Hush My Mouth Read Online Free PDF

us.”
    “You have her?” I couldn’t believe it.
    “We-ell,” he drawled. Not in his teasing way though. “I don’t exactly have her. You want to tell me why you’re asking after her?”
    “Her family’s looking for her.”
    “You know the family?”
    “Just her sister. She’s here from Atlanta trying to find her.”
    “Atlanta, huh? So how do you two know each other?”
    “We don’t, Rudy. She hired me.”
    “Oh.” He got that reserved tone he gets when he’s playing cop. “Why’d she think she needed a lawyer?”
    “Not the kind of thing you call an accountant about, is it?” I didn’t want to mention the drawing power of my giant stone angel.
    “So why didn’t she call us, if she was worried about her sister? She involved in something she didn’t want to draw attention to?”
    “She did call the sheriff’s office, Rudy, along with the hospital and everybody she could think of. Nobody gave her any information.” I let that sink in. “Besides, she doesn’t know the area. For Pete’s sake, just because you hang around with crooks all day doesn’t make everybody one.”
    He was quiet so long I wondered if we’d lost our connection—or if he’d hung up on me. Finally, he asked, “You got a picture of this lady? Any identifying marks?”
    Uh-oh. “I have a photo. And she has a small freckle or mole just over her lip, like a beauty mark.” I took a breath before I asked, “Why?”
    “Meet me at the Burger Hut. I was headed out for a quick bite.”
    “Sure.”
    Burger Hut had neither good burgers nor did its blocky brick-and-glass boredom look anything like a hut. But it sat across Main Street from my office, in a parking lot next to a long-empty grocery store, so it had the advantage of convenience.
    I labeled a file
Neanna Lyles
, stuck the loose sheets with my notes inside, and wrote Fran’s cell number and home mailing address inside the cover. Even though my caseload was light, I found the detritus generated by even the simplest cases could quickly build into toppling stacks if I didn’t label it and beat it into submission. My little niece Emma had dropped the hint to her mother—my sister Lydia—that I needed a label maker of my own after she’d spent a Saturday afternoon helping me with my filing. Where does a seven-year-old—especially one related to me—learn to file?
    I sharpened some pencils before I strolled across the street and still beat Rudy there. But he’d had farther to come: a stroll out to the Law Enforcement Center parking lot and the four-block drive to the Burger Hut.
    The three picnic tables outside were already occupied, so I loitered until Rudy whipped into the lot in a marked sheriff’s patrol car. He glared at the table occupants, all enjoying what might be the last bearable day before summer blasted in to stay.
    We ordered, got our cardboard trays, and I followed Rudy’s lumbering bulk back to the cruiser. I sometimes forget just how tall he is. He’d played on our high school football team, but he seemed bigger now—not just heavier.
    “Don’t spill anything in here. We’re having to clean these things out ourselves now.”
    I didn’t ask who used to clean up their fast food and doughnutmesses. I didn’t want to hear about County Council budget cuts or intradepartmental mutiny.
    “You got that photo?” he asked just before he bit off half of his first hamburger. A creamy mustard-mayonnaise blob landed in the cardboard tray in his lap.
    I settled my half-unwrapped burger back in my tray, slipped Neanna’s party picture out of my purse, and held it up for Rudy to see.
    He chewed and kept looking long after his expression said he’d seen what he needed to see.
    “So?” I asked as he swallowed and reached for his foam cup.
    “You don’t have a weak stomach, do you?” he said after a loud slurp.
    I crooked an eyebrow to emphasize the irony before I took a bite of my greasy hamburger.
    He pulled a plastic folio from under his seat. The