Free The Forgotten by David Baldacci

you want to get paid for the funeral service then I really need confirmation that you have her. Otherwise you can just foot the bill yourselves.”
    This approach seemed to stimulate the woman’s memory.
    “Well, without giving out any private information, we did receive an elderly female’s body whose clothes were damp and who lived on Orion Street.”
    “I’ll be over later today to make arrangements. I know the ME performed an autopsy. I’m assuming he’s released the body. But I would appreciate if nothing else is done to the remains before I get there. Are we clear on that?”
    “Until the contract is signed and the deposit made, I can assure you that nothing will be done,” the woman said primly.
    Puller clicked off and thought,
Paradise just keeps getting better and better.
    He drove his car to an outdoor café near the beach. He had chosen this spot because it afforded a nice vantage point of a major swath of the town. He ordered a turkey sandwich, fries, and iced tea. It was too hot for his normal pop of max-caffeinated coffee. And he was thinking about giving it up anyway. He was afraid it would start to impede his aim.
    As he ate and drank he took mental pictures of all that was going on around him. He saw a pristine convertible Porsche driving nextto an old Ford pickup truck with barely any tread on the tires or metal on the frame. A few moments later a large truck chugged by with a landscaping company’s name on its side. It stopped at the traffic light.
    Puller studied the five men in dirty work pants and soaked-in-sweat matching green T-shirts with the company name on them standing up in the back of the truck. They were all short, stocky Latinos, except for the biggest one, who looked like a parent surrounded by kindergartners. He was easily two inches taller and more than fifty pounds heavier than Puller with not an ounce of fat on him. Guys that size tended to be bulky and slow-looking. This guy seemed almost gaunt. His hands were long gristly bones that looked strong enough to choke an elephant. The men’s gazes locked for a brief instant and then the truck and the giant were gone.
    Puller saw a police cruiser pass by. He half expected to see Landry and Hooper inside, but it was another pair of cops who barely looked at him.
    Puller paid his bill, finished off his iced tea, and phoned the VA hospital back in Virginia. He asked for his father’s doctor and was put on hold several different times before a woman’s voice said, “Dr. Murphy is tied up, can I help you?”
    Puller explained who he was and what he wanted.
    “Mr. Puller, I can put you right in to talk to your father. Perhaps you can calm him down.”
    Doubtful
, thought Puller. But he said, “I can try.”
    His old man’s voice boomed through the phone. “XO? That you, XO?”
    “It’s me, sir.”
    “Mission brief,” said his father tersely.
    “I’m on the ground in Florida. I did a recon of the area, interfaced with the locals. Later I plan to assess the casualties and will report back in at that time, sir.”
    “Somebody took my top-secret communication, XO. From my personal safe.”
    “You gave it to me, sir, need to know only. You must have other things on your mind, sir. Takes a lot of thinking to run the 101st.”
    “Hell yes it does.”
    “So I’ve got the communication, sir. Not to worry. Report back twenty hundred hours.”
    “Roger that. Good luck, XO.”
    Puller clicked off and felt ashamed, as he did every time he played this subterfuge with his father. But what was the alternative?
    One he didn’t want to face, he supposed.
    He next phoned USDB in Kansas and made arrangements to talk to his brother that night. After that, he put the phone away. It was time to see his aunt.
    Despite their separation, once he had become an adult a part of Puller had always thought he would see Betsy Simon again.
    Just not like this.

14
    B AILEY’S F UNERAL H OME WAS A three-story brick building three blocks off the water and