Read i 9fb2c9db4068b52a for Free Online

blow.
    After answering Pete as best she could, she worked on whittling down the e-mails from the handwriting analysis Listserv of which she was a member. She kept hard at it until after nine, when her neck and shoulders began to protest that she had been too long in the chair.
    Pushing away from the desk, she headed downstairs, stopping in the kitchen long enough to splash a shot of vodka into a glass, followed by a generous helping of cranberry juice. She took the drink with her and crossed the dark living room, stepping through the open door to the deck that jutted out over the front of the house, facing the ocean. The night called to her. She went back inside and ran upstairs, changed into sweats, and jammed bare feet into grubby sneakers without bothering to untie the laces. Locking the door behind her and pocketing the key, she hurried down the steps.
    Wisps of fog curled around her in the darkness. She lifted her face to the cool dampness of marine air on her skin.
    “Walk, Flare?” she called softly, crossing her neighbor’s front lawn. A loud bark came from the other side of the wooden fence separating the houses. Even in the relatively safe beach community of Playa De la Reina, walking alone at night was an iffy proposition. Claudia was as grateful for the company of her neighbor’s massive German Shepherd as the dog was eager to go.
    She rang the doorbell and heard it play the opening bars of Strangers in the Night . Seconds later, her neighbor, Marcia Collins, looked through the peephole, then opened the door. She stood tall and slim in cutoff blue jeans and a man’s Oxford shirt, a cigarette in her hand. “Hey, Claudia, wanna buy a dog?”
    “I’ll just keep on borrowing yours if you don’t mind. I’d never be able to give one of my own enough attention.” Marcia stood aside to let her in. “You look a little shopworn, neighbor. What’s up?”
    “Went to a funeral. You’d have had fun. Movie stars up the yin-yang.”
    “You’re kidding. The funeral on the news tonight? Russell Crowe was there—did you see him?”
    “Only from a distance.”
    Marcia moaned. “He is so hot.”
    Claudia followed her into the kitchen. “I just caught a quick glimpse. He rushed off right after the service. So, how’s work?”
    Marcia waitressed at Cowboys, the bar and grill down the hill at the beach end of the short string of shops and restaurants comprising Playa De la Reina’s tiny main drag. She scowled. “One of the waitresses took a hike, so yours truly got stuck with the extra hours till they hire someone else. I totally hate having no time to myself. Lucky for Flare you’re here. She wouldn’t get diddly squat of a walk out of me tonight.”
    Claudia grinned. “Good, ‘cause I need the beach. Desperately.”
    “Honey,” Marcia admonished, wagging a finger at Claudia, “what you need is a man.”
    “Thanks for the advice, but I’ve bagged my limit for this year.”
    “Oh come on, you’re too young to give up on men.”
    “I haven’t given up, I’m just taking a time-out.”
    Marcia unwound the dog’s heavy leash from around the doorknob and attached it to a harness. She opened the back door and the big Shepherd bounded in, paws clicking loudly on the tiled floor as she slid to a stop at Claudia’s feet and began nosing her.
    Marcia snapped the harness around the excited animal’s forequarters. “Dammit, Flare, don’t do that!” She looked up. “So, this woman who died; she killed herself, right? Flare, sit! Why d’you think she did it?”
    Why did Lindsey do any of the crazy things she’d done?
    Maybe one of those crazy things got her murdered.
    Claudia shook her head with a sigh. “Kiddo, I haven’t a clue.”
    As they started back across the kitchen, Marcia stopped to pick up a greeting card lying on the table and thrust it at Claudia. “What do you think? It’s this new guy I’ve been seeing.”
    Claudia knew she was talking about his handwriting. She looked at the message