i 9fb2c9db4068b52a by Неизв. Read Free Book Online

been removed, tables and bookshelves were bare. The glass top of the desk stood against the wall, leaving the black lacquer base an obelisk in the middle of the room.
    Claudia was surprised at the speed with which the stack of moving boxes by the door had been filled and sealed. “Somebody must have worked like a dog over the weekend,” she observed.
    Ivan touched a button on the wall unit and a door slid open, revealing a walk-in closet more spacious than Claudia’s bedroom. “Lindsey leased the place, which is one reason I’m in a hurry to get everything settled.” He didn’t elaborate further.
    A row of filing cabinets stood against the far wall, a heap of collapsed storage boxes stacked on top. “You can start here,” Ivan said. “Just pack the files into these boxes as you finish going through them. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
    Claudia looked back at him, not trusting herself to speak. She was accustomed to clients having difficulty coming up with proper materials for her examination, but no one had ever offered to pay her hourly rate to search through a half-dozen file cabinets for comparison samples. At this rate, the generous retainer Ivan had paid would soon be eaten up on grunt work.
    He went to the door. “I’ll be downstairs on the phone. We were in negotiations for one of our biggest clients when all this went down. I haven’t been to the office in days.” He paused, his hand resting on the jamb. “If you need me, use the intercom on the desk. The codes for all the rooms are marked. Oh, and help yourself to coffee or cold drinks. There’s a fridge in the mini bar.”
    With Ivan gone, quiet descended. Claudia stared at the empty bookcases and bare walls. Nothing that reflected Lindsey’s personality or taste remained in the room, yet her presence hovered eerily. Was she watching from some netherworld reserved for suicides and murder victims?
    After gulping down the pills and booze, had Lindsey taken one last look around at all she had accumulated, the bits and pieces that had made up her life, realizing that she would never see them again? How might she have felt, knowing that her nervous system would soon begin to shut down; that she would cease breathing; that she would no longer exist in the physical world?
    Had she roamed the apartment, saying goodbye to her luxurious possessions before climbing into the Jacuzzi and sliding under the water; before consciousness gradually faded?
    Chiding herself for being melodramatic, Claudia gave the first file drawer a sharp tug. Inside, green file folders pressed up against each other, untidy edges of paper protruding from the sides. Why had Lindsey, a woman of means, chosen to live with this kind of clutter? Why hadn’t she purchased more file cabinets; hired someone to organize her papers?
    Claudia answered her own question: for the same reason Lindsey always wrote on trash; she only spent money if there was some kind of payback for her. Her disdain for most people was evident in her refusal to use good letterhead stock unless the letter was destined for someone she deemed important.
    She assembled a file box and carried an armful of files to a credenza. Years-old magazine articles spilled out; pages of jokes off the Internet; files filled with correspondence; even gourmet recipes that would never find their way into Lindsey’s kitchen. Any handwriting that surfaced was Lindsey’s standard—scribbled notes in cursive, but nothing printed.
    Could Ivan’s assertion that Lindsey had never printed be true? The chances were next to nil. People adopt alternate writing styles for various types of communication. All Claudia had to do was hunt through enough of this stuff until a suitable sample turned up.
    She worked her way through the drawer, reflecting on what she considered Ivan’s odd attitude. His evident lack of willingness to cooperate in providing the materials she needed for the job was nothing short of bizarre. Was he simply