Last Breath Read Online Free Page A

I’m there at the same time. Or maybe, before you come back here next time, you’ll get in touch. I can get all the info about your brother…”
    Daria glanced at the card.
    â€œThat’s the number for my office, back in the States.”
    â€œThere’s no company name on it.” She looked at both sides of the card.
    He lowered his voice. “I’m with the FBI. I don’t advertise that around here, though of course Magda and Cyrus know. Call that number and leave a message, it will get to me. Anytime. Day or night. I’ll get the message.”
    â€œThanks.” She half turned in her chair and offered her hand to him. “I’m happy to have finally met you. I hope we meet again.”
    â€œSo do I, Daria.” Then he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “As a matter of fact, I’m counting on it.”
    And with that, he’d disappeared, and her perfect evening ended.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    She yawned and sank lower into the hot water, her eyes still closed. Certainly if Connor were here at the Villa tonight, Magda would have wasted no time letting her know. Maybe it was just as well, Daria thought. If he’d been there, she’d have been tempted to dress for dinner, to sit at the table for two in the corner of the courtyard, hoping he’d join her, hoping he’d invite her for a horseback ride on the beach later that night. She smiled wryly. She’d even be happy with a camelback ride.
    As it was, she’d call for dinner in her room, dine alone, and get the first good night’s sleep she’d had in months.

TWO
    D aria drove through the Pennsylvania countryside, trying to remember the last time she’d visited Howe. The only recollection she had at all was of one time when she was around eight, and the entire family had gathered for some type of memorial in honor of the first Benjamin Augustus Howe, the university’s founder and her great-great-grandfather. She had a vague memory of a gathering in a fancy Victorian parlor where lemonade and petits fours were served. She’d been mesmerized by the tiny pastries, exquisitely decorated with flowers in shades of pink and yellow, and served on silver platters lined with lacy white doilies. The family had just returned from several months in the Jordanian desert, and such sweets were as foreign to her and her siblings as television. She smiled, recalling how she and her sister Iona had stuffed themselves with the delicious treats, and how sick they’d both been by nightfall.
    Any subsequent visits they may have made to the university, however, were lost to the years.
    The street sign on her left announced that Howeville was a half mile ahead. That, too, brought a smile to her face. She’d always thought Howeville sounded so Dr. Seuss, and she couldn’t help but think of all those Howes down in Howeville whenever she saw the name of the town.
    But Howeville it was. And it was straight up the road. She slowed to the speed limit, then slowed yet again when an Amish buggy pulled out from a side road up ahead. She had no recollection of Amish living in the area, but wasn’t all that surprised to find they were. She’d passed several sizable farms since she’d left I-95, and Lancaster County was only a short drive away.
    The town itself definitely had a split personality, an old country town with a modern attitude. Daria passed Howeville Feed and Grain, located across the road from a large field with a sign that promised Amish produce every Tuesday from eleven in the morning until four in the afternoon. There were two car dealers, a pizza place, a Mexican bakery with a hand-lettered sign, and a café. The brick hotel on a corner of the main intersection in town was now condominiums, and the old train station had been turned into an ice cream and sandwich shop. She drove through the green light at the center of town, past the library and a small