Raising Cain Read Online Free PDF Page A

“A unit is on its way, sir. May I have your name, please?”
    No response.
    “Sir? Are you still there?”
    Brownie nodded, and Sarah stopped the tape. “He was trying to disguise his voice,” he said.
    “Sounds like it.”
    Brownie’s eyes were red, and his stomach ached. “Pull up the number reference.”
    Sarah went to another console and keyed a command. The screen scrolled data, then displayed a set of numbers. “The call came
     in at twenty-twenty-three,” she said. “Eight-twenty-three P.M. “
    Brownie looked over her shoulder. The system was programmed to print out the number of the telephone that made the call. The
     number and address let the dispatcher know where to send help if the caller was disabled and couldn’t speak.
    Sarah ran her finger down the screen to the spot where the number and address should have been. It was blank.
    Brownie grimaced. “A no-show.”
    The dispatcher swiveled her chair. “Must have been a cellular call. They don’t print.”
    Brownie nodded. The system was not designed to register cellular calls because there were too many transmission variables
     to make it viable.
    “There’s no way of knowing who the call came from,” Sarah said, “unless you run the records of every cell phone customer on
     the East Coast.”
    Brownie looked up. “Or know which system he’s on.” The phone company’s airtime log would show a call to 911 at 20:23 hours
     on September 20. But he’d need the right cellular company and their customer list. And there were millions of cell phones
     in the area.
    “I’m sorry about your father,” Sarah said. “Too bad we don’t know who called.”
    “Too bad,” Brownie agreed. His eyes were as blank as the space on the screen.
    “I know you’d like to thank him.”
    Brownie blinked. “Thank him?”
    “For tryin’ to save your father’s life.”
    “That’s not what happened.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The man wasn’t a Good Samaritan.”
    Sarah looked confused. “What
was
he?”
    Brownie clenched his fist. “Daddy’s
killer
.”
    Sallie Allen did not want to get out of bed. She pulled the pillow over her head and shifted her body in the bunk. It was
     nine-thirty in the morning, and the dormitory was empty. The other women had gone out to do their chores.
    Sallie closed her eyes and reran the images of the night before. The CAIN people were crazy. Totally beyond-belief crazy.
     The scene had been bizarre to the max. She had been simultaneously terrorized, turned on, and, she had to admit, exhilarated.
     Ruth was a hunk, a big, scary one. But he’d disappeared soon after the ceremony and left her on the platform, shaky, wet,
     and a little disappointed.
    Sallie Allen, former high school cheerleader, former college gymnast, was a natural go-getter. Growing up in a wealthy household
     in Georgia, she always got what she wanted: men, cars, attention. She was smart enough and pretty enough to move to the head
     of the line in any endeavor she chose. And her sights were set on a star in the journalistic walk of fame.
    Sallie rolled over and sat up. She scouted the room, slipped her arm under the mattress, and pulled out her recorder and notebook.
     She switched tapes and checked her notes. Today she would try to find what secrets lay behind the camp’s closed doors. They’d
     kept her on a tight rein so far, restricting her access from most of the buildings.
    Suddenly there was a noise on the steps. Sallie jammed the book and recorder under the mattress and stretched languidly, trying
     to look nonchalant.
    “You’re awake.” It was Alva, one of her roommates. She was a horse-faced woman in her early twenties with kinky blond hair
     and hazel eyes. “Did you sleep okay?”
    “Like a baby,” Sallie lied. Visions of Ruth and the snakes had kept her up most of the night.
    “You did great yesterday.”
    The reporter smiled. “You mean my
walk
?”
    “Yes. I know you were scared, but you hung in there.”
    “Has anyone