Doubleback: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

people decline to talk to the press, it’s because they’ve done something either so shocking or so stupid they’re afraid it will be revealed.

chapter 5
    S ometimes there really is a happy ending, Georgia thought as she drove back from the gym Thursday morning. When she heard the news about Molly Messenger on the radio, she felt relief, elation, then a deep sense of satisfaction. She hadn’t especially liked Christine Messenger. There was a remote quality about her, almost guarded. Georgia thought Molly’s disappearance seemed to be more of an inconvenience, a disruption to Messenger’s carefully planned career, than a gut-wrenching tragedy.
    At the same time, Georgia realized she was being uncharitable. People dealt with suffering in all sorts of ways. The woman had been to hell and back. Who was she to pass judgment? She turned off the radio and took a swig from her bottled water. At least one child had been rescued from the maw of tragedy. That was cause for celebration, wasn’t it?
    Back home she showered, toweled off, put on a clean pair of jeans. A new case had come in, and she was eager to start in on it. A lawyer suspected a dating service was a front for an identity theft ring and wanted Georgia to investigate. One of the lawyer’s clients had met with “More-than-Friends” in an out-of-the-way office in Palatine, a suburb about thirty miles northwest of Chicago. The woman hadn’t given them any money but did surrender her address and social security number. A week later, her credit cards were maxed out and her bank account emptied.
    Georgia Googled the company and checked their website, but other than the address, phone number, and a few “testimonials,” she didn’t learn much. She went into her kitchen. Bright morning sunshine poured in through the window, and a squirrel was perched on the telephone line. She’d always wondered how they could balance on such a flimsy tightrope. Then it scurried across the line and hopped onto a nearby branch.
    She went back to her computer. The best way to get a first-hand look at “More-Than-Friends” would be to see it herself. She thought about impersonating a potential client. She was in her thirties, the right age, and she could act the part of the lonely, desperate woman. She’d been there, not so long ago.
    She jotted down the number then clicked to a news website to skim coverage of Molly’s return. She wanted to see how the police cracked the case: the communications, negotiations, how it played out. But there was nothing. No statement, no photos, no comment. She went back to the More-than-Friends website but couldn’t get the kidnapping out of her mind. Five minutes later, she picked up the phone.
    •   •   •
    Thursday evening was a good night at Solyst’s, a village tavern with rough-hewn floorboards and neon red beer signs on the walls. Solyst’s was a blue-collar haunt, with drinks as cheap as the conversation, but somehow it had flourished. While other places on the North Shore changed hands faster than you could say under-the-table-payments, Solyst’s had been owned by the same family for seventy-five years.
    Georgia hadn’t been inside in a while, but nothing had changed. On one side was the bar, its stools patched with duct tape and, despite the new law, a residue of cigarette smoke in the air. On the other side was a brightly lit room with tables and chairs and a menu of pizza, salads, and surprisingly good fried fish.
    The faces at the bar looked like the same ones she’d seen two years ago. In fact, several nodded as though it had only been two weeks since she’d been in. She found who she was looking for at the bar near the dart board.
    Dan O’Malley and Georgia had come onto the force at the same time, but Dan had ended up her supervisor. Now he was Deputy Chief. She was happy for him; he was a good cop, honest and smart, and his promotion was long overdue. As for her, she sometimes wondered what might have happened if