The Taken Read Online Free PDF Page B

unison. The littler one started to cry and the mother looked up toward him where he stood on the gravel, her face set in an expression of profound disappointment. He hoped Jellinek wasn’t telling them why the police needed to go fishing. The family walked back up the slope, the boys both with slumped shoulders. The elder murmured “Thanks for
nothing,”
as he passed.
    “I’ll be waiting in my shop,” said Jellinek. “I have another group at two. I hope to hell you’re not going to need more time than that.”
    Wingate found a couple of vending machines a few hundred metres down the shore, standing outside a kind of corner store that was closed. He brought back two bags of tortilla chips and two bottles of water, and they sat in the car waiting for the Marine Unit. “My mother’s going to kill you for this,” Hazel said, crunching the chips. It hurt to lean back against the seat, so she was bending forward a little, as if she was expecting Wingate to put a pillow behind her. He had the radio dialled to a local classical music station and inoffensive orchestral music played quietly.
    “She’s gotta catch me first,” he said.
    “Oh, she’ll catch you,” said Hazel.
    Wingate wagged a finger at the radio. “I played sax, you know. I played seriously. I was in my corps’ marching band.”
    “I admire that. I don’t have any talents at all.”
    “You don’t have musical talent, but that’s probably because you just don’t have room for it given your other talents.”
    She looked over her shoulder at him, raising one eyebrow. “You don’t have to butter me up, James. You already have my job.”
    “You can have it back, Skip,” he muttered. “Just tell me when.”
    The Mayfair cops arrived at ten-fifteen. Jellinek was staring at his watch. One of the cops was wearing a wetsuit under his uniform and as he stripped down to it in the van, his partner, PC Tate, leaned over into Hazel’s window and got caught up. “Buddy’s going to take us out then?” he said.
    “Not willingly from the sounds of it. But you take whatever time you need out there.”
    “Water’s going to be cold.”
    She looked out toward the van where the other cop was transforming himself into a diver. He looked like a larger version of one of the kids who’d come down with their mother. “You guys get much call?”
    “Not this time of year,” said Tate. “Mostly it’s going down to hook up a Sea-Doo or a smashed-up motorboat, but that’s in June or July. Over-exuberance, you know, summer arrives and every idiot’s out there gunning it. Once in a while, it’s sad, you know, there’s a real accident, and we get called out to recuperate. But rarely in May.” He lowered himself to see Wingate. “I got a handtruck in the van, but I’m going to need some help getting the winch on it.”
    “Sure,” said Wingate. He got out of the car and the two men walked to the white OPS van parked down by the dock. Jellinek was watching from the front door of his shack, and when he saw the big equipment come out, he came down and helped them get it onto the boat. Hazel watched them from the car. The one called Calberson hauled his tank and flippers out of the van, and then Jellinek tied off. Wingate dashed back to the car. “You going to be okay?”
    “I hate the water, James.”
    “You picked a good place to be born then.”
    “I can get seasick looking at the back of a dime.”
    He laughed. “What’s your best guess about what’s out there?”
    “Guess or hope?” she said.
    “Yeah.” He pushed off the side of the car. “We’ll know soon enough.”
    “Too bad you guys aren’t paying customers,” Jellinek said from the wheel. “I’m drifting over keepers here.”
    Wingate looked over the side of the boat, but the water was black and he couldn’t see anything. “How do you know that?”
    Jellinek indicated what looked like a miniature computer monitor attached to the boat’s dash. “I can see them here.”
    Wingate