The Associate by Phillip Margolin Read Free Book Online Page B

refrigerator. He was hit by the sour smell of decay. Greenish-gray mold covered a piece of cheese. Daniel uncapped a bottle of spoiled milk and wrinkled his nose.
    A small living room opened off of the kitchen. Except for an expensive stereo that had been ripped out of its cabinet, most of the other furnishings looked secondhand. CDs were strewn around the floor. Daniel saw a lot of classical music and some jazz.
    A bookshelf took up one wall, but the books it used to hold had been thrown around the room. Many of the books were about scientific subjects like chemistry and microbiology. Daniel spotted a few popular novels and several books on gambling and mathematics.
    The contents of a liquor cabinet were lying among the books and CDs on the hardwood floor. Most of the bottles contained Scotch and many of them were empty. On top of the liquor cabinet was more dust and a framed photograph of a slightly overweight man in his early forties dressed in sports clothes. Standing next to him was an attractive woman in a revealing sundress. They were smiling at the camera. The picture looked like it had been taken in front of a Las Vegas casino.
    Daniel turned slowly, taking in the room again. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Kaidanov’s disappearance, the search of his home, and the primate study had to be connected.
    A short hall led to the bedroom. Daniel edged into it, half expecting to find a mutilated corpse. Blankets and sheets were heaped on the floor, the mattress of a queen-size bed had been dislodged, drawers in a chest had been pulled out, and shirts, underwear, and socks had been strewn around the room. The doors to a clothes closet were open and it had obviously been searched.
    Across the hall was a small office. More books had been pulled out of a bookshelf, but Daniel’s attention was drawn to a monitor on Kaidanov’s desktop. It looked odd sitting where it was supposed to be when everything else in the room had been tossed about. Daniel sat down and turned on the computer. As soon as it booted up, he tried to gain entry, but he needed a password. If Kaidanov had information about his study in the house it would be on his computer, but how could he access it?
    Daniel turned off the computer and pulled the CPU tower out from under Kaidanov’s desk. Using the screwdriver on his Swiss army knife, Daniel removed the sheet-metal cover of the computer’s case, popped the cover, and pulled it off. He placed the computer on its side so he could see the motherboard, which held all of its electronics. Next to the motherboard was the hard-drive bay, a rack that held the hard drive in the computer. The hard drive was connected to the motherboard by a ribbon cable and a power cable. Daniel unplugged the cables from their connectors and unscrewed two more screws on the bay. He then flipped the CPU tower upright and took out two more screws on the other side. When all the screws were out Daniel gently slid the hard drive out of its bay. It consisted of a green circuit board encased in heavy black metal and was about the size of a paperback book. Daniel wrapped it in his handkerchief and placed it in his jacket pocket.
    Daniel put the CPU tower back together and was sliding it under the desk when he froze at the distinctive sound of a bottle rolling across a wood floor. Daniel remembered that the liquor bottles were in the living room, which meant that he was trapped, because he would have to go through the living room to get out the front or back doors.
    A shadow appeared on the corridor wall. Daniel could make out the bill of a baseball cap, but the shadow was too indistinct to tell him much more. He edged the door almost shut. The shadow flowed toward him along the wall. Daniel held his breath. If the intruder went into the bedroom he—Daniel—might be able to slip down the hall. If he went into the office first . . . Daniel opened the large blade on his knife.
    Through the narrow gap in the door Daniel saw a figure in jeans