Next to Die Read Online Free PDF Page B

two chairs. “Can I interest you in coffee?” she asked, indicating the percolator perched atop a tray table.
    “Oh, no thanks. I’m nervous enough.”
    “There’s no need to be nervous,” Hannah reassured her, lacing her long fingers together. A sizable diamond winked on her left hand. “What can I do for you?”
    Lia rummaged in her purse and produced the journal Penny’d instructed her to bring. She withdrew a square of paper from the back of the notebook and unfolded it. “Our father died five years ago, when his car went off the road. The accident was deemed suspicious, but nothing came of that. Penny just found this in Daddy’s journal.” She handed the printed e-mail message across the desk.
    The special agent skimmed the paper with apple-green eyes. “Who is Eric Tomlinson?” she asked.
    “He used to be my father’s partner. They worked together at BioTech, a biochemical lab outside of Langley Air Force Base.”
    The agent nodded, indicating that she’d heard of it.
    “Just before my father died, a toxic by-product called ricin went missing from the lab. There was a big stink about it in the news.”
    “Ricin,” repeated the agent, with a spark of interest. As she studied the text, her auburn eyebrows drew together. “‘Sixty-four thousand dollars was wired this morning to the account specified,’” she read out loud. “Why would your father have kept this?”
    “He suspected Eric of selling the ricin. It says so right here in his journal in the last couple of entries.” Lia opened the journal to the appropriate page and gave it to the agent to peruse. “My sister thinks that when our father saw the e-mail, he confronted Eric and gave him time to do the right thing.” She pushed their suspicion through a tightening throat. “But Eric was more concerned with covering up his crime.”
    The gaze that rose from the handwritten journal was thoughtful, relieving Lia’s fear that their suspicions would be mocked. “And all this happened five years ago.”
    “Is that a problem?” Lia asked.
    “If we’re talking murder with malice aforethought, then there’s no statute of limitations that would prevent us from pressing charges,” Hannah reassured her. “The problem here is whether the trail has gone cold.”
    “Five years is a long time,” Lia conceded.
    “Can you tell me where your father died?”
    “Somewhere close to Morgantown, West Virginia. He was on a business trip.”
    “Do you have a copy of his death certificate?”
    “Penny would,” Lia said, realizing that despite her grief, Penny had managed to contact their father’s insurance company, meet with lawyers, plead for Social Security benefits. Meanwhile, Lia had simply taken up a drug habit. She owed Penny bigtime.
    “I’ll need you to fax me that certificate as soon as you find it. I’m assuming the car was totaled and hauled to a junkyard. If it hasn’t been scrapped, we can examine it, as well as take a look the first investigation.”
    Lia tugged on a dangly earring. “Do you think you’ll find anything, after all this time?”
    “You never know,” said the agent with a shrug. “There ought to have been plenty of information documented right after the ricin went missing. We might be able to build a case on that.”
    “You don’t, um, offer bodyguard services, do you?” Lia inquired.
    The agent’s quick glance gave nothing away. “Why do you ask?”
    “Well, I think I might have blown it by confronting Eric over the phone.” Lia bit her bottom lip.
    “You made contact with the suspect,” the agent confirmed.
    “Yeah, when Penny told me about the journal, I kind of flipped out,” Lia confessed. And that was probably an understatement. She’d been furious to think that the father she’d adored with all her heart had been murdered by his friend and partner, of all people. His death had cast a pall over what ought to have been the best years of her life.
    Hannah reached for a pen. “What exactly did