Dead Write: A Forensic Handwriting Mystery Read Online Free

porthole, Claudia felt a surge of gratitude toward Pete, who had agreed to allow Annabelle to stay with him and Monica despite his misgivings. As a widower, he tended to be overprotective of his daughter, who was innocent for her age, which Annabelle wasn’t.
    As the plane climbed to altitude, Claudia’s thoughts shifted to Grusha Olinetsky. The matchmaker had been as slippery as an oil slick, avoiding any direct questions about the mistakes Andy Nicholson was supposed to have made. Why?
    She gave a mental shrug. What did it matter why? The new account promised to pay well, she would have some time to herself, and at the end of the assignment, she would enjoy a romantic reunion with Jovanic. And yet . . .
    Their parting kiss when he had dropped her off at LAX had a distinctly perfunctory flavor. She wondered whether it was a reflection of his disagreement with her decision to accept the assignment. Or had there been something else on his mind?

    Claudia arrived midafternoon at her hotel in Manhattan’s Theater District under skies boiling with thunderheads. After a long day of travel, she was looking forward to a quick shower and a change of clothes before meeting with Grusha Olinetsky.
    Opening the door to her tenth-floor hotel room, she was disappointed to find it only slightly larger than a jail cell. She had hoped for something a little nicer. The furniture was institutional and not particularly good quality. The bedspread was an unattractive orange and yellow polyester ribbing with matching drapes. In defiance of the NONSMOKING ROOM sign on the dresser, the lingering odor of cigarettes made it smell like an ashtray.
    Maybe if she’d been a client rather than a consultant, she would have warranted nicer accommodations. Claudia plugged in the laptop and hooked into the hotel’s wireless connection to check business e-mails that might have arrived while she was en route. Her friend Kelly, who was an attorney, had tried to talk her into a BlackBerry, but she’d held out. She didn’t want to be that accessible.
    While the computer was booting up, she switched on the air conditioner blower to freshen the stale air, and tugged open the drapes. The window gave on an uninspiring view of Forty-eighth Street: construction cranes raising steel I beams up the side of the office building opposite; down on street level, camera shops and pizzerias; a human tsunami flooding the sidewalks.
    Unzipping her suitcase on the double bed, she gave herself a pep talk. At least the Internet connection works. And the bathroom has a new-looking marble coun tertop. And it seems reasonably clean.
    Not quite trusting the dresser drawers, she left her lingerie in the suitcase and hung up her clothes: black silk suit, gray knit turtleneck dress, a dressy outfit in case she went out to dinner, a few other items she could mix and match. Taking Annabelle and Monica with her on a hurried shopping trip to Nordstrom and Macy’s, she’d spent some of the advance Grusha Olinetsky had paid through PayPal.
    It’s the big city . You have to dress the part.
    After showering, Claudia touched up her makeup and got into the navy Anne Klein jacket and slacks with a cream-colored shell. She pinned a white enamel fountain-pen brooch onto her lapel, clasped around her neck the gold chain that Jovanic had given her for her birthday, stepped into imitation snakeskin pumps. A quick inspection in the mirrored closet door told her she looked good. She fetched her briefcase and rode the elevator back down to the lobby, ready for her meeting with Grusha Olinetsky.
    The clouds had broken while she was inside and the air was damp with a steady drizzle. Her first visit to the Big Apple in years and she felt about as welcome as a case of measles. If Jovanic were with her, she knew she would be seeing the city through different eyes.
    The taxi driver was on his cell phone as she climbed into the backseat, chatting to someone in a foreign language. Listening to his accent,