Close Enough to Kill Read Online Free PDF

herself out of her teenage-crush memories, Bernie punched line one as she picked up the phone. “Hello, Ed.”
    “Bernie, I don’t suppose you have anything new to report on Stephanie, do you?”
    “I’m sorry, but no, I don’t.”
    “God, things are bad at my house. My wife’s doing what she can to keep her sister calm. Judy keeps telling Emmy not to give up hope, but we’re all half out of our minds worrying about Stephanie. She’s been missing for two weeks, and between your people and mine, we’ve scoured most of Jackson and Adams counties.”
    “Ed, are you sure there’s no possibility that her husband killed her?” Bernie wasn’t usually so blunt with a family member, but Ed wasn’t just Stephanie Preston’s uncle-by-marriage, he was the sheriff of nearby Jackson County. He knew how often in a missing person’s case it turned out that the spouse had murdered their unaccounted-for mate.
    “God, no. Kyle’s a basket case. The doctor has put him on medication and we’re making sure someone is with him twenty-four/seven. If Stephanie is dead, that boy’s liable to kill himself.” Ed paused for a minute. Checking his emotions , Bernie thought. “You know they’ve only been married for five months. He proposed this past Christmas and they had a Valentine’s Day wedding.”
    “I wish I could do more. Just tell me if there’s anything, absolutely anything, you want me to do.”
    “I don’t understand how she could have disappeared the way she did, without a trace. The last anybody saw of her, she was heading toward her car after her class that night. But y’all found her car, stilled locked, parked at Adams County Junior College.”
    “We’ve gone over the car with a fine-tooth comb,” Bernie said. “There was no evidence of foul play. No blood. No semen. Nothing to indicate a struggle. It’s as if she headed toward her car and never made it there. Either she decided to go back inside the building or somebody came along and nabbed her. Or she got in her car and back out again for some reason.”
    “If she got in the car with somebody, then why didn’t a single solitary soul see it happen? There were other students going to their cars that night. Why didn’t any of them see something?”
    “Stephanie’s car was not near one of the security lights and it was going on ten when she was last seen. In the darkness—”
    “Has that new hotshot detective from Memphis shown up?” Ed asked abruptly.
    “He’s here now.”
    “Are you turning Stephanie’s case over to him?”
    “He’s my new chief investigator, so technically that puts him in charge, but I plan to stay involved, to keep close tabs on the case.”
    “We aren’t going to find her alive,” Ed said. “And you and I both know it.”
    “I’m afraid you’re probably right,” Bernie agreed. But what if they never found Stephanie—dead or alive? Her family would continue to suffer for weeks, months, even years, always hoping beyond hope that out there somewhere she might still be alive. The odds of that were slim to none.
    “I don’t suppose there’s much point in manning another search, is there?”
    “I don’t think so. If I thought it would do any good, we’d do it, but . . .”
    “If anything turns up, you’ll let me know immediately.”
    “Yeah, if it does, you’ll be the first person I contact.”
    “Thanks, Bernie. And say hello to your dad.”
    “Sure will.”
    The dial tone hummed in her ear. Bernie placed the receiver down on the telephone base and stared off into space for several minutes. The most difficult part of her job was dealing with her very feminine emotions. Just because she’d been elected sheriff didn’t mean she could simply turn off her nurturing, maternal, caretaker-to-the-world instincts. Yes, she was as smart as any man, as good a shot as any deputy on the force, knew the law better than most, and worked diligently to be half as good a sheriff as her dad had been. And although she’d