Free Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle by Jeffrey Round

the windows and took a couple of pictures then sat watching, his breath hanging on the air. The woman stopped every few seconds to draw a lungful of oxygen and stretch her left arm. Dan saw the pain in her face. He put the camera down and stepped out of the car.
    She looked up when he approached.
    â€œDo you need some help?” he asked.
    She leaned on the shovel and regarded him. “I hurt my arm.”
    â€œI can see that.”
    He took the shovel and cleared her sidewalk with a dozen brisk motions.
    â€œThank you, sir,” she said.
    â€œIt’s no problem.”
    She stood there watching him. “They told me I’d better watch out for anyone with a camera. They said the insurance company would take pictures of me and show the court.”
    He smiled. She’d known he was there. “What did you say?”
    â€œI said I’d tell the court the insurance company didn’t pay me my money for six months now, so I didn’t have no choice but to shovel my own snow. Otherwise somebody’s goin’ to get hurt like I did and then they’ll sue me!”
    â€œYou live all alone?”
    She nodded. “My husband died. My son got married and went back to Jamaica. I ast the neighbour’s boy would he shovel for me. He said he couldn’t be bothered for no five dollars. I’ll give it to you, if you want it.”
    She held out a bill.
    Dan shook his head. “You keep it,” he said, jabbing the shovel into a drift.
    Back in his car, he yanked the film from the camera and returned to work to hand in his resignation. The baby was four months away.
    A week later, another ad held out hope. If he could locate insurance scammers, Dan felt, surely he could locate other missing people. The office might be a dismal shade of grey that reflected in the faces of everyone who worked there, but it seemed a long step up from what he’d been doing. His colleagues were an interesting mix of former police officers and private investigators. What the walls lacked in colour his co-workers made up for in personality.
    Somehow he talked himself into the job, beginning with a research position. Dan found he had the right stuff to find people who went missing for more compelling reasons than avoiding insurance investigators. He still suffered qualms over tracking down someone who might not want to be found, but he no longer felt he was enabling insurance companies to punish innocent people for doing what others did: living their lives as best they could.
    A personal tape recorder, a high-speed camera, and a flashlight became his stock-in-trade. He wrote down all the relevant facts on a thick notepad, then memorized them and looked for ways to connect the dots. Theories without facts were useless, he soon learned, but facts that didn’t stand up to testing were a waste of time.
    Somehow he made it through the first year, then a second, with most of his personal beliefs intact and Ked growing like an errant weed he’d planted on a whim and was surprised to find waiting for him each morning when he woke.
    He hired a nanny and trundled off to work and back again each day, spending his evenings alone with this bundle of living, breathing flesh that seemed as much a part of him as his own arm.
    At times, the boy was his only companion apart from the TV. He tried to juggle Ked on his knee and watch the jabbering shows about raising kids and having a rewarding life at the same time. The ones where privileged women argued about epidurals and hiring midwives. In truth, the task was lonely and demanding and he seldom seemed to get outside of an insular world that had shrunk to almost nothing. There were days when he still wished he had a career that was impressive-sounding, but that thought died when he celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday alone.

Six
Anger Management
    The morning passed with little excitement. The bottle of Scotch did not put in an appearance. Just before one o’clock