A Crossword to Die For by Nero Blanc Read Free Book Online Page A

 Chemical suffix
    6.  Diversion
    7.  Woodier
    8.  Whomp
    9.  Library option
    10.  Summer in Salses
    11.  Mr. Buttons
    12.  Mr. Charles
    18.  Calendar abbr.
    20.  Gun grp.
    22.  Title for 37-Across
    24.  Courage
    25.  Arab chieftain
    26.  Wife of Jacob
    27.  Ms. Horne
    28.  Put-down
    32.  Army bed
    33.  Summer cooler
    34.  Discharge
    35.  34-Across Mrs.
    36.  Bud
    37.  Snare
    38.  Rime
    39.  Needle case
    40.  Env. letters
    44.  Washington and Virginia
    45.  See 49-Down
    46.  Melodic
    47.  Gets it
    49.  With 45-Down, home to 48-Across
    50.  Teacher’s pets?
    51.  Shore bird
    52.  Gambler’s lament
    53.  Godard’s “Le___Savoir”
    56.  Fox feature
    57.  One of ten
    58.  Aliens; abbr.
    59.  NYC arena
    60.  Dined
    To download a PDF of this puzzle, please visit openroadmedia.com/nero-blanc-crosswords

CHAPTER 7
    Waking the next morning, Belle experienced a jolt of confusion as to her locale. She’d slept on the office couch—a foldaway she hadn’t bothered to transform into its bed position; and she realized before she’d even lifted her head from the pillow that she was in alien territory. As her eyelids popped open, she found herself staring at her father’s rogues gallery of photos, and cognizance swiftly returned. She was on Sanibel Island for the first time in her life; she was there to pack up her father’s books and papers, and place the apartment on the market.
    She sat up; the day spreading before her seemed suddenly endless, and she wished once again that she hadn’t been so pigheaded about performing this task alone. Rosco would not only have been a help, he would have been an enormous comfort. He would have put his arms around her when she needed a hug, interjecting humor and patience—a quality she often lacked. Above all, he would have told her he loved her, and that things were going to be just “peachy.”
    But then Belle felt herself bristling at the notion of requiring support. A frown furrowed her brow. She was a person with a major independent streak. “Okie-dokie,” she muttered aloud. “Up and at ’em.”
    She showered, dressed, put on water for tea, wondered why there wasn’t so much as a cereal box in the cupboards, then drifted into the dining area as she waited for the kettle to boil. There, on the table where she’d left it, was the framed crossword puzzle.
    She smiled and picked it up, feeling a small sense of pride at her work: Her father’s name in full at 37-Across; his title PROFESSOR at 22-Down; and at 19-Across, the last name of a man better known as a Harvard grad. That John F. Kennedy had been enrolled in the Princeton class of 1939, and had left for health reasons, was a piece of trivia she’d been inordinately pleased to discover.
    Belle murmured a couple of the answers she considered among her more arcane and clever—“Mary URE at 13-Across; STU for 63-Across: R-V man? ”—before returning to the tea kettle. Then she finally raised her eyes and took in the breadth of the apartment’s stunning view. An enormous bird with chocolate brown wings swooped past; all at once—and not happily—she remembered Deborah Hurley’s insistence that “Ted” had been an inveterate bird-watcher.
    Belle grimaced; the expression grew steadily more irritable as she became aware of someone pounding on the door. She banged her cup down on the kitchen counter and strode through the living room. She didn’t feel like entertaining her father’s “research assistant” again.
    â€œYes, Debbie. What is it?” Belle uttered the cranky words before the door was fully open.
    But instead of Deborah Hurley, Belle found a man in his later middle age. He had graying hair that hadn’t seen a barber in some time, a barrely physique suggesting physical strength