Free Remembering Dresden (Jack Turner Suspense Series Book 2) by Dan Walsh Page A

collection, Jack guessed the books were put here by old man Wagner, not the son.
    He was about to pull out a few then paused. The dad had been dead for years, but Jack had no idea what the son was like. The Senator. Was he the kind of guy that would notice if someone had been fiddling with his father’s books? Maybe, maybe not. He had rented the place out to Jack. He knew it was for a month. He had plenty of time to come in and take out anything he considered too personal for rental guests to see.
    Jack looked down at the bottom shelves. Wasn’t that his answer? How much could the son care about privacy if he’d left family photo albums on the shelves? Jack wouldn’t even do something like that. And hadn’t Mr. Bass said that The Senator hardly ever came out here anymore?
    Jack walked back to the dinette table and picked up his phone. Just to be on the safe side, he decided to take pictures of the books in place first. Then he wouldn’t have to worry one way or the other about getting them back in their proper place.
    After finishing that task, he started thinking more about old man Wagner and his son, the Senator. He suddenly didn’t care so much about thumbing through all those first edition hardbacks. Squatting down, he pulled out one of the photo albums. There were just two. Not a matched set. The one he pulled out, judging by its condition, looked to be the oldest.
    He straightened up and walked backwards holding it in his hands. Suddenly, his right heel banged into the edge of one of the floorboards. Fortunately, he was shuffling his feet slowly or that could’ve hurt more than it did. He bent down and rubbed his heel, then looked at the cause of his pain. Sure enough, the floorboard was slightly higher than the ones around it. Looking at it more closely, it seemed a slightly different shade than the other boards, too.
    He’d have to watch out for that one, at least until he brought the rug back in from airing out.
    He stood, stepped over the board and plopped into the recliner. He was just about to open the photo album when he remembered the time. He still needed to run down to the store and get some things for his dinner with Rachel. Pulling out his phone, he checked the time, then smiled.
    He had a good thirty minutes before he needed to leave for the store. Knowing how quickly he could get lost once he opened the album, he tapped his alarm app and hit a thirty minute pre-set button he used quite often.
    Then he sat back and carefully opened the first page. The pages were made of thin black paper and so brittle. All the pictures on the first page were very small and all were black and white.

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    The first thing Jack noticed about the pictures was that they were all children. They appeared to be elementary school-age. A few girls but mostly boys. The boys’ haircuts were short and choppy. The girls wore braided pigtails. They were of differing heights but all looked uniformly thin, gaunt even. None of the children smiled in any of the pictures. If anything, they looked worried. The word pensive came to mind.
    The next thing he noticed was how dirty and dingy the scenery was. Granted, the pictures were all black and white, but it was more than that. The roads were grimy and dirty. He saw no trees or bushes, certainly no flowers. There appeared to be no sunshine reflecting on anyone’s faces. In every photo gray, cloudless skies.
    He wondered when and where they were taken. No obvious clues from the pics themselves. His first guess was the 1940s or 50s. Then again, judging by the apparent poverty, it could be from the 1930s, during the Great Depression.
    Carefully turning the page revealed much the same thing on pages two and three. More pictures of children looking poor and disheveled. They weren’t playing with games or toys. If anything, they were standing around or else doing chores. In several pictures, some children pulled and others pushed what looked like a handmade wooden wagon filled with scrap