Beyond Suspicion Read Online Free PDF Page A

soccer player on the sidelines held up a camera and shouted to his teammate. “I got the whole thing!”
    Shelby remembered her soccer days and how much fun life had been. She pulled out her cell phone. Calls to both her friends went straight to voice mail. She texted them the same message: I apologized. Still no. He’ll be sorry. She put the phone in her pocket.
    Bang! Pop-pop! Bang!
    Shelby jumped. Josh howled at the top of his lungs. Everyone in the park froze or hit the ground. Someone yelled and pointed to the parking lot. Shelby stood and moved with the small crowd. Someone had set off a small string of fireworks. The show was over. Everyone relaxed, a few of them laughed. A jogger in a tank top and wide-legged shorts jogged in place next to Shelby.
    â€œSome people.” She shook her head side to side.
    â€œJust a bunch of idiots,” Shelby agreed. Now she’d never get Josh calmed down. But amazingly he wasn’t crying anymore. The jogger continued on up the hill toward the parking lot while she went back to Josh.
    Shelby leaned over the stroller. It was empty. Even Brownie Bear and his blanket were gone. She stood up and frantically, heart racing, scanned the park. No one had a baby. She swept her gaze up and down the park again, then over to the parking lot. A white van was pulling out into the street. Her wide eyes watched it drive slowly past the baseball team and the soccer players before disappearing behind a row of live oaks. As Shelby screamed for help it registered in her terrified mind that she might never see Josh again.

Four
    Shelby had never been so scared in all her life. Even sitting in an interrogation room at the police station, the fear just wouldn’t go away. If she could do the whole thing over again she would never have gotten off that bench. Josh would be safe at home and she’d never complain about babysitting him again. The police had kept at her. Over and over they asked her the same questions. When she told them about the white van they wrote everything down, but acted like it wasn’t important. Across the table, Detective Grimes, whose bulbous pug nose, jowls, and serious paunch reminded her of a bulldog, kept fiddling with his notepad. At least he had stopped questioning her. Shelby removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Why wasn’t her mom here yet? Was she so mad at her for losing Josh, she didn’t want to see her? She lifted her head. “Can I please see my mother? She must be sick with worry.”
    â€œLater.” His eyes never left his notepad.
    Shelby tucked her hair behind her ears then slid her glasses back into place. She had no idea what time it was or what they were waiting for. “Where is she?”
    â€œBusy.”
    Shelby gripped her fists to control the bitter words she wanted to fling at him. How could he just sit there? She wanted to be out there searching for Josh. All this was taking forever. Shelby’s sigh was so loud that Grimes cut his eyes at her.
    The room had no windows and the lights made the gray metal table glare. It was cold. The air conditioner wouldn’t stop blowing. Both of them had rolled up their shirtsleeves and loosened their ties. Detective Grimes stayed with her but the other one, Rutherford, had left after getting upset. When she first saw him in the hall outside his office, Shelby thought the attractive, muscular man with the short brown hair was kind-looking. Then he began questioning her and seemed to turn into an ugly and menacing troll right before her eyes. Neither of them had been nice to her, but Rutherford had been horrible. Every time she said something, he would twist his mouth in disbelief, or roll his eyes, and lean back acting disgusted.
    â€œHonest, Detective Rutherford, it happened just that way.”
    â€œRight,” he would answer and sigh heavily. The last time he didn’t like her answer he had shoved his chair back so fast it fell over and he left it on