Read Light in Shadow for Free Online Page B

around, and went toward the door. At least
    she would have the last word, she thought.
    "Just a minute," Ethan said.
    She glanced back over her shoulder. "Now what?"
    "That's my pen you're walking off with in your bag. Mind giving it back? I'm trying to keep a lid
    on overhead and office expenses."

Chapter Four

    Leon Grady 's heartburn always flared up in the hushed atmosphere and plush surroundings of
    his employer's office suite. He had grown up in a working-class neighborhood where, if you
    were lucky, walls got painted, not paneled, and the furniture was trimmed in plastic made to
    look like wood, not veneered with exotic species of actual trees.
    Dr. Ian Harper had once told him that his office had been designed to calm patients and
    reassure their families. But all the fancy carpeting and the expensive pictures on the walls had
    the opposite effect on Leon. He really hated this room. Talk about stress triggers. Hell, he'd
    been standing here, waiting for Harper to get off the phone for only a few minutes and already
    he could feel the fire starting in his chest.
    Maybe it was one of those weird psychological hangups, he thought, the kind of crazy shit the
    folks who worked here at Candle Lake Manor were always going on about. A phobia or
    something. Maybe he didn't like being in this office because he associated it with his
    worsening stomach problems. In his position as head of security for the Manor, he'd endured
    several extremely unpleasant conversations in this office over the course of the past year.
    Things had been going halfway decently until the two female patients had disappeared. The
    job here at the Manor had been the best one he'd ever had. Bonuses, even. For the first time
    in his life he'd seen some good money coming in. And going out just as fast. Not his fault; he
    had expenses. The payments on the Porsche and the fancy sound system were steep.
    He'd never been much good with money, mostly because he'd never had enough of it. Cash
    went through his fingers like water, but here at the Manor that had been okay because there
    was always another paycheck next month.
    But then the two patients had skipped, and his cozy setup had gone sour. His stomach had
    followed.
    The time right after the escape had been especially bad. Harper had ranted and raved and
    blamed the lousy security. Leon had feared for his job. It wouldn't be easy turning up another
    one, and he sure as hell wouldn't find anything else with the kind of perks he got here at the
    Manor. He had some problems with references.
    He'd felt cornered and panicky when Harper demanded that the two patients be found and
    returned to the Manor. He'd had no idea how to conduct a serious investigation. The Bitch
    Goddess, Fenella, who served as Harper's administrative assistant, had acidly suggested that
    he hire a real investigator, one of those modern, high-tech types who used a computer.
    To his private astonishment, he'd gotten lucky. A few weeks after the patients had
    disappeared, word had come back of a small story in a Mexican newspaper detailing the
    deaths of two women who had perished in a hotel fire. No identification had been found at the
    scene, and the authorities had been unable to locate any next of kin. The only clue to the
    women's identities were a ballpoint pen and some slippers. All three items had been
    monogrammed with the words Candle Lake Manor.
    Leon had been relieved just to have an answer. Sure, it meant a loss of income for Harper,
    but the guy was a businessman. Harper had to understand that sometimes you took a
    financial hit, but that life went on and you brought in new sources of revenue.
    Actually in this case, Harper was still mining the old sources. Leon was impressed. The doc
    had balls. Shrewd operator that he was, Harper continued to bill the Cleland woman's relatives
    and the other woman's trust fund for the very expensive fees charged here at the Manor.
    It was conceivable that Harper's clients might remain in