Free Every Dead Thing by John Connolly Page B

to sign it before we proceed any further,” she concluded.
    It seemed like nobody involved with the Barton Trust had a particularly trusting nature. “I don’t think so,” I said. “If you’re concerned about possible breaches of confidentiality, then hire a priest to do your work. Otherwise you’ll have to take my word that what passes between us will go no further.” Perhaps I should have felt guilty about lying to her. I didn’t. I was a good liar. It’s one of the gifts God gives alcoholics.
    “That’s not acceptable. I am already unconvinced about the necessity of hiring you and I certainly feel it is inappropriate to do so without—”
    She was interrupted by the sound of the office door opening. I turned to see a tall, attractive woman enter, her age indeterminable through a combination of the gentleness of nature and the magic of cosmetics. At a glance I would have guessed she was in her late forties, but if this was Isobel Barton, then I knew she was closer to fifty-five, maybe older. She wore a pale blue dress that was too subtly simple to be anything but expensive and displayed a figure that was either surgically enhanced or extremely well preserved.
    As she drew closer and the tiny wrinkles in her face became clearer, I guessed it was the latter: Isobel Barton did not look like the sort of woman who resorted to plastic surgery. Around her neck gold and diamonds glittered, and a pair of matching earrings sparkled as she walked. Her hair too was gray, but she let it hang long and loose on her shoulders. She was still an attractive woman and she walked like she knew it.
    Philip Kooper had borne the brunt of the media attention following the disappearance of the Baines boy, but that attention had not been significant. The Baines boy was from a family of dopers and no-hopers. His disappearance merited a mention only because of the trust, and even then the trust’s lawyers and patrons had called in enough favors to ensure that speculation was kept to a minimum. The boy’s mother was separated from his father and they hadn’t been getting along any better since he left.
    The police were still trying to trace the father in case of a possible snatch, even though every indication was that the father, a petty criminal, hated his child. In some cases, that might be enough to justify taking the child and killing him to get at his estranged wife. When I was a rookie patrolman, I once arrived at a tenement to find a man had abducted his baby daughter and drowned her in the bath because his ex-wife wouldn’t let him have the TV after they separated.
    Only one piece of coverage of the Baines disappearance stuck in my mind: a picture of Mrs. Barton, snapped head-bowed as she visited the mother of Evan Baines in a rundown project. It was supposed to have been a private visit. The photographer, returning from the scene of a drug killing, just happened to be passing. One or two papers took the picture, but they ran it small.
    “Thank you, Caroline. I’ll talk to Mr. Parker alone for a while.” She smiled as she said it but her tone brooked no argument. Her assistant affected a lack of concern at the dismissal but her eyes flashed fire. When she had left the room, Mrs. Barton seated herself on a stiff-backed chair away from the desk and motioned me toward a black leather couch, then turned her smile on me.
    “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t authorize any such agreement but Caroline can be overprotective of me at times. Can we offer you coffee, or would you prefer a drink?”
    “Neither, thank you. Before you go any further, Mrs. Barton, I should tell you that I don’t really do missing persons work.” In my experience, searching for missing persons was best left to specialist agencies with the manpower to chase up leads and possible sightings. Some solo investigators who took on that kind of work were at best ill equipped and at worst little better than parasites who preyed on the hopes of those who remained