Unspoken , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Dee Henderson

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

187 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Charlotte Graham is at the center of the most famous kidnapping in Chicago history. The task force of FBI and local cops found her two abductors, killed them, rescued her, but it took four very long years. The fact she was found less than three miles from her home, had been there the entire time, haunts them. She's changed her identity, found a profession she loves, and rebuilt her life. She's never said a word--to the cops, to her doctors, to family--about those four years. A family legacy has brought her back to Chicago where a reporter is writing a book about the kidnapping. The cops who worked the case are cooperating with him. Her options are limited: Hope the reporter doesn't find the full truth, or break her silence about what happened. And her silence is what has protected her family for years. Bryce Bishop doesn't know her past, he only knows she has coins to sell from her grandfather's estate--and that the FBI director for the Chicago office made the introduction. The more he gets to know Charlotte, the more interested he becomes, an interest encouraged by those closest to her. But nothing else is working in his favor--she's decided she is single for life, she struggles with her faith, and she's willing to forego a huge inheritance to keep her privacy. She's not giving him much of an opening to work with.Charlotte wants to trust him. She needs to tell him what happened. Because a crime cops thought was solved, has only opened another chapter...

Sujets

Thriller

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 octobre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441263407
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0461€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2013 by Dee Henderson
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2013
Ebook corrections 10.17.2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6340-7
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Jennifer Parker
Cover photography by Tyler Gould
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Pologue
Part One: Bryce Bishop
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Part Two: The Gift
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Part Three: The Secrets
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
About the Author
Books by Dee Henderson
Back Ads
Back Cover
Prologue
I never talk about what happened.
There are reasons, good reasons, but I keep those to myself too.
I’m told the cops dealing with my case are wrapping up the last details, the task force dispersing back to their prior jobs. They seem relieved, the ones who have stopped by the hospital—relieved to see me alive, and they are tired. I have dominated their every waking moment, and the stress of the case has been enormous. They are glad I’m alive, and they are ready to move on.
My sister has hired me a bodyguard. Someone to keep the press away, along with the gawkers. There are newscasters vying for the first interview, and photographers trying to sneak in to get first photos. The bodyguard is talking to my nurse down the hall, and I can hear his voice—low-pitched, determined—and the way he says ma’am I can hear his still-fresh military background. He hasn’t tapped on my door to introduce himself yet, but that is coming soon. I think I’m ready.
I hope I don’t see too much pity in his gaze, or too much seriousness. I’m alive, not dead. I’d like a smile occasionally, or even a laugh, rather than more of the grave intensity I see in everyone around me.
A tap on the door has me looking up from flipping pages in a magazine. I see a guy in jeans and a casual shirt who looks like a college student. Lanky, tall, nice blue eyes. I notice the hands in his back pockets, and the quick scan he’s giving me.
“Ruth, I’m John Key.” The voice puts him as the soldier-now-bodyguard I’ve been waiting to meet.
I decide I like his smile.
“I’m thinking about changing my name.” I have no idea why that is my first sentence, but apparently he’s better at social skills than I am because he merely nods before walking into the room and taking a seat on the edge of the bed, crowding me, but in a nice way, not trying to not make contact.
“Don’t make it Margaret. And I don’t like Shelly,” he offers, taking my suggestion seriously.
“I was thinking about Jessica. Or maybe Charlotte.”
“I could learn to like Charlotte.”
I decide on the spot I’ll be Charlotte. The person I have been, Ruth Bazoni, needs the space to rest, and even, maybe, to be forgotten. Charlotte . . . Charlotte Something—it feels kind of interesting to think of starting over.
I think it’s his voice that I like best. The sound is different from the voices I’ve feared. John is young, but the voice is old. His eyes are old too. There’s experience there that seems out of place. But I understand it. This man has seen war. He only looks young. I wonder if my eyes look the same. A young face, with ancient eyes.
“Your sister hired me, but my job description is so vague it’s got no boundaries. To keep it simple, I’m going to tell people I’m your boyfriend, and then tell them to go away.”
I nod, as if it’s not that big a deal, but it’s a big deal. The fact he would make the suggestion, would look past what’s happened in order to make it, is an act of deep kindness. I’ve never had a boyfriend, and I know I’ll be single for the rest of my life, but I can pretend if he can. “Could our first date be pizza and somewhere that is not this room? I’m hungry. And I’m bored.”
His laugh is nice. “I’m good for pizza.” He stands. “If we’re going to spend the next few weeks breaking the rules, we might as well start now. The elevator is close by. I can find a place in this hospital complex with at least a view, and a good pizza can get delivered. Think you can get dressed on your own, or should I invent a reason for the nurse to come help you?”
“I’ll manage.”
He nods and steps away, lets the door close behind him.
I know I am much too thin—nearly all bones. I’ll probably manage just half a piece of pizza before becoming full. But I can see a day when those will not be the facts, and I want to get there soon.
I change into black slacks and a university sweatshirt, being careful of my aching wrist, and struggle to slip my feet into tennis shoes. I am sweating when I’m done, wondering how foolish I’m going to feel when my strength runs out before I can get back to my bed. I push away the thought, open the door.
John is leaning against the wall outside my room, and he nods to the wheelchair parked beside him. I settle in the chair and spread the blanket he hands me out across my lap. I notice my nurse is gone from the center station. “You told her we were leaving.”
“What she doesn’t see, she can’t testify to.”
He tugs a chain with dog tags and two worn keepsake medals off his neck. “Wear these. They brought me good luck. You could use some too.” He slides them over my hair, lets them fall into place, then steps behind the wheelchair and begins pushing me toward the elevator.
I finger the metal, still warm from being against his skin. I blink back tears. I managed to get a guy who is genuinely nice. I hope he stays, at least a month or two.
“What kind of pizza?” he asks.
I smile, my first real smile in four years. “Supreme, please.”

ONE
T he day his life changed forever didn’t announce itself; it just arrived.
The winter sun set early, and by the store lights against a dark night Bryce Bishop walked the display cases in his store, visually noting the changes from yesterday. They had done a steady business in old silver—Morgan dollars, Standing Liberty half-dollars. The end-of-day report Devon had generated would give him the exact numbers, but he could see it had been a profitable day.
In ten years he might be buying back what they had sold today. He was in one of the few retail businesses where the merchandise would never again be created and was rarely destroyed—it only changed hands. Most of the high-end collectible coins in the Chicago area eventually came through his store—Bishop Chicago—to be appraised for insurance purposes, to be sold, to be photographed for an upcoming auction. There was good money to be made in old coins if you knew how to buy and sell wisely. He did. He had been doing so for more than a decade.
Bryce polished a spot off the display glass with his shirt-sleeve cuff. He was bored out of his mind, but the business was profitable and gave good jobs to ten people he liked. He could hand the keys to Devon and be an absentee owner. The store would be in good hands. But walking away from his life wouldn’t solve his problem. He reset the security for the showroom floor and pushed down the restless desire not to come in tomorrow.
“Have a safe night, Mr. Bishop,” the security guard called from his desk.
“You too, Gary.”
Bryce walked around to the back of the building to the parking lot. Snow from the prior night still dusted the pavement. He tugged out his keys. It would be good to get home. No one was waiting for him, and maybe that was part of the problem. But his extended family was important to him—sisters, brothers, parents, cousins, the next generation of kids beginning to look to him for baseball games, movie afternoons, vacation trips—and he had friends who would fill the evening if he wanted to see someone. He was mind-numbingly bored, and it wasn’t a good reality. But it was something he could change if he could just figure out what he wanted different in his days.
“Bishop.”
He turned to see a woman leaning against an old truck in the far corner of the lot, her hands buried in the pockets of her jacket.
“You’re about to get a call. You should answer it.”
Silence hung between them, and then the phone in his pocket began to ring. He watched her as he listened to the sound, and she didn’t move. Neither did he, as he considered what might be going on. Robbery, with a threat to his family to get him to comply? A kidnapping, demanding a ransom? He could see no one else in the parking lot, but the security lights only illuminated the surface and cast shadows—someone else could easily be sitting in a vehicle watching.
“Nothing bad has happened. It’s simply an introduction.” Her voice floated across the parking lot, faint but clear.
He pulled the phone from his pocket, eyes still on her. “Bishop.”
“I don’t know the lady, but I know who is vouching for her,” Paul Falcon told him, the familiar voice