Quinn Read Online Free PDF Page B

pure torture for Eve to read it. “Didn’t Detective Slindak tell you to just give the unopened letters to him?”
    “Yes. I couldn’t do it. They were addressed to me. She’s my daughter. I had to be part of what happened to her.”
    “These aren’t part of what happened to her. These are just a bunch of hyenas crawling out of the woodwork and trying to tear you apart. I’ve seen it before in these cases.”
    “Have you? Well, I haven’t. It’s all new to me. So I have to treat everything that comes my way as if it had never happened to anyone else before. Maybe you and the police are taking it too much for granted because you don’t have the same perspective as I do. Maybe you’re not careful enough.”
    “I’m careful.” He carefully put the letter back in the box. “I’ll check these out again for you.”
    “Particularly the ones where Bonnie was seen alive.”
    “Particularly those,” he said gently.
    “I want to go with you.”
    “That’s not procedure.”
    “To hell with procedure. You said we’d search for Bonnie together. Was that bullshit?”
    “No, but I didn’t think you’d be this proactive.”
    “I was supposed to sit here and wait for you all to do everything according to ‘procedure’?” Her eyes were glittering fiercely, her hands clenched. “I can’t do that. I’ve waited for her to come home. I’ve waited for you to tell me you’ve found her.” Her voice was uneven. “I’ve waited for you to tell me my baby is … dead. I can’t wait any longer. I have to find out for myself.” She took a step closer to him. “Can’t you see that? I won’t behave like some hysterical female. I won’t get in the way. But I have to help bring her home.”
    She was tearing him apart. What she was asking was strictly against the rules and procedures. He’d be handed a reprimand and could even be taken off the case.
    To hell with it. He couldn’t deny her the chance she wanted.
    He turned away. “I’ll drop this last letter off at ATLPD for processing. Then I’ll come back and pick you up, and we’ll go interview those four people who say they’ve actually seen your Bonnie.”
    “I could go with you now,” she said eagerly. “I’ll just get my—” She slowly nodded. “You don’t want to be seen with me while you’re investigating. You’ll get in trouble. I don’t want you to lose your job.”
    “I won’t lose my job. I just want to avoid difficulties.” He smiled faintly. “But what would you do if you thought that I would?”
    “You’ve got plenty of money. It wouldn’t hurt you like it would some people. Still, it wouldn’t be good.” She hesitated. “But it wouldn’t change what I had to do. I’d just call your boss and tell him that I’d go to the media and tell them how uncooperative the FBI was being with a bereaved mother. I don’t think they’d like that.”
    He chuckled. “Lord, you’re tough.”
    “I told you, I grew up in the projects. I had to fight every day of my life in one battle or another.” She turned away. “Go to the precinct and see if they can start the process of finding out anything from that poison-pen letter. I can wait.” She sat down at the table and opened one of the envelopes. “I’ve gone over these letters dozens of times to see if I could find anything in them that would offer me any hope or insight as to where Bonnie might be.” Her hands were shaking as she spread out the first letter. “It won’t hurt me to go over them again. Maybe I’ll notice something more this time. Then I’ll phone the people who wrote the letters and ask them for permission to come to see them.”
    She was sitting very straight, her lips tight, and her gaze fixed on the letter. Her concentration reminded Joe of a painting he’d once seen of Anne Boleyn in a London museum, staring at the sword that was going to take her head. The same fascination, the same resolution, the same tortured bewilderment. It was incredibly painful