Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights Read Online Free PDF Page B

Anatoly. “The password is June21.” She hesitated a moment before adding in a much quieter voice, “That’s our anniversary.”
    Anatoly waited a few seconds for her to reflect, but I sensed his chivalry was close to used up.
    “Any other addresses? His work e-mail, for example?” he asked.
    “It’s [email protected]. I don’t know what password he used there. I tried accessing his messages when I suspected…” Leah got another faraway look in her eyes.
    Anatoly motioned with his hand for her to continue. “I know what you suspected. So what passwords did you try?” he prompted.
    “Well, I started with our anniversary, of course. We use that code for all of our accounts, our checking, our various online retailers….”
    “What other passwords did you try?”
    “My birthday, the date of our engagement, my name, and I tried one other before I gave up…what was it? Oh, of course, the day we first met. None of them worked.”
    Anatoly jotted it all down. “Did you try narcissistic? ” he whispered under his breath.
    I shot him a dirty look, but Leah didn’t appear to have heard him.
    “Last thing,” he said. “Are there any questions that the police asked you that I haven’t, or vice versa?”
    “No, I’ve answered all these questions before,” Leah said. “I don’t think newly widowed women are supposed to answer all these questions right away. I think they’re supposed to be too distraught to talk. Maybe I’m being callous.”
    Maybe she was being crazy.
    Anatoly studied her. I got the feeling he was trying to pull information out of her—that she didn’t want to voice. Finally, he shrugged and joined me in the kitchen.
    “Come to help me with the tea?”
    Anatoly didn’t even bother acknowledging the question. “Meet me at Leah’s at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.”
    “Is that a request or an order?”
    “Ten-thirty, Sophie. And if you hear anything from the police, call me.” Anatoly left as the kettle began to whistle.
    Leah entered the room and crossed to the stove to turn it off. “Skip the tea. Just give me the brandy.”
     
    The next morning I awoke to the sound of grinding coffee beans, which would normally fill me with the kind of inner peace others only experience after visiting the Dalai Lama. However there was an odd pattern to the noise this morning. Normally when you grind coffee you press the top of the coffee grinder for a minute or so until the beans are as fine as grains of black sand. However the person preparing these beans was pressing the grinder for five seconds at a time, and, taking two-minute breaks in between to utter phrases like “Oh, my head!”
    I pulled on a robe and went out to the kitchen to see Leah braced against the sink, the grinder currently silent beside her.
    Her angry, bloodshot eyes zoomed in on me. “Look at me! Look what you’ve done to me!”
    I didn’t immediately answer. I understood that she was hungover but I missed the part that made it my fault.
    “Why did you let me drink all that brandy?” She ran her fingers through her hair, inadvertently molding it into a wing formation. “How am I going to reevaluate my life if I feel like my head is going to explode?”
    I pulled out a filter and began to prepare the coffeemaker for the beans that I was clearly going to have to grind myself. “Maybe you shouldn’t reevaluate your life just yet.”
    “Of course, I have to reevaluate! Weren’t you listening to me last night? I’m not the wife of a comptroller anymore. I’m the widow of a comptroller. That’s an entirely different situation. I have to figure out—OH MY GOD!”
    I almost dropped the coffeepot. “What? What is it?”
    “This nightgown I’m wearing! You lent me a pink nightgown!”
    I blinked. “I thought you liked pink.”
    “I’m in mourning! I’m supposed to be wearing black.”
    “To the funeral maybe…”
    “No, no, no, no.” Leah shook her head hard enough to cause her hair wings to make a flapping