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near the river, so far from his apartment, so far from his neighborhood of Buckhead? And who was the dead woman?
    Her gaze landed on the book that Gary had given her to read—the sales bible, he had called it. The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz. She had gotten a couple of chapters into it, but had quit reading it when he disappeared, because she'd begun to feel patronized...not by the author, but by Gary. He was always pushing her to think about the future, to become her own boss. Don't spend the rest of your life working for someone else, Jolie. Why spend your energy making someone else rich ?
    It was one of the reasons she had quit the Sanders Agency; when Sammy had made a snide remark about Gary absconding with her car, quitting had seemed like both a way to defend Gary and a way to follow his advice.
    Now who felt like a big, broke fool?
    She rubbed her temples and decided there was no warding off the headache that had been coming on all day. Backtracking to the kitchen, she tossed down a couple of aspirin and peered into the freezer for dinner options. One chicken breast and a package of frozen whole-wheat waffles.
    The waffles won. She dropped two in the toaster, then walked to her desk and flipped on her computer. She'd missed the early local news, but suspected she'd be able to find something online about the discovery reeled out of the Chattahoochee River. She glanced at the to-do list next to her computer and frowned.

    Have business cards printed
    Send postcards to customer list
    Pay E & O insurance premium
    Pay fees for MLS

    The errors and omissions insurance was a must to prevent an honest contractual mistake from wrecking her real-estate career, but thankfully, it was affordable. A lifetime membership to the Multiple Listing System to access home listings online would be less expensive in the long run, but five grand stood between her and that option. For now, she'd have to go the monthly subscription route. And advertising on a shoestring budget meant lots of postcards, flyers, emails, and good old-fashioned cold-calling. She was tempted not to do anything until this bizarre situation with Gary was resolved, but when the holidays were over, the brokerage company had to be up and running. Life would go on, and she needed to be able to support herself.
    Assuming she wasn't in jail, of course.
    Jolie was halfway through the waffles when she found the story she was looking for on a local news web site:

    CAR AND BODY PULLED FROM
    CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER
    A local fisherman alerted Roswell authorities that he'd found what appeared to be a late-model car just below the water's surface near the Morgan Falls Dam. A 2008 silver Mercedes sedan registered to Buckhead resident Gary Edward Hagan was pulled from the Chattahoochee River. Authorities found the decomposing body of an unidentified woman inside. A warrant has been issued for Hagan's arrest. The local and state police are asking that anyone who knows of his whereabouts contact them.

    She clicked on the link to photos and inhaled sharply at the color picture of Gary's car being pulled from the water by a winch, yellow water gushing from the fender wells. The next photo showed a black body bag being loaded into a van. A lump clogged her throat at the graphic nature of the photo—from the way the body handlers held the bag, the body seemed especially unwieldy. But when Jolie hit the button for the next photo, the air fled her lungs. Gary's driver's license photo. He was a handsome man, dark-headed with smooth brown skin, pale eyes, and a charming smile. But the DMV photo made him look heavy-lidded and surly. Any person who saw that photo would think him capable of murder.
    The waffles forgotten, Jolie stared at the photo for the longest time, her eyes watering and her doubts rearing.
    Was he?
    She returned to her bedroom and opened the closet door to stare down at the box of Gary's belongings the apartment manager had given to her. She debated whether she