Free Bone Hunter by Sarah Andrews Page B

Hansen,” I whispered, not bothering to give the location I knew would already be illuminated on the dispatcher’s desk set. “Please radio Officer Raymond in his car.” My mind sped ahead, worrying that the dispatcher wouldn’t know which car he had.
    “Can you speak louder?”
    My throat tightened as if an invisible hand were clutching it. “Please radio Officer Raymond. He should be in his car. It’s right outside here, for crap’s sake!”
    “Please repeat your …”
    My attention shifted from the dispatcher’s voice to the door that led to the backyard as I heard the small sound of metal striking metal, a key rolling the tumblers of the lock. The knob turned. It was too late to dash out of the kitchen. Instead, I squeezed farther in between the counter and the refrigerator, trying in vain to hide myself from whoever was now opening the door, now stepping inside the house … .
    I heard soft footfalls. A voice, light and cheery. “Hell- ooo! ” it called.
    The telephone crackled in my ear. “Miss? Are you there?”
    The door closed, and the source of the cheery greeting stepped into my line of view. It was a small woman, barely more than a girl—petite, almost fragile. An elf, a fair wisp of a person, covered in a dark cloak that looked like it had been
cut from an army-surplus blanket. She knocked back its hood and peered at me. She was plain, not pretty. Twentyish, but so diminutive and work-worn that I could not tell exactly. She could have been eighteen or even younger. She had pale, washed-out blond hair, but her skin was dry and cracked from long and early exposure to the sun. Her gray eyes were bright behind thick, unattractive glasses, and her lips were bowed in a tentative smile. I knew in a flash that there was nothing to fear from this person, except—
    Into the phone, I said levelly, “Please just ask him to come,” and hung up. To the little female staniding in front of me, I said, “Hello yourself,” more confidently than I felt.
    Her smile bloomed, bringing roses to her cheeks, a surprise from one so otherwise indistinct. “Ooooo,” she cooed, then jubilantly cried, “Stand up! Stand up!” When I did, she closed the remaining few feet between us, swept my hands into hers, and clutched them to her waifish breast. “We meet at last,” she said, sighing passionately.
    “We—”
    “I’m just so glad! I can’t tell you. George promised me a birthday treat, but I had no idea it could be you! He’s been so silly about this, really, thinking we shouldn’t meet, but now we have met, and it’s just perfect, isn’t it? Have you been here long?”
    “I—”
    “Oh, I’ve dreamt of this day. We shall all be in the Celestial Kingdom together, at the highest level of heaven, I know it! We shall—”
    “No, wait! Let me talk. Who are you?”
    Her smile tightened into a pucker. She bowed her head slightly and looked up at me from underneath her almost colorless eyelashes, as if I were having a very funny little joke with her. “Oh, come now, silly. I’m Nina. You can’t tell me George hasn’t told his wife my name … .”

    “I’m not—” I stopped myself. Whoever this creature was, she thought I was George Dishey’s wife. But George hadn’t had a wife, had he? No, I was certain of that; he had been a known bachelor. I’d heard that fact advanced as an explanation for his eccentricities, his rather unusual public persona. And he stood right there and called himself an eligible bachelor not twenty-four hours ago, back when he was … alive. So who is this creature? His daughter? Had he, in fact, been married but separated, or divorced? Surely there’s no trace of female habitation in this house, no evidence of a wife … .
    Nina was still holding my hands, at waist level now, and had begun to sway back and forth, as if we had just been dancing and the music had ended before she was ready to let me go. Her cloak parted, showing a drab, shapeless frock made of cheap, faded