Read Next to Die for Free Online

you say to Eric Tomlinson?” she asked, pen poised over a legal pad.
    “I identified myself.”
    “Yes?”
    “He . . . made a sound of surprise. Then I asked him how he slept at night, considering what he’d done.”
    “You didn’t mention the ricin?”
    “No, but I think he knew what I was talking about.”
    Hannah jotted herself a note. “What did he say to you?”
    “It was hard to understand him because he stutters. But he did say something that sounded like ‘You’re gonna regret this.’” She hadn’t told Penny that part.
    “Is that the last time you spoke with him?” the agent asked.
    “Not really. He’s been calling me. I sublet my apartment and moved in with my sister to avoid his calls, but last night he found me again.” She shivered at the recollection.
    “What does he say when he calls you?”
    “Not much,” Lia admitted. “He can barely get a word out.”
    Hannah Lindstrom tapped her pen on the legal pad. “We don’t issue personal bodyguards,” she said, answering Lia’s earlier question. “If a witness in a major case is being intimidated, we’ll ask the U.S. Marshal’s service to protect them. That’s not exactly the situation here.”
    Lia blushed, feeling chastised.
    “If you feel threatened, you can call your local phone company and give them permission to identify your caller,” the woman suggested. “The police handle misdemeanors like harassment.” She pulled a business card from the holder on the desk. “Here’s my card. If you come across anything else related to the ricin, be sure to let me know.”
    “I will,” said Lia, dropping the card into her purse. She realized, with a cinching in her chest, that the FBI wasn’t going to rush out and arrest Eric tonight. “So, what now?” she asked.
    “I’ll take a look at the earlier investigation and give you a call. I have your contact information,” she added, referring to the sheet that Lia’d filled out in the waiting room. “I assume you’re going to stay with your sister for a while?”
    “Yes,” Lia acknowledged with a grimace. As much as she’d like to be back in her own apartment, she couldn’t afford to return, anyway.
    A vulnerable feeling accompanied Lia out of the building and into her car. She eased away from the FBI compound with her returned pepper spray, only to find herself stuck in the heavy traffic pouring out of the Norfolk Naval Operations Base.
    “What is it with sailors getting off at three in the afternoon?” she groused, wanting desperately to get back to Penny’s in Virginia Beach.
    She hadn’t felt safe being in possession of the journal. Now that the FBI was holding it, she strangely felt less safe.
    It was a bleak and overcast October day. It wasn’t particularly cold, yet Lia shivered and cranked up the heat in her Oldsmobile. Keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, she scanned the drivers behind her.
    Would she even recognize Eric after all these years? She’d met him only a couple of times when he and his wife came to their house for her father’s Christmas dinner. She’d freak out if she saw him behind her now. But what could he do to her, run her off the road and drag her out of the car? She’d blast him with her pepper spray if he did that.
    She’d owned the can of pepper spray for three years now and never used it. Oh, crap, that stuff didn’t go bad, did it?
    As she grubbed in her purse, the traffic inched forward. Leery of being cut off by a lane switcher, Lia accelerated abruptly, only to brake again. With one hand in her purse, she sifted through the sea of makeup.
    Mascara, lipstick, lip gloss, eyeliner. Aha, pepper spray.
    She withdrew the can and turned it over. Where was the expiration date on this thing?
    Bam!
    With an exclamation of horror, Lia looked up to realize that she’d plowed into the back of the Honda Civic she’d been tailing. She dropped the pepper spray and clutched the steering wheel in consternation. Oh, my God, not another