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

opportunity.”
    He stared at me.
    I ignored that; there was no way I was going to be the crazy person in this conversation, and I had to remember that. Duffy hadn’t anticipated my ability to think his thoughts—he was a talented imposter, but I was the character’s creator—and he could probably feel the tables turning on him.
    “Let’s break this down,” I said, talking mostly to myself and pacing back and forth on my side of the table. It was a decent-sized room, so there was plenty of pacing space. “Three women have been murdered in the past two years. There’s a pattern to the victims, you said so yourself, but it’s not marital or economic status. And the wild card is that for some reason you think I can help you find the latest woman to disappear, this Julia Bledsoe, even though I’ve never actually heard of her before. So given that I have no knowledge of the victimbut you’re intent on talking to me, there has to be some common ground. How am I doing so far?”
    Duffy tried to regain his dignity by drawing himself to full height and lacing his fingers behind his back, as if he had been given the order to be at ease. “Your reasoning isn’t bad,” he said. “But you must be careful. Jumping to conclusions in a case like this is extremely dangerous. We have to stay—”
    “—one step ahead of the kidnapper. Yes, I’ve heard that before. In fact, I wrote it.” I stopped pacing and faced him directly. “Cards on the table, Duffy. You truly believe that you’re a manifestation of the fictional character I created four years and now five manuscripts ago?”
    He nodded. “I confess, I can’t come up with another scenario that fits the facts. What’s that got to do with the case?”
    “You have to know that I think you’re a nut. But you’re a smart nut. You act exactly like the character I write, and he’s brilliant. You can’t do anything stupid. You can’t step out of character, not even once, especially when I’m around. And that gives me an advantage—I know your moves better than you do. I know them before you do them.”
    “This is not a competition, Ms. Goldman.” But the tightness in his mouth betrayed his real feelings.
    “You aren’t capable of dodging the question. I know that. So I’ll ask it: why are you so intent on talking to me about this case?” I put my palms on the conference table and leaned toward him. “Why do you need me?”
    “I think you know something about the victim,” he answered. I thought there’d be more, but there wasn’t.
    “No, I don’t. I’ve never heard of Julia Bledsoe.”
    In my books, Duffy Madison has a flair for the dramatic; he uses it to his advantage to get kidnappers to confess or witnesses to talk. So I fully expected to see him use it here, and he didn’t disappoint. “Yes, you have,” he said. “But you know her as Sunny Maugham.”
    I felt my eyes widen and drew a sharp intake of breath. Damn, he was good. “Julia Bledsoe is Sunny Maugham?”
    Duffy nodded. “Her pen name.”
    I knew Sunny Maugham. I didn’t know her well; we’d met at mystery conferences once or twice, and I was fairly sure we’d both been on a panel at the New York Public Library a couple of years before. She was a lot higher up on the literary food chain than I was. “You brought me in because the victim is a mystery author.”
    “That’s the pattern,” he almost whispered.
    I stared into his eyes. “The pattern? The other victims? They were all mystery authors?”
    “I’m afraid so,” Duffy said.
    It was too much to take in all at once. Sunny Maugham, an author of light, paper-thin mysteries, was missing. But that wasn’t all—Duffy believed that she was the fourth in a series of such abductions, and the other three women who had been taken had been found murdered. All three of them mystery authors.
    Like me.
    “I don’t mean to alarm you,” Duffy said, although he had done exactly that. “I thought you might have known