Free In Their Blood by Sharon Potts Page B

murderer.
    Unless they’d backed up their laptops.
    Elise pulled open drawers. The files, papers, and reports were disarranged, as though someone had already gone through them. At the back of one drawer, she found stacks of floppies and computer CDs. She examined the labels on the CDs, looking for something that might be current.
    Nothing. She sank to the floor. A clipboard with a yellow pad was leaning against the side of the desk. The pad was covered with line after line of tight, scribbly writing. Just like Elise’s make-believe writing when she was a little girl. She pulled the clipboard against her chest and began to sob. She sobbed until the room became woozy and she was floating again.
    Floating. Just floating.
    A soft touch on her shoulder. “Elise,” the voice said. “Elise.”
    She opened her eyes.
    “Hey, Ellie,” Jeremy said. “What are you doing?”
    Elise was hugging the clipboard like a pillow. “It, it wasn’t a burglar,” she said.
    “I know.”
    “You know?”
    “A burglar doesn’t make sense.” Jeremy was in a tee shirt and jeans. Hadn’t he been wearing a suit this morning?
    “Why didn’t you say something?”
    “I was planning to,” he said. “Tonight, after I got everything arranged.”
    “Arranged?”
    “I got a job at PCM and I’m taking night classes at MIU. I start tomorrow.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I need to get on the inside and try to figure out who might have had a motive.”
    “A motive?”
    “Yeah.” He sorted through the CDs. “I see you’ve been busy.”
    “I was looking for clues,” she said. “The, the murderer took their laptops. So I was thinking that there was something important on them. And maybe Mom had backups.”
    “These are pretty old,” Jeremy said, “but I’ll check them out.”
    “The police left a mess. Mom never made a mess.”
    “I know.”
    “And they probably took the newer CDs.”
    “I’ll call the detective and ask her. I see you’ve found your clipboard.”
    “My clipboard?”
    “I told you at breakfast. You were in here last night. You were scribbling away.”
    She studied the wavy, regular lines. She must have been holding the pen very tightly because she had practically pushed through the paper. “I wonder what I was trying to write.”

Chapter 10
    The new-employee packet and company-issue laptop rested on the coffee table in the alcove outside the partners’ offices. Jeremy sat back on the hard leather sofa. The inner sanctum waiting area was complete with an areca palm in a brushed steel pot, several newsletters with the PCM logo at the top, a dish of hard candies, and an irritating painting made up of geometric shapes that changed with the angle of view. Was the painting supposed to symbolize the clever ways accountants were known to manipulate the rules?
    Bud’s secretary, Gladys, had told Jeremy he’d been assigned to Irving Luria and to knock on Irv’s door when he was done with his paperwork. Jeremy had done that, but there was no answer. Rather than barge into the office as he’d done yesterday at his father’s office, Jeremy had decided to wait here.
    He was wearing one of his new suits and a white shirt with thin blue stripes that he’d taken out of its packaging this morning. Wrinkle-free, the salesman had said. But the shirt was covered with packing creases and Jeremy hadn’t had time to iron it. Not that he knew how, or even where the iron was. So he had planned to keep his jacket on, though now he was regretting his decision as he felt himself perspiring under the heat of the overhead halogen lights.
    He tapped his fingers against the armrest. The alcove was directly across from his mother’s office. Its door was shut. He wondered if his mother’s things had been packed away in cartons. Had hisuncle already been here, posing as the family representative, and taken what interested him?
    The hallway was deserted. It really wouldn’t be all that difficult to sneak into his mother’s