My Soul to Keep Read Online Free Page B

know most of those kids get found?” Maria asked.“They told me. Eighty percent last year. That’s pretty good odds, don’t you think?”
    “Did you see anyone?” Martinez asked me. “Anything at all?”
    “The only thing I can come up with was one guy who looked funny to me. He was standing with all the parents at the soccer game, but I never saw him with a kid. All the other parents seemed to have kids running on and off the field, and they were yelling for their kids by name. He was watching the game, but not the same way.”
    “What sort of way?” Maria asked. “What do you mean?”
    A stocky, necktied man with thick black hair and wire-rims interrupted us. He greeted Martinez and then turned to me. “I’m Detective Ybarra. Are you Dr. Foster?”
    I nodded, and he said, “Could you follow me, please?”
    I trotted obediently behind him down a short hallway and past a tidy kitchenette. I caught the acrid scent of coffee left too long on the warmer.
    “Offer you a cup?” the detective asked.
    I glanced at the stained carafe. “No thanks.”
    He opened the door to a small room furnished with a white Formica table and two chairs. “Mind if we record this?”
    “Not at all.”
    “Have a seat.”
    He took down my name and contact info, my profession—all my vital signs except temperature and blood pressure—and asked me some general questions about the afternoon and about how I knew Maria and Nicholas. She’d told the police by then about how Nicholas was conceived. I filled in a few blanks about my brush with his father the previous winter. Gordon Pryne was his name. Career criminal, serial violent offender. Nasty slick of a man.
    “He’s back in Huntsville. At least, I assume he’s still there.”
    He paused. “We’re still confirming that.”
    I wondered if he knew something I didn’t.
    “Listen,” I said. “I was just telling Maria—the one thing I doremember is this parent. At least, I assumed he was a parent. He was standing with the crowd, but thinking back on it, I don’t think he really fit in.”
    “Why would you say that?” He began to scribble notes.
    “Well, he was pretty tall, for one thing. Like, almost NBA tall. So he stood out that way. But the other thing is, he didn’t seem connected to any of the kids. He wasn’t rooting for anyone.”
    “Could he have been there with another parent? Was he talking to any of the adults?”
    “Not really. But he was watching the game very closely.”
    “A coach, maybe. Or a scout.”
    “Do scouts come to little-kid soccer games?”
    “No, you’re right. Probably not. But a coach, maybe.”
    “I think a coach would be more engaged than he was.”
    “Engaged how?”
    “He seemed disconnected from them. He was watching them like they were objects, not people. Objectifying the kids, I think. He had a look on his face that was …” I searched for the word. “Predatory,” I said at last.
    “You got a good look at him, then?”
    “I got a decent look, but I’m not sure I can tell you much about him. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
    “Sounds to me like you were.”
    “I was paying attention to the dynamic—the interaction between the people. But not really to the people themselves.”
    He looked at me skeptically. “Is that a shrink thing?”
    I shrugged. “Occupational hazard.”
    “So you can’t describe him?”
    “Tall, like maybe six-six or so? And white or maybe Latin. Not black, definitely. I think he had on a white shirt and shorts. Khaki, maybe. But honestly, that’s a wild guess. I may have imposed that in hindsight.”
    “Hair color?”
    “Don’t remember.”
    “Get a look at his face?”
    “No.”
    “Facial hair or anything?”
    “Not that I noticed. Did you guys interview anyone like that? You talked to all the parents, right?”
    “We’re talking to everyone who was in the park when we arrived. If he left before that, I can’t say.” He hunched thick shoulders over the table and scribbled