A Taste of Tragedy Read Online Free Page A

took the job at GCF, she had lived too far away to make more than a short trip or two each year.
    She purchased a small two-bedroom duplex in Phoenix to live in during the workweek. But she planned to spend as many weekends as possible in Sedona, reconnecting with her past and trying to figure out how to move forward and live with the choices she had made.
    Morgan opened the door leading from the garage to the house, stepped inside, and flipped on the lights. She stood for a moment, taking in every detail of the living room. The family photographs brought tears to her eyes, and the sudden rush of memories made her ache with loneliness.
    She had so little family left, and she had let the only man she had ever loved slip away. Morgan had put her career first. To the casual observer, it appeared she had achieved her goals, but here she was late on a Friday night, standing alone in her loved retreat, wondering if her latest promotion was the biggest mistake of her life.
    Shaking off all the negative thoughts, she turned on more lights and the television. Bathed in a warm glow and filled with sound, the place felt less lonely. She quickly unpacked her bags and then placed a Healthy and Delicious Foods entrée into the microwave.
    While she waited, she checked each room. Morgan was relieved to see everything looked just the way she left it the last time she visited nearly a year ago. Except for a thick layer of dust and enough cobwebs to make her wonder where the architects were hiding, nothing had changed.
    She poured a glass of wine and sat on one of the stools at the island separating the kitchen and living room. She sipped the inexpensive pinot noir while she opened her personal laptop and hit the power button.
    As she watched the computer run through its diagnostics, her mind wandered back over the past week. Once again, she questioned her latest decision. She didn’t know a lot about GCF, but she had built a career in saving failing products or returning declining products to their former glory. She enjoyed the challenge and always succeeded.
    If she were completely honest with herself, this particular career change had been strongly influenced by her desire to move to Arizona. She never let her heart influence career or business decisions and wondered if it had been a mistake to allow her emotions to enter the equation this time. The family home in Sedona was the only tangible tie to her past that remained, though there really was no longer any family to merit the title.
    Morgan logged onto her personal e-mail and found a couple of messages from old friends and one from her cousin. She smiled and relaxed with the knowledge that she wasn’t totally alone in the world.
    Wanting to call her cousin as requested in the message, Morgan grabbed her purse and began digging for her cell phone. Her fingers brushed over the flash drive she had stowed earlier in the evening. She pulled the tiny device out and stared at it, wondering if it belonged to her predecessor, Stan Jacobson. If so, was she violating his privacy if she tried to look at whatever it held?
    Morgan knew her curiosity would prevent her from sleeping if she didn’t at least try to see what resided on the tiny device. She inserted the drive into the port on the side of her computer, hoping there were no security measures in place to prevent her from accessing whatever data it held. Once the drive was recognized, she clicked on the first document of the three listed.
    She was relieved to see the file wasn’t password protected. The document appeared to be an e-mail, converted to and saved as a pdf file. She scanned the page, reread it, and then opened the next. Finally retrieving the last, she was confused and stunned by the contents.
    “Don’t overreact until you know the facts and talk to Preston on Monday morning,” she advised herself.
    Morgan saved the documents on the hard drive of her personal computer and then put the flash drive back in her purse.