Written Off by E. J. Copperman Read Free Book Online

snapped back.
    That got me—he was looking at me like I was a suspect in . . . something. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
    “It’s supposed to mean, who should I trust—a guy who’s helped us solve eight missing persons cases or a woman who makes stuff up for a living?” Petrosky waved a hand to dismiss that. “No. I’m not saying I think you’re lying. I’m saying that what you’re telling me doesn’t add up.”
    “Imagine how I feel.”
    He caught my eye a moment and studied my gaze. “Yeah. I’ll bet. Look. I know Duffy. I’ve worked with him. He’s never told me anything that was the least bit questionable. Tell me what he said to you.”
    I could have; maybe I should have. But something in the back of my mind was insisting that I refrain from outing “Duffy Madison” as a raving lunatic, and I didn’t know why. I simply couldn’t tell Petrosky that he’d said I had created him from whole cloth and that the grown man in his thirties who came to my book signing had claimed he hadn’t existed before I’d started writing a character with his name.
    “Besides his name? He said that he worked with you on missing persons cases. He said that he had a case he thought I would be able to help with and that it was a matter of life and death.”
    Petrosky, as good investigators will, had been watching my face as I spoke. He’d been paying excellent attention. “There’ssomething you’re not saying,” he suggested. “What did he tell you that you don’t want to say?” Far too excellent attention.
    I looked away as if I were embarrassed. “He said he’d never read any of my books,” I said. Then I sniffed a little, not as if I were stifling tears, but as if I were terribly offended and wished the subject to go away.
    Petrosky smiled. “Well, I’ll tell you what. After this conversation, I’m going to make a point of going to a bookstore on my way home and buying copies of all your books. I want to see if your Duffy bears any resemblance to mine.”
    Good; he’d bought the act. “Yeah, I’d kind of like to find that out myself. I’m even more confused now than I was when I got here. That’s not what I was hoping would happen,” I said. I stood to leave.
    Petrosky held up a hand like he was directing traffic and wanted me to clear the crosswalk for an old lady. “Maybe you can get your chance,” he said.
    “To do what?” I didn’t know what he was getting at, but the odds were that I wouldn’t like it.
    “To find out if our two Duffys match and to get less confused,” he answered. “I’d really appreciate it if you would talk to Duffy about the case he’s working.”
    I knew I wouldn’t like it. “Why?” I asked.
    “Two reasons: First, because I don’t understand what’s going on with him and your books. I need to know if one of my best consultants is a nut job.”
    “And second?”
    “Second, because what Duffy told you is true. The case he’s working really is a matter of life and death.”

Chapter 7
    “Her name is Julia,” said the man who called himself Duffy Madison. “Julia Bledsoe. She is forty-seven years old, divorced, no children. She lives in Upper Saddle River, and her sister called three days ago saying she was concerned because she couldn’t contact Julia. Her phone was going directly to voice mail, and the box was full. Her house was locked; the sister has no key. When police arrived to check out the scene, there was no sign of Ms. Bledsoe.”
    We were sitting in a conference room that Petrosky called “Duffy’s office.” It was bare except for the standard oblong table in the center of the room. No windows. A plain, light-brown textured wallpaper. Refreshingly, incandescent rather than fluorescent light. Duffy (I’ll just call him that in an effort to simplify matters) sat in the center of the table on the right side.
    I was opposite him on the left.
    Petrosky had insisted that I meet with the imposter, simply because the case of