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“What makes you think these people are clients and it’s not just her Christmas list?”

“It’s got an accounts receivables worksheet and accounts paid. These people are playing expensive games.”

Jovanic turned the flash drive around in his hand, as if staring at it would tell him everything he wanted to know. “So now you believe Ms. Alexander was killed because of this?”

“Well, isn’t it a bit strange that Ivan’s beaten half to death when he’s obviously about to give me
this file
? I thought he was just being paranoid when he said someone might be listening in on the phone.”

“You know what they say... just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” Claudia wrinkled her nose at him, relieved that he was joking with her.

“Why do you think the assailant didn’t attack
you
and keep looking for this little piece of evidence, if that’s what he was really after?” Jovanic asked, slipping the flash drive into his pocket. “If Mr. Novak had it on him, he didn’t have far to look.”

“Hell, I don’t know. I’m just glad he didn’t.”

“What was Novak’s relationship to Ms. Alexander?”

“Ivan was like a silent partner, I think. He pretty much ran the business. Lindsey’s brother... who’s a real dirtbag, by the way... told me that Ivan was Lindsey’s heir.”

“I see. I don’t suppose you printed a copy of this
damning
spreadsheet for me?”

Claudia slowly released a breath. Maybe he wasn’t going to haul her sorry butt off to jail after all. “No, but I could print one for you if you’d like.” Detective Jovanic folded the paper with the password and put into his jacket pocket. “Okay. I’ll give you a ride home.”

She took it as an unspoken truce. Later, she wondered if she were being naive.

“Tell me more about Lindsey,” Jovanic said, settling into the puffy cushions of the office couch.

The short ride to Claudia’s house had been cordial enough, but now his body language was keeping secrets. If he had an opinion about the spreadsheet printout she’d just handed him, he wasn’t sharing it.

Claudia swivelled her chair around to face him. Seated at her desk, she was ten feet away and she needed the distance. “Back in school, we used to say that if sex were an Olympic event, Lindsey would be a gold medalist. She liked to brag about being into kink.”

Lindsey.

Twenty years since she had first invaded their lives like a colorful jungle bird, showing off its plumage.

Tall and bony as a high-fashion model, she had entered the lecture hall that first day, and turned it into her personal catwalk. She wore a brief halter top and a gauzy skirt that danced well above her knees. Dishwater-blonde hair cascaded in a tangled mane over her bare shoulders. Posing against a backdrop of bright sunlight, it was apparent that in an era where bra-burning was in vogue, her panties had gone up in smoke, too. Marilyn Monroe on a sidewalk grate was a prude next to Lindsey Alexander.

Down the aisle she had sauntered, stopping to drop a casual remark to a student here and there
—
always male, of course
—
her high-pitched laughter reverberating in the silence. The psych professor had halted mid-sentence and stared, annoyed by Lindsey’s disorderly entrance, but clearly intrigued.

“Who does this chick think she is?” Kelly whispered. Lindsey was certainly no great beauty, and her loud laugh turned more heads than her looks.

“She must have made a lot of enemies,” Jovanic cut in, snapping Claudia back to reality.

“Eventually she did, but at first we were all fascinated by her. She had a real talent for turning everything into a party. We had a lot of fun. For awhile anyway.”

“So, what happened?”

Time collapsed as more long-buried memories, blurred around the edges, spun like a rewound video and focused on a gathering at a hotel in San Francisco. Feeling the need to detach herself from those long-ago events, Claudia sought for the right words to describe them.

“After we’d both gotten our psych degrees, Lindsey and I studied graphology... handwriting analysis. We actually worked together for a while. This was years ago. I guess you could say that we both made it to a certain level of leadership in the field. Lindsey cultivated some very high-powered contacts in the corporate world, and that gave her a certain... edge.

“So, here’s the thing. She and I were asked to set up a symposium. The top professionals from all over the world were being invited to discuss the future of handwriting analysis... whether we needed to focus on becoming a licensed profession; how to get people to stop thinking of us as fortune tellers. You know... take us more seriously?” Jovanic glanced down at his notebook and Claudia detected a smile. She figured he was remembering his own negative reaction of last night, when she’d told him her profession. She went on with her story. “Lindsey wangled an appointment as chairman. She really wanted the title, but not the job. She was great at starting things and then dumping them onto someone else to finish up.”

“Did that show in her handwriting?”

Claudia shot a quick glance at the detective. “Of course it did,” she assured him, refusing to take the bait. “She asked me to handle the publicity. I told her I didn’t know jack about PR and frankly, by that time, I didn’t want to be that closely involved with her. But she kept pressuring me.
It’s eeeeasy
.
I’ll help you!
Silly me, I let her talk me into it.

“The trouble was, I was pretty successful and she couldn’t stand that. Lindsey wouldn’t let anyone look as good as or better than her. So she started sabotaging everything I did. Very subtly, of course, but in the end, nothing I did had a snowball’s chance.”

And just like that, Claudia was flung back into the symposium audience, reliving the humiliation. “She waited until the closing ceremonies to stick it to me. It was very clever the way she shifted the blame onto me for
everything
that had gone wrong with the symposium. And believe me, that was plenty. It made me look a complete fool.”

Jovanic removed the toothpick from his mouth, giving her his full attention, which she found damned uncomfortable. “What’d you do?”

“What
could
I do? It was a Catch 22, and she knew it. If I’d publicly called her on her lies I would have just looked defensive. The truth came out later and she was eventually discredited. That’s when she decided to switch careers. But you know how these things go... everyone comes to the wedding, but they don’t always show up for the divorce. It took a long time to rebuild my credibility. It might not sound like much to you, but it was pretty traumatic for me.” Claudia watched his hands as he wrote in his notebook. Big hands, strong-looking, very short, neatly trimmed nails that looked as if he’d taken some time with them.

When he’d finished writing, he glanced over at her. “What about after that?”

“I completely cut her out of my life, avoided her for years. Then, after all that time, we suddenly ran into each other at a restaurant a few months ago.”

Claudia and Kelly had walked into the Great Wall in Venice together, and there was Lindsey, alone in the lobby, waiting for a table. She had greeted them both with warm hugs, as if they were still the bosom buddies they used to be.

Kelly had shoved her away, angrily demanding to know what made Lindsey think she could justify the betrayals of both Claudia and herself. For a tense moment, it had looked as if Kelly would physically attack Lindsey. But Claudia didn’t mention that to Jovanic. Instead, she offered a watered-down version, omitting any mention of her friend.

“Lindsey did what she did best... laid on the charm and suggested we hash it out over
moo goo gai pan
and good wine, her treat. But she pretty much kept the conversation on the polite amenities and by the time the fortune cookies arrived, we’d agreed to leave the past dead and buried.”

“You were willing to just let bygones be bygones?” asked Jovanic, sounding skeptical.

“So many years had gone by. Holding a grudge is bad karma, don’t you think?”

“After what she did to you?”

Claudia sighed. “I tried to remember the good things she’d done for me way back when. She got me my first big client. She was well-connected, even back then.”

“So, did you see her after that?”

“We got together a couple of times, but just at her office. She hired me to do some handwriting analysis for her, which is how I came to know Ivan. He’s the one who made the arrangements.”

Up went the brow. “Excuse me for being confused, but you said she had trained as a handwriting analyst, too. Why would she hire you to do something she could do herself?”

“She told me she felt rusty. That might have been true, but my feeling was, she didn’t want to bother. Sitting at a desk, figuring out personality traits, wasn’t her big priority. Let’s face it, analyzing handwriting is work like anything else, regardless of how
some people
want to look at it.” His lips twitched again as he scribbled in his notebook. “Was it anyone on the list?” he asked when he had finished writing.

“What?”

He tapped the printout that rested on his knee. “The handwriting analysis you did for her, was it anyone on the sex list?”

“No. One was a new client. The other was a problem competitor she wanted to know how to handle. Strictly mundane stuff.”

“So, there was no big rekindling of the friendship?”

“I may have let go of the past, detective, but I’m a wee bit smarter now.” Claudia leaned her head back against her chair and closed her eyes for a moment. It wasn’t easy to explain Lindsey. “You have to understand something. Lindsey was a classic narcissist. She truly believed the world revolved around her, and she was very good at manipulating people to do whatever served her needs. I’m not sure she even understood what she’d done to get everyone so upset.”

“She sleep with any of
your
boyfriends?”

The question came from left field. Trying to catch her off guard? Claudia smiled a wry smile. “She had a knack for knowing how to hit where it hurt. When she pulled that trick at the symposium, she was well aware that my professional life was
my
vulnerable spot.”

Jovanic consulted his notebook, flipped back a few pages. “Do you know someone by the name of Kelly Brennan?”

That was the second time he’d taken her by surprise. She felt transparent, as if he’d seen inside her head and watched the memories as they’d unraveled. “Kelly? What about her?”

“How well do you know her?”

“We’ve been friends since we were six years old. Our families were neighbors.”

He wrote something, then said, “Were you aware that Ms. Brennan made threats against Lindsey Alexander on the night of her death?”

“She told me about it, but if you think Kelly could’ve killed her...”

“Whoa, slow down. Her name came up in the file. I’m looking at all the possibilities, that’s all.”

“Kelly’s five-foot four and weighs ninety-eight pounds fully dressed. She could never handle someone Lindsey’s size.”

“Is Ms. Brennan the friend you wanted to protect when you took the flash drive?” Claudia straightened up and gazed at him seriously. “Listen, detective, my friends aren’t murderers. Don’t you think you ought to be looking at the names on that list I just printed for you? If someone did kill Lindsey, it’s probably one of them.” He returned her stare. “I’ll be looking at all of them.
Including
your friend, Kelly.” Before she could form a rejoinder his cell phone rang. He took it off his belt and thumbed it open, listened for a moment. “When? What’s the status? Has he said anything? I’ll be right there.” He rang off and turned to Claudia. “Ivan Novak just regained consciousness.”

After the detective’s departure, Claudia cracked a can of diet Coke and took it out to the downstairs deck. Late afternoon traffic swished along the highway below, blending with ocean sounds as she swung idly in the basket chair, wondering what Ivan might reveal to Jovanic. She felt again the warmth of the detective’s hand as it closed around hers. He’d held on a little longer than necessary, with a promise to let her know what happened at the hospital.

She was still daydreaming when Kelly Brennan’s red Mustang convertible turned the corner and rolled to a stop at the curb.

Claudia hauled herself out of the chair and leaned over the balcony. “You’re just in time,” she called as Kelly climbed out of the car.

“For what?”

“Come on up and see.”

“Okay, chill the glasses, I brought some vino.” Kelly went around to the back and popped the trunk. She took a bottle of wine from a grocery bag imprinted with the logo of the local liquor store, and ran up the steps, bearing it aloft like an Olympic torch.

Inside the front door she stopped short, staring at a stack of file boxes that had materialized in Claudia’s living room. “What the hell’s all that?”

“Ivan messengered them over yesterday. They’re files from Lindsey’s apartment. The idea is to find some block printed handwriting samples I can use to compare to the suicide note.” Then she corrected herself. “
Supposed
suicide note. You can help me look.”

“Oh yeah? What’s in it for me?”

“Chinese food. What are you in the mood for? I’ll call it in.”

The subject of Chinese food reminded her of Lindsey and the conversation with Jovanic. She brought Kelly up to date on her meeting with him, refraining from mentioning that her name had come up. It made no sense to throw her friend into a panic, which it would do if she knew that the detective was looking at her.

She debated whether to share the news about the flash drive and its contents. Kelly might be a ditz, but as an attorney, she knew how to handle confidential information. And she certainly hadn’t attacked Ivan.

She suddenly became aware that Kelly was waving a hand in front of her face. “Helloo. Where’d you go?”

Claudia made up her mind. She and Kelly had been sharing secrets for more than thirty years. “Last night, before the cops got there, I found something... evidence that Lindsey was running a kinky sex trade.”