The Keeper Read Online Free PDF Page A

her eyes lighting up. Just as quickly, her face clouded and her eyebrows came together in concern. “Are the kids—?”
    Glitsky held up a hand. “Everybody’s fine. I just thought I’d drop by and say hi. Believe it or not, I was in the neighborhood.”
    Treya stood, came around her desk, and gave him a quick hug. “Not that this isn’t a nice surprise, but what in the world are you doing in this godforsaken neck of the woods?” After he gave her the short version, she frowned and said, “Dismas really needs you to do this?”
    â€œI think there was a bit of charity involved. Plus, Wyatt Hunt is out of town.”
    â€œWhat about Wyatt’s staff? Don’t they find missing people all the time?”
    â€œI think so. But for whatever reason, Diz asked me.” She gave him a look that was ambiguous enough to force him to ask, “What? Not a good idea?”
    â€œYou’re a big boy. You can decide that for yourself. Evidently, you ­already have.”
    â€œBut what?”
    She drew a breath. “But I was just getting used to the fact that you weren’t going to be living anymore in the regular company of murderers. Or people who know murderers. Or witnesses to murder. Any one of whom, I need hardly tell you, might be a murderer himself. Or herself. I didn’t think you’d really miss being around those people.”
    â€œI’m not missing those people. We don’t even know there was a murder yet, Trey. Diz wants me to try to find where the wife has gotten to.”
    â€œIf it turns out she was killed, then what? You’ll identify the murderer, right?”
    â€œIt may not go that far. If she turns up dead, as far as I know, the job’s over.”
    â€œUnless you’re on to something that might clear Diz’s client.”
    â€œMaybe that. If he even gets charged.”
    â€œIn other words, you’d be at cross-purposes with Homicide.”
    â€œAgain, not necessarily, although it’s possible, I suppose.” Glitsky backed away a step. “Call me clairvoyant,” he said, “but I’m sensing you don’t want me to do this. In which case, I won’t. I’ll call Diz right now and bail. He’ll find somebody else, if he really needs the work done.”
    â€œOf course he needs the work done. He’s got a client. The client needs his help. Diz didn’t ask you to help him because he felt sorry for you.”
    â€œYou weren’t there. I was pretty pathetic.”
    â€œYou asked him for work?”
    â€œWell, no. But he picked up that I was maybe slightly bored from day to day.”
    Treya touched his face. “Or, just sayin’, he knows you’re a world-class investigator and he really could use your help.”
    Glitsky broke a smile. “Okay, maybe a little of that. And you know, warts and all, I always loved the work.”
    â€œThe work, yes; the job, you might remember, not always.”
    â€œMore often than not, though. At least I felt I was doing something important. Instead of like now, when I’m waiting around for the next major life milestone after retirement, which I’m told tends to be death.”
    I F A BE THOUGHT Treya was unhappy with his decision to look into Katie Chase’s disappearance—and she was—he didn’t want to even casually run his freelancing by the personnel of the Homicide detail. If he wound up covering some of the same investigative ground as the inspectors assigned to the case, they’d find out soon enough and could deal with it as they saw fit. Glitsky didn’t want to have another discussion—or ­argument—before he’d even begun.
    So instead of going up another two floors, he went downstairs and out the back door, then into the admitting lobby of the jail, a separate oval building that adjoined the main rectangular edifice of the hall. The deputy behind the