Christmas Crime in Colorado by Cassie Miles

Author:Cassie Miles
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary, General
ISBN: 9780373888764
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2008-12-01T09:48:38.007788+00:00

BROOKE SAT at the desk, checking her e-mails. She found nothing ominous—just the usual weird messages about sex toys and investment scams. Tucked in with the junk mail was a note from her mom that included a recipe for New England clam chowder.

Brooke knew she ought to keep her mother informed about what was happening to her. But what could she say? Hi, Mom. Everything’s fine, except my roommate was murdered, and I’m the target of a psychopathic killer. Thanks for the recipe.

She couldn’t expect her sweet, gentle, utterly normal parents to understand the dark turn her life had taken. They hadn’t raised her to be an abused wife or the target of a serial murderer. They expected her life to be a series of happy announcements about getting engaged, getting married and having babies. Her mother had been delighted when Brooke’s photo appeared on the society page in the Atlanta newspapers. She never saw the pain behind Brooke’s smile, and Brooke was glad to have spared her family that. Her divorce had been hard enough on them.

She closed her e-mail and opened her document file, intending to make an entry in her journal. She’d started a computer diary on the advice of her therapist. Though she didn’t make daily entries, it sometimes helped to write things down. Maybe writing could help her figure out a way to tell her mother about what was happening.

The most recent entry was dated on the day of Sally’s death. Brooke noticed two things about it. It was brief. And Brooke hadn’t written it.

Bolting from the chair, she backed away from the computer as if it were a rattlesnake coiled to strike. “Michael! Michael, come here!”

He entered the room like a shot. “What is it?”

“My computer. My journal.” She pointed at the screen. “Read the last entry.”

Squinting, he read aloud, “I can’t take the pain anymore. It’s time for me to end it. I welcome death. Goodbye.”

“That looks like a suicide note,” she said.

“And you didn’t write it?”

“Absolutely not. I wouldn’t use my journal for that. Everything in there is private.” And much of it embarrassing. “If I knew I was going to die, my journal is the first thing I’d delete.”

“Is your computer password protected?”

“Not when I’m home. I usually just log in and leave it on.” The implication of the suicide note sank into her consciousness. “If I’d been killed instead of Sally, the police would have checked all the files on my computer. They would have found this entry and called it proof.”

“It’s evidence,” he said.

“That I was the intended victim. I was supposed to be dead, and this would have been my last statement. You were right, Michael.”

She regarded the journal entry with mixed emotions. The suicide note would prove to the FBI and local police that she was the target. But the idea of opening her journal to all those other eyes caused her gut to wrench. “Showing this to someone else would be like turning myself inside out. I never meant for anyone to see it.

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