Tuesday's Child Read Free

right I’ll come get her as soon as I can arrange cover here.” Nate tossed the file to the desk.
    “I’m more than happy for her to stay here until you finish work. She can sit in main reception and color.”
    “I don’t want to impose.”
    “You’re not.”
    “All right, thank you. I’ll be there as soon after five as I can.” He flung the receiver down and pushed a hand through his hair. “That’s all I need.”
    “What’s up?” Dane looked at him.
    “Sophie’s sick, so Vianne has evidently been home alone all day. She somehow managed to get that wretched doll off the top of the wardrobe and broke it. She took it to the doll hospital on the High Street.”
    “I know it well, mate. That’s where Jasmine works.”
    “Then you’ll know the owner, Adeline Monroe?”
    Dane nodded. “We’ve been friends with Adeline for years. She’s deaf, but never let it hold her back.”
    Nate looked at the phone. “Deaf? I just spoke with her on the phone.”
    Dane laughed. “She has a phone that goes through an operator. She talks, you reply, and she gets what you said as a text message. It’s a really clever system.”
    “I’m sure.”
    “Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
    “I just did, didn’t I?”
    A cough from the door drew Nate’s attention towards it. His boss, Detective Inspector Vanessa Welsh, stood there, short dark hair framing her face and piercing blue eyes clouded with grief—something he’d seen all too often in recent days. A sharp stab hit him hard in the stomach. Not again.
    “Guv?”
    “Nate, you and Dane need to get over to Tamarisk Crescent. Body of a young girl in her late teens has been found.”
    “On our way.” Nate stood, sending his chair flying backwards. Reigning in his grief and anger, he sent up a prayer for the latest victim and her family. He grabbed his coat and shrugged into it. “We need to catch this creep, Dane.”
    “Tell me something I don’t know. I was hoping that you being a church elder meant you had some pull with the Bloke upstairs. You know, maybe He’d give you some hints as to who this guy is.”
    “I wish. I have prayed so hard about this. Even asked Pastor Jack to pray about it.” Their footsteps echoed on the stairs as they ran down. “Guess He is waiting for me to do some of the leg-work first.” Nate pulled his collar up against the rain. “So what’s she like?”
    “What’s who like?”
    “This deaf lady I’m trusting to look after my niece.”
    “Adeline is blonde, blue eyes, lovely girl…not slim by any stretch of the imagination, but who wants a slim woman anyway? And best of all, she goes to Headley Baptist.”
    “She does?”
    Dane unlocked the car and slid into the driver’s seat of the pool car allocated to them. “She sits downstairs with her hearing dog, Ben. He’s a gorgeous black and white King Charles spaniel.”
    Nate slammed the door and fastened his seat belt. “Hmmm. You’ll be telling me next she’s single.”
    “She is, actually. Maybe we can get the two of you together—”
    “Forget it. I’m not interested in a relationship. I keep telling you that. I just wanted to make sure she hasn’t got a record.”
    Dane started the car, flipping on lights and wiper blades. “She doesn’t. And I’ll keep trying. Not all women are like your sister-in-law.”
    “Pete died because of Ophelié. Because of me. If I hadn’t told him where she was, he’d never have gone to France. They wouldn’t have been on the plane when it crashed.”
    “It was an accident.”
    “We’ll have to agree to disagree there. Are we going, or what?”
    “We’re going.”
     
    ****
     
    Just before five thirty, Ben tapped Adeline’s ankle with his paw.
    “What’s up?” She watched him run to the office door, and got to her feet. That meant there was someone out there she needed to see. She followed him into main reception.
    A tall man with light brown, spiky hair stood there, his arms wrapped around Vianne as