Flash and Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

was staring past me toward Larabee’s half-open door, scowling deeply.
    “Next of kin are coming out of the woodwork,” I said, feeling guilty at having been caught eavesdropping.
    Still scowling, Hawkins continued down the hall.
    Allrighty, then.
    I photocopied my case form and gave it to Mrs. Flowers to deliver to Larabee.
    My watch said 1:48 p.m.
    I considered my options. I’d finished with the sandpit bones. The landfill John Doe was now Larabee’s problem. Since I work only when anthropology cases come in, and there was nothing to keep me at the MCME, the afternoon was mine to spend as I chose.
    I chose to placate my cat.
    Birdie was miffed. First I’d dumped him with a neighbor while I was away in Hawaii. Then, his first day home, I’d abandoned him to dig up a sandpit.
    Or maybe it was the thunder rumbling again. Birdie hates storms.
    “Come on out.” I waggled a saucer at floor level. “I’ve got lo mein.”
    Birdie held position, entrenched beneath the sideboard.
    “Fine.” I placed the noodles on the floor. “It’s here when you want it.”
    I pulled a Diet Coke from the fridge, served myself from the little white carton I’d picked up at Baoding, and settled at the kitchen table. Opening my laptop, I Googled the names Cindi Gamble and Cale Lovette.
    The results were useless. Most led to fan sites for Lyle Lovett.
    I tried Cindi Gamble alone. The name generated links to a Face-book page, and to stories about a woman mauled to death by a tiger.
    I paused to consider. And to slurp lo mein.
    Local disappearance. Local paper.
    I tried the online archives of
The Charlotte Observer.
1998.
    On September 27 a short article updated the case of a twelve-year-old girl missing for nine months. Nothing on Cindi Gamble.
    More lo mein.
    Why would the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old kid receive no coverage?
    I began checking sites devoted to finding MPs and to securing names for unidentified bodies.
    Neither Cindi Gamble nor Cale Lovette was registered on the Doe Network.
    I switched to the North American Missing Persons Network.
    Nothing.
    I was logging on to NamUs.gov when thunder cracked andlightning streaked big-time. A white blur shot from beneath the sideboard and disappeared through the dining room door.
    The kitchen dimmed and rain came down hard. I got up to turn on lights and check windows.
    Which didn’t take long.
    I live on the grounds of a nineteenth-century manor-turned-condo-complex lying just off the queens University campus. Sharon Hall. A little slice of Dixie. Red brick, white pediment, shutters, and columns.
    My little outbuilding is nestled among ancient magnolias. The Annex. Annex to what? No one knows. The two-story structure appears on none of the estate’s original plans. The hall is there. The coach house. The herb and formal gardens. No annex. Clearly an afterthought.
    Guesses by family and friends have included smokehouse, hothouse, outhouse, and kiln. I’m not much concerned with the architect’s original purpose. Barely twelve hundred square feet, the Annex suits my needs. Bedroom and bath up. Kitchen, dining room, parlor, and study down.
    Finding myself suddenly single over a decade ago, I’d rented the place as a stopgap measure. Contentedness? Laziness? Lack of motivation? All these years down the road, I still call it home.
    Hatches battened, I returned to my laptop.
    For naught. Like the other sites, NamUs had nothing on Gamble or Lovette.
    Frustrated, I gave up and shifted to e-mail.
    Forty-seven messages. My eyes went to number twenty-four.
    Flashbulb image. Andrew Ryan, Lieutenant-détective, Section des crimes contre la personne, Sûreté du Québec. Tall, lanky, sandy hair, blue eyes.
    I am forensic anthropologist for the Bureau du coroner in
la Belle Province
. Same deal as with the MCME. I go to the lab when an anthropology consult is requested. Ryan is a homicide detective with the Quebec provincial police. For years Ryan and I have worked together, with him