Waters Run Deep Read Online Free PDF

those sorts of people out to the house crossed the line.
    The gates greeted him before he bumped down the long, winding drive faster than normal. He needed to seem as if he were in a hurry. Otherwise, he’d hear about it for the next few weeks. The Arch Angels Feast Day was coming up and he’d been hoodwinked by the parish priest into serving on the church’s committee, so there’d be no escaping Picou, who was the chairwoman of the celebration.
    He rounded the corner and saw her. Not his mother. Or the actress. But the woman from the rental car he’d seen outside the Whiskey Bay gas station.
    She stood calmly in the center of chaos, hair damp, brow furrowed. All around her people scurried, left, right and in circles, calling out and craning their heads in that universal motion signaling something lost.
    In this case—a child.
    He rolled to a halt and climbed from the car.
    “Oh, Nate, thank heavens!” Picou called, drawing the attention of the people milling about. The woman who he now assumed was the freshly showered nanny caught his gaze. Her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t move.
    A well-endowed blonde tumbled toward him, and he recognized her from the pictures in the local newspaper.
    “Oh, God, please help us. My baby. He’s gone!”
    He placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder as much to keep her from crashing into him as to hold her up. “Okay, Mrs. Keene, take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”
    The blonde burst into tears, shaking her head and swiping at the streaking mascara on her cheeks. Her thin shoulders shook and she covered her face with both hands and sobbed. The presumed nanny stepped forward and took the actress’s elbow. “Go sit down, Tawny. I’ll talk to the deputy.”
    Her voice was nice. Kind of low and gravelly. It had quiet authority, probably from all the nannying she did.
    Tawny nodded and allowed a pale Picou to lead her away. Nate looked hard at his own mother. She looked shaken and he felt every tremble of her hand as it stroked the actress’s back. His mother’s clouded eyes met his and he tried to convey reassurance in his nod, but as usual, he failed to comfort her.
    He turned his gaze back to the nanny.
    “I’m Annie Perez,” she said, stepping forward without extending a hand, as if recognizing the situation didn’t call for niceties but rather expediency. “I work for the Keenes as Spencer’s caretaker.”
    People still scrambled around them. Many looked to be part of the production crew, if their sweaty T-shirts and baggy parachute shorts were any indication. He would expect the nanny to be searching desperately, but she wasn’t. Her calm struck him as peculiar.
    “Lieutenant Nate Dufrene.”
    “Dufrene?”
    “Picou’s my mother.”
    “Oh.”
    “Time is of essence…”
    She stiffened. “Right. Tawny took Spencer to her room to spend some time with him. She said he fell asleep while she read to him, so she stepped out to make a phone call. When she hung up, he was gone. I’ve searched the rooms on the second floor, top to bottom.”
    “Closets? Bed—”
    “Thoroughly,” Annie interrupted, pushing a piece of hair behind her ear. Sweat beaded her upper lip, reminding him to wipe the sweat from his own forehead. Too hot for mid-September.
    “The first floor?”
    “Your mother and Mr. Keene searched the bottom floor—”
    “Third floor?” he interrupted.
    “The housekeeper—I’ve forgotten her name—and the production assistant are searching now. Mr. Keene brought some of the crew to search the grounds and outer buildings.”
    “Lucille.”
    She frowned. “What?”
    “The housekeeper’s name is Lucille.” He realized that had nothing to do with the task at hand. “What about personal security?
    Does Keene have it?”
    “His name is Brick, but he was with Carter on set. He’s out there searching now,” she said, with the slight lift of her shoulder.
    Any other time and he would have thought it sexy, but not in the middle of a