Free Particles of Murder (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 1) by Charlotte Raine Page B

oddly defensive of him.”
    “I’m not defensive,” I say. “I just think…I will go question him by myself. For some reason, he trusts me, and he’s more likely to open up to me if we’re alone.”
    “He’s also more likely to hurt you if you’re alone.”
    “He won’t,” I say, though doubt sends tendrils of unease through my body.

    * * *
    T he next morning , I wait outside of John’s office. This will be the sixth day since Victoria was found dead, and the third day since Everett was killed. It’s been a long damn week.
    The door is closed and nobody answered when I knock, so I’m just wondering if his office hours are accurate on his door because he was supposed to be here five minutes ago.
    I look down at my leather work boots. My father used to hate that I wore these boots—not feminine enough for his ideas of gender roles. It’s strange how people’s impressions of us cause us to either let them control us or we rebel against them. It takes either a strong or stupid person to settle somewhere in between.
    I wonder if John can see that in me—that need to rebel, but also compromise—and if he’ll turn me into some two-dimensional character for one of his books.
    Minutes slip by. A few students and a professor walk past, a couple of them eyeing me with curiosity, but nobody questions my presence. Nearly eleven minutes have passed before John turns around the corner and approaches me.
    “Is there something new about the case or were you simply concerned about me again?” he asks, his eyebrows raised.
    “I wanted to talk to you about something,” I say. “Privately.”
    He nods, opening his office. I expected to see at least a hint of anxiety—anyone with even the smallest secret would get antsy—but he seems perfectly fine. His office looks completely normal as well—as if someone hadn’t died in it and it hadn’t been broken into and trashed.
    John sits down at his desk and I sit down across from him.
    “What’s going on?” he asks.
    I put his manuscript and his book on his desk. “I snuck into your office. And I read some of your books.”
    There’s a flash of confusion and maybe the slightest bit of anger, but his expression quickly returns to polite interest.
    “Did you like them?” he asks.
    “What I read was pretty good,” I say. “But I noticed some similarities between the characters and the two victims on campus…”
    “Does it surprise you that much if my students inspired me?” he asks.
    “They more than inspired you,” I say. “If I just had descriptions of your characters, what I would picture is the image of Victoria and Everett. They wear similar clothing—and Victoria’s character has a jerk boyfriend who belongs to a fraternity.”
    “What are you trying to say?” he asks. “That I stole their lives and wrote about them? They were simply inspired characters. Both those people interested me as individuals, so I created plots around them.”
    “How do I know that they weren’t angry about that?” I ask. “Did either of them read the books?”
    “Victoria read Insomnia Rites before the second semester of her junior year began,” he says. “She was a bit upset about some things being in there that she felt were a little too close to her own life, so I called my editor and had them taken out. It wasn’t a big deal.”
    “What about Everett?”
    “I just finished it a little over a week ago,” he says. “My editor hasn’t even read it yet. So, no, he hasn’t read it.”
    I lean back in my chair.
    “If you want me to trust you, you need to tell me the truth,” I say.
    “I am telling you the truth.”
    I close my eyes. “Okay…what if that’s why the killer actually came into your office? He wanted your books? Maybe that’s how he chose his victims.”
    “Except Victoria was killed before the killer broke into my office, and this book and this manuscript are the only copies I have in this office,” he says, picking up the book and