Missing Brandy (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

Stuart’s name. He remembered watching the lawyer as they waited for the foreman to finish reading the verdict, the moment when Henry’s dreams vanished. Just like the hospital murdered his son, so the lawyer murdered what Stuart’s memory could have meant for others. He’d get her through her daughter. He’d get her, all right.
    He’d seen the girl often enough bounding down her stoop, running to Remsen and picking up her friend. He’d timed her walk. Never varied. Her friend might be a problem, though. Then again, probably not—it would all happen so fast.
    Heather was the friend’s name. By the time Heather would look around, the space the girl had occupied would be filled by ten other kids. Nature abhors a vacuum. So it had to happen fast and in the right spot. It had to be rehearsed. The timing was key. Hence the importance of the van’s position. And the color. He’d worked on that, too. At first he thought a bronze color would melt into the scenery, but there was something about bronze that made it stand out. So he switched the color in his mind to maroon. No, wouldn’t do, and finally had his friend mix him two car colors. Paid extra for that. Came out almost like army green only a little lighter, a light olive green. Blended in nicely with the color of leaves in spring.
    His jaw began to ache, and he realized he’d been clenching his teeth again. Must stay relaxed. Couldn’t afford the mistakes brought about by tension. He stretched his neck, moving his head from side to side. Events today must be free-flowing, timed to perfection.
    In the beginning, he thought he’d work alone. Safer that way. He’d heard about deals going sour, one partner grassing on the other, and he didn’t want that to happen. He thought long and hard about involving Ben. He wasn’t worried about giving him the money he’d asked for. Henry had that and more to spare.
    Except for that one time, there’d never been cross words between him and Ben. They’d met on one of Henry’s many commutes from Central New Jersey to Manhattan. How many years ago was it? He remembered the first time he’d seen him on the station platform over fourteen years ago. Tall with blond hair sticking up on his crown like straw. It was six months after Stuart’s death, a couple of years before 9/11, when the Hamilton Station first opened and a few hardy souls began trading seven or eight extra driving minutes for a pleasanter ride to Manhattan. Ben, whom he’d glimpsed on an irregular basis at first, soon became a familiar face, offering him a nod, a sympathetic smile, and after a while, they exchanged a few words of greeting.
    It must have been on one of those slow summer commutes back from the city—the stop and start kind with the air conditioning on the fritz and the hot green forest staring back at them and the shafts of light illuminating summer dust. That was it, that’s when they’d introduced themselves, and they began talking about this and that. Yes, it was on one of those days when there was even more confusion than usual and the misery of Stuart’s death hurt like an open wound. Their train had just pulled out of New Brunswick when it ground to a halt. Another switch problem, Henry thought. They were in the middle of nowhere when the conductor made the announcement of a train derailment. In the charged air, that’s when he’d told Ben about losing his boy. The words just tumbled from his lips. He didn’t know why, but a weight lifted from him for a while after he talked to Ben that first time.
    “In for his normal appointment. They’d found a murmur, that’s all. Next thing I knew, he was dead. Six years old. I left him alone the night before he died. I shouldn’t have. He’d be alive if I hadn’t left him. The casket was so small, a mourner had remarked, it looked like a shoebox.”
    “How long ago?” Ben had asked.
    “Six months.”
    “Sue the bastards.”
    Henry remembered the woman sitting behind them. She tapped