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

Julia Bledsoe was still active and thepolice felt time was short to bring it to a favorable conclusion. I had agreed because I am easily bullied and, to be honest, because I was intrigued by this strange creature on the other side of the table.
    Duffy Madison was not exactly how I’d always pictured him; I don’t think of my characters in specific physical terms because I prefer to let the reader decide what they look like. This is especially enjoyable when readers insist they know a character is blond, or tall, or has green eyes. It’s a real ego boost to know they can picture my people so vividly.
    In this case, though, the man was in front of me and clearly visible. He was tall without being imposing and a little thin for his height with unruly brown hair that had some wave to it but couldn’t be classified as curly. He had brown eyes that were large and seemed to be able to bore into a person (me, for example). He was the kind of man who, although he was not doing so at the moment, looked like he should be wearing tweed.
    “She lives by herself and now she’s not answering her phone,” I summed up. “That’s a matter of life and death?”
    “It’s the pattern that’s the problem,” Duffy answered. “This is something I’ve seen happen to three other women in the Northeast in the past two years.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that. “How did the other three women get found?” I asked.
    Duffy looked away. “They were not found alive,” he said quietly.
    In the books, Duffy would be driven by guilt. “Were they your cases?”
    “No. None of them was in New Jersey. But they are all dead.”
    It took a moment to sink in. I felt something like a trap close around me; now I had to be committed to do whatever this weirdo wanted me to do because there really was a life at stake. “I’m guessing they didn’t all die of natural causes by coincidence,” I said.
    “Sadly, no.”
    “So there’s a serial killer targeting upscale divorced women in the Northeast?” I asked.
    “No,” Duffy said. He stood, looking restless, like he really wanted to leap out of the window, if there had been a window, and go rescue Lois Lane. Instead, he was stuck in this room explaining the details of an odd missing person case to a mystery novelist. That didn’t make any sense, and I started to raise an objection, but he went on. “That’s not the pattern. One of the other three women was married, another was single, not long out of high school, and without much of an income. The third was divorced, it’s true, but she did not have the same economic advantage as Julia Bledsoe.”
    I write dialogue for a lot of characters—more so for Duffy Madison than others. I know his speech patterns because I have made them up; they are not even second nature to me; they’re first-and-a-half nature. I don’t have to conjure up Duffy’s conversation when I need it. I know exactly how he talks; that’s the easiest part of writing the character.
    So the way he was talking now was especially worrisome, because I could tell there was a gap in it, but I didn’t know where. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” I said tohim, and he avoided eye contact, so I knew I was right. “You’re either withholding something that’s confidential about the case, or you’re trying to lead me into an area of conversation I don’t want to bring up. Which is it?”
    “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I’m simply telling you the facts of the case so you can help me find Julia Bledsoe.”
    “No, that’s not it.” I stood, too. I write best when I glue my butt to the chair and force myself (writers spend years, sometimes decades, trying to become full-time authors, and once they do, they’ll do anything to avoid writing), but I think best on my feet, pacing. “There are questions I should be asking, and I haven’t stumbled onto them yet. You just want to tell me in your own way, and I’m not giving you the