Free Too Big To Miss by Sue Ann Jaffarian Page B

pretty stupid."
    "Ever meet someone, man or woman, and find yourself talking to them about everything?"
    I didn't have to think long before remembering JersyLil. Her real name was Lillian Ramsey. We'd met playing backgammon online and spent hours one evening just playing one game after another and talking. We still meet about an hour a week to play and chat. Though she doesn't live that far away, in all this time we've never met. I had confided things to her even Zee didn't know. It was dawning on me where Greg was going with this.
    "Yes. I have an online friend like that."
    "That's how Sophie and I were. We were faceless confidants, although I knew what she looked like. I came across her web cam site one night, then started corresponding and chatting with her regularly. Since I have design and computer knowledge, I helped her with the site on occasion. Later, it became regular phone calls." He sighed deeply. "I begged her to meet me, but she wouldn't allow it."
    "Maybe you were angry about that, found her, and killed her," I said, my head down, eyes focused on the murky coffee in the mug I still held like a security blanket. Here I sat, suggesting he was a murderer, and I didn't even have the guts to look him in the eye.
    "I could've been, but I wasn't. I understood why she didn't want to meet me. Once the anonymity is removed, the appeal to confess disappears. You become more self-conscious about what people know about you when you have to look them in the eye."
    I knew he was right. Inside, I didn't believe he'd killed Sophie. I wanted to trust Greg Stevens. He was a link to Sophie's secret life and I wanted to make sure I didn't lose that link.
    "We're also forgetting something else," he started to say just as Sherrie came by with our bill. Greg gave her his credit card over my protests. "No, this one's on me. Next time, you can treat me by cooking."
    Next time? Cooking? This guy was about a decade younger than me and we were knee deep into a discussion on murder. Was that an attempt to flirt or just a courtesy remark? I was so out of practice, I wouldn't have been able to tell unless the comment had come wrapped around a dozen roses. I dismissed it as a simple nicety.
    "What are we forgetting?" I asked him, getting the conversation back on track.
    "We're forgetting another very important reason for not telling your friends something."
    "And that would be?"
    "For their own good. To protect them."

Chapter Nine
    EVERYONE HAS A favorite and least favorite holiday. My favorite is the Fourth of July. My least favorite is any holiday that requires me to spend time with my family, with Mother's Day topping the list.
    When I was about thirteen, my mother insisted on a divorce. She was an alcoholic with ideas of grandeur and given to fits of depression. I wasn't happy about the split, but it put a stop to the horrendous fighting and, for that, I was glad. Following the break-up, I saw my father a few times a month. After he remarried, I hardly saw him at all.
    A few years later, I came home from high school to find my mother's things packed and gone. There was no note left behind, just half-open drawers and a sink full of dirty dishes. I kept going to school, trying to pretend everything was normal. She was just away, I told myself. She went to visit someone and forgot to tell me, I said to my reflection in the mirror every morning before school. Three weeks after she left, I finally called my father. That was almost thirty years ago. To this day I still don't know if she's alive or dead. My father is reluctant to speak about it. My stepmother takes every opportunity to remind me of it.
    After my mother's disappearance, I lived with my father and stepmother, until I was old enough to move out on my own. I remember clearly counting the days.
    Mother's Day is a two-pronged fork of fire for me. One, it reminds me