Читать книгу Bone Cold - Erica Spindler, Erica Spindler - Страница 15

Saturday, January 13 3:10 p.m.

Saturday at three sneaked up on Ben, so much so that he missed the first ten minutes of the E! program, one about unsolved Hollywood mysteries. He sank back against the sofa cushions, exhausted. He’d fallen asleep at his research last night and, although he only had a vague recollection of doing so, he’d stumbled to his bed sometime during the night. He had awakened just before dawn, lying horizontally across the bed, completely dressed and feeling as if he had spent hours out howling at the moon instead of slumped over a desk.

The show cut to commercial break. As it did, the narrator urged viewers to stay tuned. Up next: Fairy Tale Turned Nightmare: The Harlow Anastasia Grail Kidnapping.

Ben leaned forward in his seat, instantly alert. The Grail kidnapping was one of those cases that resurfaced in the media every few years. It possessed all the elements to make its appeal timeless: beautiful people with Hollywood connections, wealth, children in danger, both a tragic and triumphant ending, an unsolved mystery.

The narrator returned, briefly recounting the tale of the little Hollywood princess and the day she and her friend had disappeared from the stable on the Grail’s Beverly Hills estate. The show recounted the story in news clips from the time and in dramatic reenactments—including one of Harlow Grail’s daring escape.

Ben hung on every word. He realized he was holding his breath and released it slowly. Whatever happened to her? he wondered. After enduring such an ordeal, what had she become? How had the horror of those three days affected the person she was today? The choices she’d made and the relationships she’d forged?

Even as the questions filtered through his brain, the show switched to a recent interview with Savannah Grail. Minutes later, the show’s focus shifted to another mystery.

Ben flipped off the TV and sat back, intrigued. Harlow Grail’s story would be an incredible addition to his book. She had survived an experience few did; that experience had no doubt shaped the rest of her life. Inclusion of her story would not only enrich his book, it would make it newsworthy.

He drew his eyebrows together, reviewing what he had learned from the program. Savannah Grail had indicated that her daughter lived in New Orleans, that she was a suspense novelist, published in hardcover by Cheshire House. She had revealed that her daughter wrote under a pseudonym and fiercely guarded her privacy.

Ben stood and crossed to his desk. There he found the book that had been left for him the day before. The spine listed the publisher as Cheshire House, the author as Anna North.

Of course. North had been Savannah Grail’s maiden name, a fact he hadn’t remembered until it had been mentioned on the show just now. Anna was a diminutive of both Anastasia and Savannah. Obviously then, Anna North the novelist was little Harlow Grail, the kidnapped Hollywood princess.

Ben frowned down at the novel in his hands, puzzled. Which of his patients had left the book for him? Why had they left it?

He would simply ask, he decided. Starting with the six patients he had seen the day before.