Harmony Black Read Online Free PDF Page B

pounds, and my father’s sheriff star.

FIVE
    “It is you,” Barry said, beaming. “Last time I talked to your mama, years ago, she said you were going into the academy. When Mabel said an Agent Black was here to see me . . . man, I was hopin’, and my hopes were answered.”
    “Hey, Barry. You running this town now?”
    He grinned and tapped his star. “That’s Sheriff Hoyt to you, young lady, and . . . no. No, I most certainly do not. Damn council’s cut my budget to a shoestring, and they’re still sharpening their knives. Hey, can FBI agents give hugs?”
    “We can only hug sheriffs,” I said. “It’s a firm rule.”
    He pulled me into a bear hug, slapping my back with his meaty hand.
    “Look at you,” he said, pulling back. “Just look at you. Your dad would be so damn proud.”
    “I do my best. Barry, this is—”
    “Jessie Temple,” she said, sweeping in and offering her outstretched hand. “I don’t hug.”
    “Handshake’s just as good,” he said. “I’m glad you girls are here. Town’s going goddamn crazy and I’m at wits’ end trying to keep the regular troublemakers in line, let alone find this kid.”
    Jessie and I shared a glance. “Regular troublemakers?” I asked.
    “And the irregular ones, too.” He paused, glancing toward the back hallway and giving a wave. “Hey, Cody! C’mere, see who came to visit.”
    He walks like a cowboy, I thought. Cody had a little of that old-fashioned swagger, like an Old West hero on his way out of the saloon and headed for a high-noon showdown. Don’t worry, his body language said to the world, I’ve got this handled.
    He had high chiseled cheekbones and broad shoulders that filled out his beige uniform shirt, but that’s where the comparison ended. Instead of a gunslinger’s scowl, he wore a bright-eyed smile, and the smile only got bigger when he looked my way.
    “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Harmony?”
    I just tilted my head. He looked so familiar, but I just couldn’t place his face, like the opening bars of an old hit song you can’t quite remember.
    “Cody,” he said, “Cody Winters. You probably don’t remember, but before—before your family moved away—I lived right next door. My mom said we were pretty much inseparable.”
    “Your first girlfriend,” Barry quipped. “First and only time in your life you had good taste in women.”
    “Cody,” I said, paging through faint memories distorted by time. I remembered a game of hide-and-seek on a long summer afternoon, and the smell of fresh-cut grass.
    “I heard you joined the Bureau.” Cody looked me up and down. “Gotta say, it suits you. No pun intended.”
    “Tell ’em about Oscar McKinney,” Barry said.
    Cody let out a long, low whistle. “You remember him? Runs McKinney Drugs over on Main Street? Check this out: he’s been clean and sober for twenty years, okay? Last night he went out, downed a whole fifth of cheap whiskey, and beat his wife and kid straight into the hospital.”
    “She might lose one of her damn eyes,” Barry added. “Now, how do you explain that? But that’s not what you’re here for. I’ll tell you, this Gunderson woman? She’s a real piece of work.”
    “How so?”
    “Fakes a kidnapping, stashes her own kid God knows where, and you know what she says when we show her the nanny cam recording? ‘That’s not me.’ That’s it. That’s her whole defense. I just can’t figure what she’s trying to get out of this whole thing. Attention?”
    “That’s what we’re here to find out,” Jessie said. “Can we talk to her?”
    “Follow me,” Cody said. “Want me to set her up in the interview room?”
    Five minutes later, Jessie and I sat across a steel table from a very frightened woman. Her stringy hair fell over her face, and her eyes were a teary, bloodshot mess. She didn’t sit so much as huddle, hunching forward, keeping her hands clenched in her lap and her arms squeezed tight at her sides.
    The room was barely