Free Live and Let Die by Bianca Sloane

don’t follow.”
    “Sorry. Let me start over. My sister, Tracy Ellis, disappeared about three years ago and I was going through her old date book and found your number in it. She’d made an appointment to meet with you and—”
    “Did you say Tracy Ellis?” Damon Randall interrupted.
    “Yes.”
    “Hold on a minute.” Sondra could hear him shuffling papers and opening drawers.
    “You said three years ago.”
    Sondra nodded. “Right.”
    “What month?”
    “February.”
    “Ah. Yes. I was going to meet with Ms. Ellis on Monday morning at ten a.m., February first. She never made it. I do remember now she disappeared and later died, so obviously, we never met.”
    “Mr. Randall, why was my sister coming to meet you? I mean, what is it that you do?”
    There was a small pause. “She wanted to discuss a divorce.”
    Sondra’s heart began to stab her chest. “Whose divorce?”
    “Hers.”
    The box of Soba noodles slipped out of Sondra’s hands and spilled onto the floor, lashing her bare foot with thick, brown sauce. “You’re a divorce attorney?”
    “Yes. A friend of Ms. Ellis’ gave her my card and she contacted me and asked if we could meet first thing that Monday. She wanted to file for divorce from her husband.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Quite. She plainly said she wanted to talk about what steps she would need to take to file for a divorce from her husband. We didn’t discuss many details, planning of course, to do that when we met.”
    “Mr. Randall, my sister had only been married six months.”
    “I’ve seen shorter marriages.”
    Sondra shook her head. “But… man, this makes no sense,” she whispered to herself. “And she didn’t tell you anything, nothing at all?”
    “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry, Ms. Ellis, but I have a very busy afternoon and I really must go.”
    “Oh, yeah right. Thank you.”
    “My condolences on the loss of your sister. I do recall it being a rather gruesome crime.”
    Sondra squinted, distracted. “Yeah… yeah it was. Goodbye. And thank you.”
    “Good day.” The phone clicked in Sondra’s ear.
    Sondra hung up her own phone and winced when her foot squished into slimy, now useless Soba noodles. She wiped her foot and floor as she contemplated this bit of information. A divorce? This was so contrary to… Sondra went in search of Phillip’s letter to Mimi, finding it stashed in the black mesh file holder she crammed her bills into. She pulled it out and examined it before she reread it for the first time in a year. She examined the photo of Phillip and his new wife. Sondra looked up, a new thought occurring to her.
    Maybe Phillip was cheating on Tracy and that’s why she wanted a divorce.
    Sondra threw the envelope down on the kitchen counter and went digging for Tracy’s last journal so she could re-read the passages. The same rosy picture she’d read before still filled the pages. Of course… she looked at the date again, reminding herself the last entry was three months before Tracy disappeared.
    What the hell could have happened in three months time?
    She fished a cigarette out of the box on the kitchen counter and lit up. Her eye fell on Tracy and Phillip’s wedding album and she went over to pick it up. She flipped the book open to a picture of the bride and groom smiling for the camera at the reception. Sondra sucked hard on her cigarette and let out a deliberate exhale, the smoke curling around her in a lazy cloud. The happy couple’s glowing smiles beckoned to Sondra to figure out what secrets had driven them apart.

SEVENTEEN
    A s long as Paula could remember, she had loved Phillip.
    It was the first day of sophomore year and she had seen him in the hallway by his locker outside of gym class. He wore a pair of stiff blue jeans, a plaid button-down shirt and thick glasses. She had watched as he unloaded and loaded books into his locker. It turned out they had biology together and became lab partners. They were both shy and quiet and she