Don't Lose Her Read Online Free PDF

were three doors and no windows. One door led to Diane’s courtroom, one to her private bath, and I’d just walked through the third. The dominant feature in the office was a ten-foot-long oak conference table surrounded by chairs and positioned in the middle of the room.
    This would be where the meetings with case lawyers and prosecutors and trial participants were usually held. I’d seen the table often strewn with opened law books and documents and case files and half-filled coffee cups and the wrappings and residue of late-night dinners.
    Today, there were four men huddled at one end, focused on two laptop computer screens. Newly strung wires ran across the polished surface leading from the computers to the multi-button telephone hub at the center. The device, the size of a small mixing bowl, looked like a kid’s computer game handset, with a digital readout display at its center, several color-coded buttons on one side, and a perforated speaker section, all sitting on a raised, three-legged base. It was the hub of all incoming and outgoing office calls, be they private or conference. The FBI agents had obviously tapped into it and were ready to record and feed all information into their own computer database instantly. No one had to say they were waiting for a ransom call.
    At the far end of the room, Billy sat at Diane’s own broad but far from ornate desk. He looked up when I entered, closed his laptop, and stood. I’d never seen him look so stiff, unemotional, and blank. He was staring at my face as if in assessment. His coffee-colored skin seemed to have lost all lines and texture.
    Always dressed in the finest suits, he’d somehow grabbed a plain, dark jacket and slacks that were eerily appropriate for a funeral. He stepped around the desk stiffly, devoid of the easy and athletic movement with which he usually carried himself. I was forced to judge that he was holding it together by pulling inside and showing nothing, neither personal pain nor anger nor panic.
    The agents at the table glanced up as I stepped past them. One started to greet me, but hesitated as I headed directly for my friend.
    I reached for Billy’s unoffered hand and squeezed it in spite of him and pulled him close to me, touching his shoulder with mine. I didn’t even try to speak. It would have been an insult to a man of his intellect and experience to toss out a comforting statement like the one I’d given Andrews outside.
    â€œThanks for coming, Max,” he said, the tone so flat it made me wince.
    If there had been even the slightest hint of panic in his first phone call to me, it was now forever gone.
    â€œMr. Freeman,” a voice behind me said.
    I turned to see one of the table men, who had waited an appropriate time for Billy and me to greet each other, and had now stepped forward.
    â€œAgent Duncan,” he said, offering his hand.
    I took it.
    â€œMr. Manchester has requested your presence, sir. And it is, we believe, in our interest to have you here.”
    I looked into the freshly shaved face of a senior agent whose words did not match the look in his eyes. I guessed him at near sixty. He’d been red-haired once. Now, the gray was filtering back from his temples, and deep crow’s-feet stamped the corners of his eyes. A familial balding pattern had left his scalp exposed and a veined and red-splotched nose exposed his dependence on too much liquor to salve the grinding visions of ugly human deeds he’d seen over a career.
    â€œI understand that you have some law enforcement experience,” he said. “And will thus be familiar with the jurisdictional parameters under which we work.”
    He was telling me that he was the boss. The FBI was in charge. Don’t get in the fucking way, and don’t even think about doing anything either active or overt.
    But I am nothing if not active and overt when the safety of my friends is at risk. I had been a cop in