Brittle Shadows Read Online Free Page A

this
number and see what I can find out,” he said over his shoulder, walking away
from her.
    Her hand on her
head, she stood like a dummy in the middle of the kitchen. If there was one
thing she was good at, it was pushing people away. She was still standing there
when Chris returned.
    “Do you want
the good news or the bad news?”
    He didn’t give
her a chance to reply.
    “The good
news,” he continued, “is I was able to sweet-talk the bloke into reviewing the
security footage.”
    She brightened.
    “The bad news
is, according to him, the only person who’s come or gone in the last hour is
me.”

CHAPTER
3
     
    First thing in the morning, she
would be on the property manager’s doorstep waiting to see about changing the
locks. But until then, Jemma was on her own, having convinced Chris – if not
herself – that the intruder wouldn’t risk coming back while she was there. Even
then, Chris wouldn’t leave until he had watched her program all his contact
numbers into her mobile phone.
    Now alone, a
broom jammed under the door handle and every light in the apartment on, Jemma
felt safe enough. Though not safe enough to sleep.
    She wandered
into the kitchen and filled the kettle. While she waited for it to boil, she
checked out the contents of the cupboards and drawers. Everything perishable
had been removed. No milk of any description. All that remained were the
canisters of coffee, tea, sugar and an unopened box of Jatz crackers.
    Armed with a
mug of sweetened black coffee, she headed for the study. Dropping into the
leather executive chair adrift in the middle of the room, she sipped her drink
and surveyed the stack of sealed moving boxes. Each was labeled in thick black
writing with a room and numbered. Her sister’s personal possessions – all that
was left of Tanya – had been condensed into nine measly cartons.
    Her coffee
half-drunk, Jemma wheeled the chair across to the desk and set down her mug.
With a grunt, she heaved the box labeled OFFICE off the top row onto first the
chair and then the floor. Snagging the end of a strip of packing tape, she
peeled it back. She continued with the rest, the ripping sound overloud in the
night stillness.
    Perched on the
chair, she began to unpack the open carton, laying the contents on the desk
beside her: rubber-banded envelopes of what appeared to be EFTPOS and other
receipts, files of bank and credit card statements, a metal-cornered shoebox
size case of cards and other correspondence, a partly used ream of photocopy
paper, a spindle of blank DVDs, an imitation-leather CD/DVD wallet, pens and
paperclips galore, and a grey vinyl desk pad amongst other things. Right at the
bottom, nestled amongst a tangle of cables, she found a Compaq Presario
notebook.
    She hauled it
up onto the desk and opened it. Hoping it was at least partially charged, she
pressed the power button, before going back to gather up the cables and
anything else that was floating around in the bottom of the box. Unjumbling it
all, she soon realized she had Ethernet cables and AC power adapters for two
laptops. The lanyards of two silver-cased memory sticks had also managed to get
themselves impossibly entwined and she set those aside to deal with later.
    The notebook
was asking for a password. This was one of those times when her expertise as an
information systems auditor should have come in handy. Unfortunately, the
software she normally used for hacking into password-protected systems, she had
left in Perth. She frowned at the screen as if expecting the password to
miraculously appear.
    She tried the
obvious ones like Tanya’s date of birth and her initials – both forwards and
backwards. Her sister wasn’t that foolish, though. Clicking her fingers, Jemma
jumped up and hurried to get her laptop from the other room.
    Minutes later,
she had powered up her computer and, thanks to the advances of mobile
technology, connected to the Internet. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She
remembered