Elizabeth. I was pretty sure she wasn't doing much more than clearing her schedule for the next few weeks so she could be at home, too, but she seemed to need the time out of the house.
    She went up and sat with Elizabeth for awhile after she'd changed clothes and I could hear their voices, but wasn't sure what they were saying. That was okay. Lauren needed her time with her, too, time that didn't involve me.
    While she was upstairs, I threw together a large salad, mixing together lettuce, turkey, tomatoes, blue cheese crumbles and croutons. I tossed it all in a big bowl with a blue cheese dressing and warmed up half a loaf of french bread. I was pulling it out of the oven when Lauren came downstairs.
    “ How is she?” I asked.
    “ Pretty good,” she said. “But not hungry. Said she'd come down for something later.”
    “ We can eat,” I said. “I made a salad to go with the bread.”
    “ I smelled the bread upstairs,” she said. “Probably why I came down.”
    I set the bowl on the table and grabbed two plates out of the cabinet above the stove. I sliced the bread and set that on another plate. I put it and the butter on the table.
    “You still know where everything is,” Lauren said.
    “ Didn't think you reorganized the kitchen,” I said, grabbing forks and knives for each of us, then finally sitting down across from her.
    “ I got in the habit of eating out,” she said. She looked at the salad but didn't put any on her plate. “You were always the cook.”
    I nodded. “I've had enough fast food to last me a lifetime, living out of hotels.”
    She grabbed a piece of the bread, buttered it and tore half it off and put it in her mouth. “I did miss these meals.”
    “ Are you having salad?”
    She shook her head. “No.”
    “Why not?” We might have been separated for almost a decade, but I knew my ex-wife. And she loved salad.
    Lauren made a face. “The turkey. I just...I can't eat it right now.”
    The pregnancy.
    “ Shit. Sorry. You want me to throw something else together?”
    She shook her head. “No, I'm fine. Not super hungry anyway.”
    I