Thread of Fear Read Free Page A

“She drove up from Albany Monday night.”
    Annie paused beside the first doorway. “Colter, hon. The artist lady’s here to see you.”
    Fiona glanced into the bedroom and saw a boy with sandy blond hair sitting cross-legged on the carpet. He wore green Incredible Hulk pajamas, and Fiona wondered whether he was ready for bed or simply hadn’t dressed today. He didn’t look up from his project, a multilayered Lego structure that appeared to be some kind of staging area for his many plastic dinosaurs.
    Annie gazed at her son for a few moments before shifting her attention to Fiona. “Well. I guess we’ll leave you to it.”
    Fiona nodded and entered the room. The lilac-painted walls matched the floral-print spread and pillow sham on Shelby’s twin bed. A white wicker desk sat beneath a window, and Fiona noticed gray smudges on the windowsill where someone had dusted for latent prints. Beside the bed was a second windowsill, also smudged. Gold thumbtacks were pinned to the woodwork, each spaced about one inch apart. From every tack dangled a woven bracelet made of brightly colored embroidery thread. The intricately patterned bracelets were in various stages of completion, and Fiona stared at them a moment, thinking they were just the sort of thing she’d enjoyed making as a kid.
    She chose a spot on the carpet far enough away from Colter to give him a sense of space. He still hadn’t looked up from his dinosaurs or in any way acknowledged that he had a visitor.
    “Hi, Colter,” she said casually, mirroring his cross-legged posture on the floor. “My name’s Fiona. I’d like to hang out with you for a while if it’s okay.”
    Colter said nothing, but he stole a glimpse of her from beneath his cowlick.
    She unzipped her leather case and pulled out a wooden board. It was four boards, actually, fitted together with brass hinges. Folded, the board measured twelve inches by twelve, the perfect size to fit inside a carry-on bag. Fiona unfolded the flaps and slid several brass fasteners into place, creating a two-foot-square work surface. Her grandfather had created the drawing board in his woodshop last summer, and Fiona considered it a clever feat of engineering. The brass fasteners that held the pieces rigid also served as clips for photographs or other visual aids. There was a shallow groove for pencils, and a notch at the top where a light could be attached if needed.
    Colter didn’t look up, but his hands had stilled.
    Fiona pulled out a cardboard tube and unrolled a thick sheet of vellum-finish watercolor paper. She clipped it to the board and then dug a graphite pencil from her bag, along with a small container of Play-Doh. She spotted her FBI Facial Identification Catalogue and placed it within easy reach on the carpet. She preferred to work without it, but sometimes it came in handywhen young children or non-native English speakers struggled to describe something they’d seen. A six-year-old boy might not know the term “receding chin,” but he could point to a picture.
    Fiona then rummaged through her collection of Beanie Babies and selected a soft green dragon with purple spikes on his back. It was the closest thing she had to a dinosaur, and she plopped it on top of her drawing board. She made a quick sketch of the dragon and glanced at Colter. His attention was riveted to her paper.
    “What’s your favorite dinosaur?” she asked him.
    He tipped his head to the side, giving the question ample consideration.
    “Mine’s triceratops,” she told him, quickly drawing one. It ended up looking more like a rhinoceros than a dinosaur, but she had Colter’s attention.
    “I like velociraptor,” he mumbled.
    Fiona’s heart skipped a beat, but she nodded gamely. “I’m not sure I know that one. Is he the guy in your hand there?”
    “That’s pachycephalosaurus.”
    Whoa. So much for limited verbal skills. Fiona took a closer look at the dinosaur toys and noticed they’d been divided into camps. Her