Bannon Brothers Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rawling get emotional about anything. But she was now. In an attempt to cover it, she moved away from her computer and started fussing with the files on her end of the table. Busywork. His trick. It was useful. He turned in his chair to pull together the Montgomery folders.
    An hour went by before he glanced her way. Doris had cut a substantial pile of material down to size and seemed like her old self again.
    Deciding it was safest to stick to business, Bannon asked, “Is that FBI profiler report over there?”
    â€œNo, it’s somewhere by you,” she said crisply.
    RJ finally found it and flipped through grainy, photocopied photos of convicted criminals and psychological profiles, then skimmed the stapled pages of the profiler’s assessment.
    â€œNothing definitive in here. Could have been a man, could have been a woman,” he muttered, frowning. “From here, from away. Maybe middle-aged. Maybe not.”
    Doris pushed her half-glasses back up her nose to look at him. “The profiler didn’t have much to go on except for the sightings. People were calling in for months, coming in to give reports.” She indicated the file those reports were in and RJ located it. “I haven’t read them myself.”
    More out of idle curiosity than anything else, Bannon picked up the file and skimmed its contents, interested only in the high points. As expected, there was nothing of any real value there. He leafed through it again, checking dates, then closed the folder and gave it a toss onto the table.
    â€œI can see why this is headed into cold case storage,” Bannon declared, then paused long enough to check the dates in another file. “It’s been nearly eighteen years since there’s been anything that remotely resembles a lead to follow.”
    â€œOf course there hasn’t been a lead,” Doris shot back. “Nobody’s looked at any of this in years. So how could there be any new information? It’s been forgotten . . . and that isn’t right,” she ended with a telltale tremor in her voice.
    â€œAnd it would take a new lead to keep this case active,” Bannon admitted, thinking out loud. On the heels of his comment came a possibility that had the corners of his mouth lifting. “I think I know how to accomplish that.”
    Doris turned to him, suddenly hopeful. “Are you going to investigate it, RJ? On your own?”
    The question was met with a short, negative movement of his head. “There’s a slim-to-none chance that I could turn up something solid enough to warrant reopening this case. Actually, I had someone else in mind.”
    Totally puzzled, Doris frowned. “Who?”
    â€œThe bane of all law enforcement,” he said with a smile. “The media, of course.”
    Understanding dawned in her expression. “That blond television reporter you dated for a while. What was her name?” She snapped her fingers, trying to recall it.
    â€œKelly Johns,” Bannon filled in the blank for her. “And I didn’t go out with her all that long. By the third date, I could tell that she was looking at me as a ‘confidential source’ in the police department.”
    Doris sniffed disapproval. “My mother always said not to trust anyone with two first names.”
    Bannon let that little pearl of wisdom pass without comment. “Kelly just happens to be ambitious as well as intelligent.”
    â€œNot to mention gorgeous,” she inserted, a little cattily.
    Bannon just smiled. “She is easy on the eyes.”
    â€œWhat makes you think you could talk her into looking into this?”
    â€œSimple. The anniversary date of Ann’s abduction is coming up. It should make an interesting feature—missing child of local Virginia aristocrat, two-million-dollar reward. Old or not, that’s the kind of stuff the media feasts on.”
    From her expression, it was obvious Doris conceded