Twisted Reason by Diane Fanning Read Free Book Online Page B

loud.
    Sherry, fists clenched tight by her sides, stepped up close to the sobbing woman and glared down at the top of her head. “Stop your sniveling and give me back my locket.”
    The woman shook her head violently and cried all the louder.
    “I know you took it,” Sherry said, flexing her fingers in and out. “Now give it me or else.”
    Don, who never failed to calm her, raced across the dining room and put an arm around Sherry’s shoulders.
    She shrugged it off and glared at him. “She stole my locket. I want it back.”
    “The locket Mr. Henry gave you?”
    “Yes. Yes. That’s the one. You make her give it back.”
    “Listen, Miss Sherry,” Don whispered in her ear. “You forgot to put on your blouse, doll. Let’s go back to your cottage and put one on. Then, we’ll get your locket back, okay? And after that, we have chocolate chip cookies for dessert.”
    “Chocolate chip?”
    “Yes, ma’am. C’mon now, let’s get you dressed for dinner.”
    While she selected a top to wear and buttoned it up, Don searched through the small bed and bath. He found the necklace on the back of the toilet. “Lookee here, Miss Sherry. I found your locket.”
    “You stole it!”
    “Now, Miss Sherry, you know better than that. Your good friend Don would never steal nothin’ from you. Come here, I’ll fasten it round your neck.”
    Sherry turned her back to Don. When he finished, she stepped up to a mirror, smiled at the image of the locket hanging on the bare skin between the two sides of her V-neck. She spun around, still wearing the smile that no longer touched her eyes. “Time for chocolate now?”
    Don offered his elbow, she slid in her hand. He patted it. “Now, Miss Sherry, let’s go have a bite of dinner and a few of those yummy chocolate chip cookies.”
    “With walnuts?”
    “Yes, indeed, Miss Sherry. Wouldn’t make ’em any other way.”
    “I have some walnuts,” she said pulling away and scurrying over to her night stand. She reached in the drawer and grabbed at something inside, thrust her arm at Don and opened her hand. “See!”
    Don looked down at the acorns piled in her palm. “Yes, ma’am, Miss Sherry. But those aren’t the eatin’ kind.”
    Sherry clenched her hand over her treasures and brought it to her chest, covering it with the other hand. “They’re mine.”
    “Yes, ma’am, they sure are. Put them away now and let’s go on to dinner.”

 
     
    Ten
     
    Lucinda read through her report on the computer screen, stopping from time to time to correct a spelling or clarify a statement. She printed it out and looked it over again, checking her notes to be sure she left out nothing of importance. She answered her phone before the first ring ended. “Pierce.”
    “Jumbo Butler here, Lieutenant. I’ve been pulling records and getting more bothered with every few files I read.”
    “What’s bothering you, Butler?”
    “Well, first I went back twelve months. Then, I went back twelve more. And I’m seeing a pattern here. There are more missing elderly in the last year and a half than I remember ever before. I need to dig some older data out of the files to be sure but I think it’s more than just an increase in the ageing population.”
    “Why not? What are you seeing?”
    “Lieutenant, I’ve been working missing persons for more than a dozen years. Most the missing old folks we have turn up wandering around somewhere nearby. Or we get a call on a Silver Alert because somehow some old guy managed to get a bit farther away from home than anyone thought possible. But most of these cases are wrapped up in a day or two – maybe three. Then, about half of the remaining cases, we find their bodies within a week. Usually dead because of an accidental fall or exposure to the elements – but that usually only happens in the dead of winter or in a bad heatwave.
    “The rest, with a few exceptions, show up in an emergency room without ID, or are spotted by someone who knows them. We have