Sleep Don't Come Easy Read Online Free PDF Page B

rest of the evening at home alone.
    Did she have any problems with anyone who worked here or any of its residents?
    No. Everyone loved Toni.
    A knot tightened in his stomach.
    Everyone loved her. He loved her more than he ever thought possible.

In My Sister’s House
    T oni’s parents couldn’t bring themselves to pack up her apartment yet. Tracy left crying every time she tried. Fatema let herself inside, carrying boxes and packing tape. The Northeast Denver condo was impeccable, but Fatema wasn’t surprised. Toni always had been a neat freak, bordering on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Fatema had always been the opposite. Both of them used to drive the other crazy when they lived together, but somehow, they found a hallowed in-between space of acceptance that worked for them.
    Toni had tastefully decorated in muted earth tones and textures; a sliver of her wild side came out in unexpected splashes of vibrant colors, fusing the peace of her abode, making everything look like it had fallen out of a magazine.
    The police had been through her apartment with a fine tooth comb, and surprisingly enough, had been pretty respectful. Toni’s laptop, which had been confiscated, sat on the coffee table. All of her personal files were stacked in a chair across from the sofa, instead of being placed back in the cabinet where they belonged.
    Fatema turned on the CD player, knowing that she’d dig whatever song it played because Toni had great taste in music. Angie Stone serenaded her, as she slowly began packing, forcing herself not to get bogged down by sadness. She should’ve kept in touch. She should’ve called more. She should’ve returned Toni’s calls. She should’ve kept better track of her friend.
    While putting the file folders in boxes, Fatema accidentally dropped one, and all its contents spilled out onto the floor. Newspaper clippings going back several months of missing children littered the floor. She sat down on the floor and studied each of them before dropping them into the box next to her.

    Fifteen-Year-Old Girl Missing
Eleven-Year-Old Girl Kidnapped
Sixteen-Year-Old Girl Found Dead After Missing Three Years

    Toni had been obsessed with this stuff. In some cases she’d even gone so far as to research some of these stories on the Internet, printing hundreds of pages of information and keeping detailed files on these girls. Gradually, Toni’s research changed from stories of missing girls to the subject of human trafficking. Her files contained story after story of people from all over the world being coerced, tricked, or even abducted, and forced to work for next to nothing, enslaved and tortured, forced to live secretly under the most inhumane conditions.
    In one of the files, she found the picture of the Russian college girl who’d disappeared from an airport in New York City on her way to an Ivy League college. The woman’s picture plastered the front page of the article. Her name was Alina Petrov, and she was nineteen years old Her parents said in an interview that the last time they’d seen their daughter was when they said goodbye to her at the airport in London with several of her friends who had all been accepted at Brown. Upon further investigation, after their daughter was reported missing, Brown had no record of any of the students.
    She knew the police had already gone through Toni’s laptop, but Fatema turned it on anyway, hoping she could get a better idea of what Toni had been on to.
    Of course it was password protected. And of course, Fatema knew what the password was. B-I-L-B-O. Toni had been a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit and named her first cat after the main character. Toni used that password for everything, even after that damn cat got run over by the garbage truck eight years ago.
    She had no idea what she was looking for, but she started with Toni’s e-mail account. She typed in BILBO again and