Review and Excerpt! Check out Second Book in Claudia Rose Series!

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Written in Blood

By Sheila Lowe


Chapter 1

The man heaved himself out of the driver seat of a Mercedes sedan, holding onto the doorframe until his feet were settled on the asphalt. The unbuttoned suit had an expensive cut, but it was snug in the shoulders and the belt disappeared under his belly. Thick, wiry hair cut short was just starting to grey. A salt-and-pepper beard hid his jaw.

Despite the coolness of the fall afternoon, his forehead was damp with perspiration as he lugged a briefcase up the wooden stairs, his breathing too labored for a man in his forties.

Claudia Rose stood at her front door waiting for him, thinking he ooked like a heart attack waiting to happen. Then her attention was drawn back to the Mercedes.

A woman stepped out with a wriggling Bichon Frisé clamped under one arm. She wore a plum-colored Akris Punto fitted jacket and short pleated skirt on the kind of figure other women would kill to have. A phone pressed to her ear with the hand that wasn’t holding the dog, she bumped the door shut with a curvy hip and followed her huffing companion to the staircase.

The stylish woman was Claudia’s new client, Paige Sorensen. The man reached the porch and proffered a sweaty handshake, trying to hide the fact that he was winded. “Bert Falkenberg,” he said.

“I–I’m helping Mrs. Sorensen with this matter.”

As she considered how to wipe her hand on her slacks without him noticing, Claudia smiled and let him precede her into the house. She waited on the porch until Paige Sorensen ended her phone call a few moments later and ran up the stairs.

“You must be Ms. Rose,” Paige said, flashing a smile that had probably charmed the pants off more than one admirer. She cuddled the Bichon Frisé to her cheek. “I hope you don’t mind that I brought Mikki. I take him everywhere, he’s very good.”

When she’d phoned for the appointment, Paige had sounded young and vulnerable. This well-turned out woman made Claudia wonder whether her first impression had been a bit hasty. She reached out and gave the squirming dog a scratch behind the ears and invited her client inside.

Paige Sorensen was a recent widow and the headmistress of the Sorensen Academy, a Bel Air school for girls. She had already explained that her late husband’s will was being challenged and she needed a handwriting expert to authenticate his signature. Her attorney had recommended Claudia Rose.

“His children are accusing me–“

Before she could finish, Paige was interrupted by the sound of a ring tone from her Gucci handbag. She gave Claudia a wry smile and apology as she got the phone out and answered.

Bert Falkenberg sighed and Claudia wondered why Paige didn’t turn the damn thing off. A high-pitched voice carried through the phone, talking fast.

Paige listened for about thirty seconds. “Okay, Annabelle, stop!

Tell Brenda to send the other girls to their rooms. You go to my office and stay there till we get back.”

She rang off and turned to Falkenberg. “I told you you should have stayed behind, Bert. Somebody needs to be in charge.”

He gave her a look. “It’ll keep.” He turned to Claudia. “Now, here’s the situation with Mr. Sorensen’s will...”

The touch of Paige’s hand on his sleeve halted him mid-sentence. “I’ll handle this.”

A flash of annoyance lit Falkenberg’s eyes, but he leaned back against the sofa cushions without another word.

“My husband passed away a month ago,” Paige began, reiterating what she’d told Claudia over the phone. She gently urged the Bichon’s haunches into a seated position on her lap. The little dog fidgeted for a
moment before he laid his head on a miniature forepaw and closed his eyes.

“He–” Paige began, then faltered. “He had a stroke–a series of strokes. He left nearly everything to me. His kids accused me of forging his signature on the will.” Her eyes filled with tears and her pouty mouth trembled. “It’s just crazy. I would never do something like that!”

“Insane,” Falkenberg echoed. “Utterly absurd.”

Claudia gave them her best sympathetic professional face, adjusting her impression of Paige a little more. If the husband’s children were old enough to accuse her of forgery, he must have been significantly older than Paige.

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Sorensen,” Claudia said. “It’s unfortunate, but this sort of thing is common in families.” An important question: “Who is your lawyer?”

“Stuart Parsons in Beverly Hills. He said you’re the best handwriting expert around.”

The compliment pleased Claudia, though she didn’t let on that her reason for liking Parsons was because he knew how to protect his expert witness from the sometimes vicious attacks that opposing counsel liked to launch.

She said, “Why don’t you show me what you’ve brought. Did you find examples of your husband’s genuine signature for me to compare to the questioned one?”

Paige turned to Falkenberg. “You’ve got the files, Bert?” Returning her gaze to Claudia, she said, “I’m a nice person and they’re calling me a liar. I need you to prove it’s his signature. There’s too much at stake–my reputation.”

Millions of dollars, too, Claudia thought. Paige had let that slip hen she’d made the appointment. She glanced at Bert Falkenberg, taking note of his broad hands as he snapped open the briefcase and laid it on the coffee table between them. Workman’s hands with poorly manicured fingernails that seemed more fitted for outdoor work. An affront to the Italian silk suit and tie. He hasn’t always worn Armani, she thought.

Falkenberg removed several file folders from his briefcase and fanned them out on the coffee table. He eased his large frame back against the cushions and let his eyes roam the room. His gaze traveled to the framed family photos on the fireplace mantel, fixing on a snapshot of Claudia standing in the arms of a tall man. The man was leaning down so they were cheek-to-cheek, a rare grin replacing his usual cop’s deadpan
expression. Falkenberg stared a long time at that photograph but his face gave nothing away and Claudia was left wondering what he was thinking.

Paige repositioned the little dog on her lap so she could reach the folders Falkenberg had placed on the table. As she leaned forward, a thick rope of hair the color of wild clover honey fell over her shoulder. “These are some checks and other papers that he–that Torg–my husband–” One fat tear welled up in each outrageously blue eye and spilled onto her cheeks. Sniffling, she dug in her purse with a trembling hand and brought out a
lacy handkerchief to dab the tears. “It was a complete shock when I found out he’d left everything to me.”

Falkenberg shifted his bulk, fidgety. Claudia glanced over at him, sensing that the abrupt movement was intended to extinguish some internal reaction to Paige’s words. She murmured something vague and spread open the folder Paige handed to her, leafing through the documents she found inside.

Every signature on the checks, trust deeds and business contracts had been executed in a bold, firm hand. Extra large capital letters; elaborate, written with a flourish.

Flipping one of the checks over, Claudia ran her fingertips across the back, noting that Torg Sorensen had exerted pressure on the pen strong enough to emboss the paper. To a handwriting analyst, it all added up to
one thing: an inflated ego and an aggressive need for power. Torg had been the type of man you couldn’t push around. Paige’s husband could not have been easy to live with.

Returning the items to their folder, Claudia replaced it on the table with a sharp reminder to herself to stay out of Sorensen’s personality. A major area of her handwriting analysis practice consisted of personality assessment and forensic behavioral profiling. But in cases like this one, her job would be to verify the authorship of a document.

Sometimes it was tempting to blur the lines. Sitting in her living room, no one could prevent Claudia from privately visualizing the man who had penned that showy signature. But in the courtroom her two specialties had to be kept separate.

If she accepted this case her task would be to compare the true, known signatures of Torg Sorensen with the one on his will, and offer an opinion as to its authenticity. Period. Inside the next file she found three checks, a grant deed, and a power of attorney. The signatures on these documents bore little resemblance to the first group. The letter forms had deteriorated to little more than a shaky line, and the writing stroke exposed the tremor of an unsteady hand.

Claudia picked out a grant deed and studied the signature. The name, Torg Sorensen, rose at an extreme angle above the printed signature line, the final letters fading into a feeble trail of ink. The weakened state of
this signature seemed even more than the others to beg the question of why someone in such obvious poor physical, and possibly mental, condition was signing legal documents.

“Is there any question about his competency to sign?” Claudia asked.

“None,” Falkenberg put in before Paige could respond. “I’ll testify that he was completely lucid when he signed it. There was no mental impairment. The children wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if they tried to
use that argument.”

“So, you’re certain that all the documents in this folder were signed after the stroke?”

“Yes,” Paige confirmed, still looking as if she might break into tears. “He insisted on signing those papers himself.”

The third and final folder remained on the table between them. This was the crux of the case, the reason why Paige had sought the help of a handwriting expert: the key document containing the signature contested by her stepchildren. This folder contained a certified copy of Torg Sorensen’s will. A probate court stamp on the first page indicated that the original was on file in the County of Los Angeles Superior Court. Claudia viewed the shaky scrawl with a practiced eye. Decline in writing quality was to be expected after a major assault on the brain like a stroke. It could also make proving authenticity tougher. Before she would form an opinion about the signature she would take measurements and view the documents through her stereo microscope. Already, her mind had begun taking inventory of the writing style, the alignment, the master
patterns.

“How old was Mr. Sorensen when he died?” she asked.

“Uh, he was uh...seventy-three.”

Claudia did a quick mental calculation. That meant Torg Sorensen was at least twice Paige’s age.

As if reading her mind, color flooded her client’s face. “I know people think I’m just some bimbo who married an old man for his money, but it’s not true! And I didn’t forge his signature, either! I loved him.”

Sensing his mistress’ distress, Mikki the dog jumped up with a sharp yip. He pressed his front paws against her breast, licking her chin and doing a little cha-cha on her lap.

Bert Falkenberg frowned and cleared his throat, antsy again. He doesn’t know what to do with her.

“I know it’s got to be upsetting to be accused,” Claudia said gently.

“If I take this on, I’m going to need a list of his medications.”

Paige frowned. “Why would you need that?”

“Some drugs affect handwriting, so I have to know what he was taking. I’ll also want to see his medical records, so I’ll know exactly what his physical condition was at the time he signed the will.”

“He had a stroke, he–”

“Did he sign on his own, or was someone guiding his hand? Was he lying down or sitting up? Was he wearing corrective lenses? What kind of writing surface did he use? What time did he take his meds?” Claudia met Paige’s bemused expression with a smile. “It’s important for me to know these things, especially in a case like this, where there’s such a major change in the handwriting. I’ll give you a list of questions that I’ll need answers to.”

Paige looked as if she were exhausted. Her hand moved rhythmically over the little dog’s fur, but her eyes were glued to the paper in Claudia’s hand. “At first, he couldn’t use his right hand at all. Then he started working with a physical therapist, and after they released him from the hospital we hired a private therapist. When was that, Bert?”

“Two-and-a-half weeks after he had the first stroke.”

“He was pretty impatient and difficult to deal with.” Paige’s lips twisted in a cheerless smile and her next words confirmed what Claudia had seen in Torg Sorensen’s handwriting. “The truth is, he was always
difficult, he...” She seemed to catch herself. “About a week after he came home from the hospital, he had me call his secretary over to the house.

They were locked up in his room together all afternoon. That must be when he changed his will. It was a couple days later the second stroke hit him and he went into a coma. He never came out of it.”

Claudia noted that the will had been witnessed but not notarized, which she thought was surprising, given the size of the Sorensen estate. A mobile notary could have been called in. Why had that not been done?

Two witness signatures appeared under the name of Torg Sorensen, testator. Bert Falkenberg was one of them. He’d written a small, illegible signature that slanted to the left. His handwriting told Claudia that he would not be forthcoming unless there was something in it for him.

Left-slanted writers were particularly hard to get to know. The illegibility added another layer of emotional distance and said that he guarded his emotions well.

The second witness signature was larger, more conventional. The name Roberta Miller was penned in the Palmer model common to older women who’d had religious school training, and was typical of many who
worked in administrative jobs.

“Is Roberta Miller the secretary?” Claudia asked.

Paige said that she was. The question was more out of curiosity than a need to know. Paige’s attorney would undoubtedly question the witnesses, but unless they were accused of forging the signature on the will, Claudia wouldn’t need to interview them herself.

The rude bleat of a cell phone interrupted again. This time it was Falkenberg who dug his out his mobile phone and checked the screen.

“Dammit. Annabelle.” He hauled himself off the sofa, excused himself, and headed for the front door as he flipped open the phone.

Claudia watched him go, curious about who Annabelle might be and why she had called so many times.

Paige cleared her throat before offering some explanation. “She’s new at the Sorensen Academy,” she said. “She’s having a hard time settling in.”

“Oh, is it a residential school?”

“A few of the girls live on site. Annabelle’s one of them. The trouble is, the other girls are constantly picking on her because she’s...different from them. She doesn’t even try to fit in.”

“Different, how?”

Paige looked uncomfortable, looking like she was sorry she had opened that line of conversation. She leaned forward. “This is confidential, right?”

Getting Claudia’s assurance, she continued. “Annabelle tried to kill herself a couple of months ago. She came to us right out of the hospital. That’s why we can’t ignore her phone calls. She’s still pretty fragile.”

The front door opened and Bert returned. “I’ll talk to her when we get back,” he said, lowering himself onto the sofa beside Paige.

“She’s taken a liking to Bert,” Paige said. “He’s become kind of a father figure for some of the girls.”

Claudia felt a stirring of interest about Annabelle, who had been so unhappy that she had attempted suicide, yet she felt comfortable calling this bear of a man for–what? Support? He did have that big, cuddly look.

Maybe she saw him as a teddy bear. A young girl might be drawn to that kind of man.

An image of her own father, loving, but ineffectual in the face of her mother’s vitriol, came into her head. She firmly pushed the image away.

“Do you work at the school, Mr. Falkenberg?”

He nodded. “I help Mrs. Sorensen with the business end of running the Sorensen Academy. The administration of a private school is quite different from a public one.”

“I’m sure it must be.” Returning her attention to the case, Claudia indicated the file folders on the table. “I have to be frank, Mrs. Sorensen. Because of the physiological effects of the stroke on your husband’s
handwriting, this is a difficult case. I’ll do my examination and let you know whether I think I can help.”

Paige visibly sagged with disappointment. “But Bert saw him sign it, didn’t you, Bert?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right, I did.”

Paige’s body strained toward Claudia, something like desperation showing in her eyes. “You have to testify that his signature is genuine–that’s what I’m paying for!”

“What you’re paying for is my objective opinion, and that’s all I can promise you.” Stacking the folders together in a neat pile, Claudia slid them back across the coffee table with an apologetic shrug. “I’m not your
lawyer, Mrs. Sorensen, I’m an advocate of the court, and that means I deal
with the truth, whatever it may be.”

“But I’m telling you the truth–he signed the will.”

For a moment, no one spoke. The sudden roar of a leaf blower outside shattered the silence, startling them. The sound rose and fell under the window, amplifying the tension in the room as the gardener walked the
noisy machine up the pathway. The return to quiet when he switched it off
was as jarring as the racket it made.

Bert Falkenberg abruptly snatched the file folders from the table and tossed them into his briefcase, giving Claudia an icy glance. “If you can’t handle this case, maybe you’ll refer us to someone who can.”

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Review and Excerpt! Do You Like to Start From The Beginning Of A Series! I Do!

The Claudia Rose Series!


Poison Pen by Sheila Lowe



Chapter 1

“No, girlfrien’.” The woman gave an emphatic shake of her head that set elaborately beaded braids swirling. “Dat was not her way. Not suicide.”

Claudia Rose figured her for around thirty. High cheekbones in a strikingly handsome face, café au lait skin, athletic frame in a casually elegant Chanel suit. The lilt in her voice suggested West Indies.

Her companion was Wal-Mart Goth. A girl about eighteen in tight, low slung jeans and a brief top that showed off a pierced navel. Unnaturally black hair cut short and spiky. A tattoo decorated her upper chest: seven daggers thrust into a bloody heart. In the dry-eyed designer-clad crowd, she stood out like a dot of spaghetti sauce on a white dress, weeping into a soggy tissue as though her heart were broken.

“Stop your cryin’.” There was a sharp edge in the beaded woman’s order.

“But I’m scared,” the girl said, dashing Claudia’s sympathetic assumption that her tears were for Lindsey Alexander, the woman they had come to bury.

“You should be scared, girlfrien’!”

“The cops…said…she killed herself.”

“De cops! I am tellin’ you, girl, before she come to dis earth, dat one make a pac’ with God how she will go out, and it is not like dis.”

“But it could have been an accident...couldn’t it?”

“An acci-dent?” the older woman’s tone echoed scornful disbelief. “I say someone do her in. Now you stop it, girl! You are makin’ a scene.”

A muddy trail of mascara dribbled down ashy pale cheeks. The tissue shredded and the girl switched to the back of her bare arm.

Claudia dug a clean tissue from her purse and leaned forward to offer it. The girl turned, snatched the tissue with the suspicious glare of a feral cat, and wadded it against the one in her hand. She blew her nose with a loud, wet snuffle, pushed the waterlogged mess into her Levis pocket, then hurried off without a word. Flicking an annoyed glance at Claudia, the older woman followed.

Claudia lifted a brow at her friend, Kelly Brennan, who had also observed the exchange with interest. “Think she could be right?”

“What, that someone killed Lindsey?” Kelly snorted rudely. “Why not? I wanted to kill her myself. Not only me. Everyone hated her.”

“That’s cold, Kel. I don’t think anyone hated her enough to kill her.”

There was a short silence. Then Kelly said so softly that Claudia almost didn’t hear it, “I did.”

“You did what? Hate her enough to kill her? There’s a pretty big leap to actually doing it, which is what those women were talking about. Anyway, there was a suicide note, remember?”

Kelly shrugged. “I guess that was good enough for the cops. I wish you could’ve taken a look at it.”

Claudia pursed her lips, nodding agreement. Yes, she would definitely have liked to see the note that had been found on the floor beside Lindsey’s bathroom Jacuzzi. What handwriting analyst wouldn’t?

Handwriting had been Claudia’s passion since childhood, her career for more years than she cared to count. And it had created the bond between Claudia and Lindsey in college. Both psychology majors, they had opted to specialize in handwriting analysis. Kelly, who had been Claudia’s best friend since the first day of kindergarten, had started out with them, but had gone on to Southwestern and now practiced family law.

They had been close friends, Claudia, Kelly, and Lindsey. It seemed a lifetime ago. Then Lindsey had seduced one of Kelly’s boyfriends. The first time, she’d seemed genuinely contrite.

But over the years, the backstabbing had escalated, until finally, her acts of treachery went beyond the point of forgiveness and tore the friendship apart. What a hypocrite, I am, Claudia thought. Attending the funeral of someone I didn’t like or respect. What the hell am I doing here?

Exhuming memories better left buried.

She turned to view the fans and paparazzi waiting at the bottom of the hill, an unruly mob decked out in bright T-shirts and shorts, floppy hats, and sunshades, crowding around the largest pair of wrought iron gates in the world.

Forest Lawn Memorial Park. As a stately convoy of limousines made the turn into the wide driveway the mob overflowed onto Glendale Avenue, calling out to the limos, hoping for a glimpse of their favorite stars through darkened windows.

“This whole damn thing is a Hollywood cliché,” Claudia muttered, leaning close to Kelly’s ear so that no one else might hear.

Kelly made a sound that might have been agreement and said, “So, where else would you expect Lindsey to be buried?”

“Good point.”

Forest Lawn, where burial plots had names like Babyland, Graceland, and Sweet Memories. Where reproductions of famous statues and other works of art were offered for sale. Where more Hollywood celebrities were buried than anywhere else in the world. Not that Lindsey herself had been a celebrity, of course. Having dropped out of handwriting analysis after a few years, she had turned to the public relations field where she could be nearer the limelight. After reaching the height of her career as a publicist, she’d been
content to make her famous clients the main attraction.

Kelly stared over the tops of her Gabbana shades at the platoon of CHiPs in golden helmets and jackboots handling crowd control. Petite, girlish for her thirty-nine years, Kelly had eyes the special blue of a summer sky, fringed by artificially long, dark lashes. Her hair was a cap of curls, currently blonde, trimmed a half-inch from her head. She was wearing a little black number that Claudia had last seen on her at a nightclub.

Kelly’s eyes turned to a limo easing to the curb fifteen feet away from them. Six matching hunks climbed out, their movements as practiced as if they had rehearsed for a major production.

“Ho-ly shit,” she breathed. “Talk about star-studded.”

Every last one of Lindsey’s pall bearers was GQ cover material. They gathered behind the hearse and lifted the satin-rubbed mahogany casket to their shoulders, well-toned abs flexing beneath coats designed by Armani, Canali, and Zegna.

Funeral as screen test?

“They must be melting in those suits,” Claudia observed, glancing down at her friend, who was half a head shorter. “It’s hot as hell out here.”

Kelly’s smile turned into a smirk. “Well, that’s fitting, don’t you think?”

Claudia ignored the remark and began fanning herself with the prayer card she’d picked up in the chapel. The flimsy bit of cardboard had no effect on air as dry and still as the bones beneath the sod. Ninety-eight degrees by noon, the mercury was still rising. She wished she were in her car, the air conditioner cooling her skin as she headed for Playa del Reina, the small beach community where she lived.

“I could be home right now, working,” Claudia grumbled.

Kelly grinned. “It’s Saturday afternoon, for crying out loud. What’s so pressing that you ave to kick your own ass for taking time off for a funeral?”

“I have a court-ordered handwriting analysis to do. They’re using it in a custody issue. A six-year-old kid.”

“Abusive parents?”

“The mother claims the ex-husband takes the little girl in the shower with him.”

Kelly’s face twisted into a grimace. “Well I know what I’d do with him. I’d give him the knife.”

Claudia gave her an eye roll. “You would. Thank god, all I have to do is describe his behavior.”

They fell into step with the well-heeled group of mourners, picking their way around the graves. So many deaths represented by the bronze and granite monuments, so many tears.

Claudia’s own inability to dredge up the slightest hint of emotion for Lindsey Alexander bothered her. What kind of person feels nothing over the death of an old friend?

Former friend, she amended. So much for the pack of tissues she’d tossed into her shoulder bag in the event she was overcome with grief.

A sage-colored canopy had been erected graveside to protect Lindsey’s mega-clients from the brutal sun. The funeral director escorted some two dozen guests to folding chairs in the shade. The lesser glitterati were left to jockey for whatever prime spots remained, standing room only.

“Look, there’s Ivan.”

Claudia followed Kelly’s pointing finger and saw a middle-aged man in the front row, twisting in his seat to scan the crowd. Ivan Novak, Lindsey’s close friend and business manager, wedged between a handsome couple that Claudia recognized from television campaign ads. State Senator Bryce Heidt and his wife, Mariel.

Spotting them, Ivan waved at Claudia.. He stood up and began to make his way toward them, stopping to shake hands with sympathetic guests who reached out to him. As he grew nearer, the puffy pink flesh around his eyes told the story. He had shed his share of tears for Lindsey; probably Claudia and Kelly’s share, too.

“Hey, you two, thanks for coming,” Ivan said in a subdued voice. “I know it wasn’t easy for either of you. I appreciate it.”

Kelly reached out to hug him. “Ivan, you look like you haven’t slept in days. Are you okay?”

Shorter than Claudia, Ivan was almost at eye-height with Kelly, though she was slight and fine-boned. As he spoke, his stocky body seemed taut with the effort of controlling his emotions.

“No, Kelly dear, okay is something I am definitely not.”

He shook his head and mopped his damp face with a snowy handkerchief. Turning to Claudia, he laid a pudgy hand on her arm. “I have to talk to you privately,” he said, effectively shutting out Kelly. “You are coming to the reception, aren’t you?”

Claudia hesitated. Joining the jet set for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres was the last thing she had planned for the afternoon. She had become recently acquainted with Ivan through her professional connection to Lindsey, and was certain he had invited her and Kelly because Lindsey had given him the impression that they were still dear old chums. The truth was, Claudia had tolerated her former friend over the past few months, only because it had been a professional necessity.

“Well, actually I wasn’t––”

Ivan’s face fell. “But you have to come! We can’t talk here, the service is about to start. It won’t take long, I promise.” His grasp on her arm tightened. “Don’t disappoint me, Claudia. For Lindsey’s sake.”

She’s dead, but the drama continues.

She watched him hurry back to his seat as the funeral director stepped up to the lectern and asked for their attention. “I wonder what’s going on with Ivan,” she murmured.

Kelly shrugged. “So, go to the reception and find out. I’ll be there, and...hey, there’s Zebediah. That seersucker jacket is sooo Zeb.”

Claudia had to smile at their friend’s choice of funeral wear. The summery blue and white stripes made him easy to spot. “I guess being Ivan’s ex-therapist rates him a seat.”

“Yeah, well, I have a feeling Ivan’s gonna need a whole lot more therapy before all this crap is over.”

“Poor Ivan. He really cared about her.”

Kelly’s face soured. “He’s the only one.”

Claudia cleared her throat uncomfortably. Considering their shared history, she didn’t blame Kelly for the way she felt about Lindsey. Still, she felt compelled to register a protest.

“How about putting a sock in it, Kel? There’s a better time and place for that discussion.”

Kelly stared straight ahead, her chin jutting forward defiantly. “I don’t give a shit about the time or place.”

A woman standing in the row ahead of them turned a shocked glare on them. Kelly returned the glare, but lowered her voice a notch. “The only reason I came here is to make sure the bitch really is dead.”

Claudia caught the faint whiff of alcohol on Kelly’s breath and it came as no surprise. Since their early teens Kelly had dealt with stress by drinking, Claudia by working more hours. Soon, someone would need to find a way to cram twenty-six hours into a day.

“We can talk about it later,” Claudia said a little more firmly, but Kelly wasn’t ready to let go.

“It’s a good thing the casket’s closed. I can see her rising up and sinking her fangs into someone’s jugular, can’t you? I’ll never forgive her for the things she did to me–she ruined my wedding night, not to mention all the other times she fucked me over. Fucked you over, too, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Claudia certainly had not forgotten any of the cruel tricks Lindsey had played in the name of fun, nor the easy shifting of blame for her own misdeeds. She and Kelly had debated over the past week whether or not to attend the funeral. There had been as many reasons to stay away as there were to come. In the end, maybe it was curiosity more than anything that had brought them here.

As Claudia sought an appropriate response to Kelly’s tirade, the funeral director stepped to the podium and the hum of conversation abruptly died as he introduced a priest in white vestments.

Bishop Patrick Flannery, looking pale and soft, opened his gilt-edged missal and peered over the assembled crowd.

He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t come away from the afternoon with a nasty sunburn, Claudia thought, noticing that his bald pate was already an interesting shade of fuchsia.

“We are gathered here today on this sad occasion to bid a final farewell to Lindsey Alexander, a woman much revered….”

“Good thing he didn’t say ‘much loved,’” Kelly stage-whispered.

“Shut up.” Claudia gave her friend a sharp poke with an elbow.

“…often seen on the evening news, with the clients to whom she devoted her life,

Lindsey came to Hollywood with nothing but raw energy and a unique gift for recognizing talent in others, on which she built an empire...”

The bishop’s reedy tenor was no competition for the eggbeater clatter of Channel Seven’s news chopper circling overhead, and Claudia could barely make out the words. Her right temple was throbbing and the sun beat against her neck like an angry drummer. She needed water. Or better yet, a vodka tonic.

Is this funeral ever going to end? Or is this really hell, and we’re all sharing it with Lindsey?

She gave up trying to listen. The way she saw it, Lindsey had been a self-serving ballbuster. But brutal truths like that didn’t belong in a eulogy. Her thoughts gravitated inevitably to the final act of betrayal that had severed their friendship. Events that had burned deep into her memory and still had the power to mortify.

But that was more than ten years ago, and now, Lindsey was dead.
 
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Review: Last Writes by Sheila Lowe is Out Today! I Call it a Must-Read!

Image by Lin Pernille ♥ Photography via Flickr

Last Writes

A Forensic
Handwriting Mystery

By Sheila Lowe

"This is what rejecting independent thinking gets you." (p. 289)

Obsidian - Penguin
290 Pages

I must say that the first paragraph of Sheila Lowe's new book had me hooked! And that doesn't happen too often. Perhaps I had envisoned an entirely different type of story, based upon the title--you know, like the last will and testament of some rich guy that was being contested by all the relatives. Not so!

Last Writes is about a child that has been kidnapped by her father. Her mother, Erin Powers has contacted her half-sister, seeking help and Kelly Brennan, in turn, contacts her best friend Claudia Rose. You may already be aware that Claudia Rose is an expert in handwriting analysis.

In fact, I might as well point out that, if you haven't started reading the Claudia Rose Series, you are missing meeting a wonderful, caring woman who, with her handwriting expertise, has turned into an "amateur sleuth" extraordinaire. I have been a fan since the first two books, which were a little more cozy-type in nature. However, her last book, and now, especially, with Last Writes, we see a Claudia Rose that is extraordinary in not only following the clues, but having the guts and strength of character to keep on moving into dangerous situations until she has successfully responded to the individual seeking help!

Even though the solution to the problem can be gruesome, as in Last Writes!

The story begins as Claudia studies the handwriting of a note that has been left by Rodney Powers 

Hand-printed in black ink, the note read: DON’T BOTHER LOOKING. THERE MIGHT BE SUFFERING BUT NOT AS BAD AS YOU THINK. GOD’S WILL BE DONE. There is a signature.

Claudia's first response about the handwriting is that she has concerns. Then she starts questioning Erin...

Erin and Rodney are members of a church, the Temple of Brighter Light. They live in an isolated area where there are about 200 men, women and children. The individuals there are living and learning and, most of all, preparing for the last days. Their beautiful child, Kylie, has been selected to be dedicated into the service of Jephthah's Daughters, a special program that takes a young child at the age of 3!

Erin explained that originally both parents had been honored to have their child selected, but then Erin had changed her mind, so Rodney had taken Kylie and left. Erin was certain that Kylie had not wanted to go, since she had not even had a chance to take Tickle, her favorite bear, which was always with Kylie. She knew that Kylie had been taken at night and right now was somewhere, afraid and lonely, without even Tickle to comfort her! And...Kylie would become 3 on the next Saturday!

Kelly and Claudia were quickly and totally willing to help. Kelly had just learned that she had a niece and insisted on going with Claudia. They first attended an open invitation session where they would have an opportunity to hear Brother Harold Stedman speak. And listening--it became almost hypnotic; Claudia even pinched herself to make sure she was wide awake and concentrating on finding clues to Kylie.

And then Brother Stedman called for Kelly and Claudia to join him after the service ended. Their seats had been bugged! Brother Stedman had heard Claudia talking about the handwriting of one of those who had gone forward after the service, saying that he had been lying. Before she knew it, Claudia had been hired to come and do a job for him--analyzing the handwriting of a number of his church members!

Kelly immediately expressed a desire to learn more about his church. So they were both invited to stay. They would be able to investigate from within the community!

Soon after they arrived, Claudia and Kelly were separated. Claudia was to live in the same building with Brother Stedman and work in an office there. Kelly was to live in another building as if she were a new member. Claudia immediately received a group of stories that had been written by prospective members of the church community; it told why they wanted to join; but had no names attached. Not knowing even the sex of the individual would make Claudia's job more difficult, but she began to work and did indeed find several about which she would have to share some concern.

But Claudia also began to see changes in Kelly and often, she would not be permitted to see her, being told that she was in class. Finally, when they did get together, Claudia wondered if Kelly had been drugged...

Although both Claudia and Kelly were also talking to members of the community, trying to learn more about where Rodney and Kylie might be, not many of the men would even talk to them. They learned that a big celebration would occur on Saturday, for Kylie; but everybody understood that the entire family was away preparing for this major event.

Soon Claudia and Kelly attended a service at which it was announced that a man had just been excommunicated from the church; that he had been placed outside the gates and he was to be shunned and assumed to be gone forever.

Then Claudia had an opportunity to leave and she talk to Joel Javonic, her friend, lover and police detective. He had been concerned about Claudia going into the closed community. Now, he wanted her to leave! The FBI were already looking at the group and had an operative inside! Claudia was afraid that she might have already exposed the individual by analyzing the handwriting. Had the excommunicated man been the operative?! But she had to return; Kelly was still there...and they still had to find Kylie!

And then, one of the friends of Rodney with whom they had talked got a message to Claudia. She was fairly certain, even though she didn't have the original note that Erin had showed her, that Rodney had not written that first note about Kylie! Coming back from updating Kelly one night, Claudia also sees a number of heavily robed individuals coming from one of the buildings rarely used and silently returning to their homes. One had gone into the building where Claudia was staying!

Wow! You've got some exciting reading when you select Last Writes by Sheila Lowe! This is one of those rare books that I want to just go ahead and continue to tell you what happens--but you know I can't do that! What I can do is tell you that there are surprising page-turning twists that forced me to continue reading. No wonder I've add Sheila Lowe to my favorite author "must-read" list!

Book Provided by

Kaye Publicity

G. A. Bixler

Excerpt From Last Writes by Sheila Lowe Out Tomorrow!

Image by Lin Pernille ♥ Photography via Flickr

Chapter 1


The angelic face gazed past the camera with serious eyes the color of spring violets and a rosebud mouth turned down. The child in the picture was hardly more than a toddler—around two, two-and-a-half, Claudia Rose guessed—but there was a grown-up wistfulness in the way her chin rested on her dimpled hand.

Studying the photograph, Claudia fancied she could see life experience in those eyes, experience that extended far beyond the scant few months the little girl had been on earth. An old soul, she thought as she returned the photograph to the child’s mother.

Erin Powers replaced the photo in an envelope and stuffed it into an inside pocket of the battered leather bag at her feet. More saddlebag than purse. Its faded sides bulged with unseen items. “We’ve always known Kylie was special. As soon as we saw those eyes, we said God has a plan for her.

I’ve got to get her back.” Erin’s head was bowed, her slender shoulders shaking as she choked back a sob. “Please, please tell me you’ll help me find them.”

Claudia’s friend Kelly Brennan leaned over and put an arm around the half sister she hadn’t seen in almost twenty years. It had been only a couple of hours since Erin had showed up without warning at her door, and Kelly wore the bemused expression of one still getting used to the idea. But the surprise of her sister’s arrival was soon supplanted by an even greater one:

Kelly learned that she had a young niece, Kylie. A niece who was missing. Claudia’s eyes returned to the sheet of notebook paper in her hand. “The handwriting is a little disturbing,” she said. “I’m glad you asked me to come and look at it.” She searched for diplomatic words that wouldn’t add to Erin’s distress, but they weren’t easy to find. Red flags sprouted from the brief note.

Hand-printed in black ink, the note read: DON’T BOTHER LOOKING. THERE MIGHT BE SUFFERING BUT NOT AS BAD AS YOU THINK. GOD’S WILL BE DONE.

Below the words, the signature was just a scribble, which Erin identified as that of her husband, Rodney Powers.

The three women were gathered around a small wrought iron table on the plant-filled patio of Kelly’s condo. But no one was paying attention to the lush colors of morning glory or the scent of star jasmine filling the sunwarmed air.

“I thought he’d just taken her for a walk.” Tears welled up in Erin’s eyes and spilled onto her pale cheeks. “I had a bad night and I woke up this morning with a headache. So I slept late because I thought they’d be right
back, but they didn’t come back, and when I got up and went into the kitchen—” Her voice broke again and she buried her face in the tissue Kelly pressed into her hand.

“It’s okay, honey.” Kelly gave her sister’s arm an awkward pat and threw Claudia a helpless glance. “The only family news I ever get is from my brothers, and you know how rarely I hear from them.” She turned back to Erin with a regretful sigh. “I can’t believe how completely I lost track of you.

It’s been ages since I heard anything.”

The sisters shared a genetic history, but there the relationship ended. Claudia had been there when Kelly said goodbye to Erin, to her family. It was a memory that she found could still produce a sharp pang: Erin, four years old. A shy little girl sucking her thumb. Their three brothers madly waving goodbye from the back of an old pickup truck piled high with boxes and furniture. Their mother driving away without a backward glance, leaving her eldest child behind to live with Claudia’s family.

Kelly added, “The last I heard was that you’d joined a cult—”

Erin pulled away from her. “It’s not a cult!”

Behind Erin’s head, Kelly rolled her eyes. “Okay, sorry. New religion.”

“Why don’t you tell us what happened with your husband,” Claudia interjected before an argument broke out. Kelly’s emotions could flare unexpectedly, and she would rather not find out whether Erin had inherited
the same trait.

Erin began to explain how she’d found the note from her husband on the kitchen table. “Rod left it propped against my coffee mug,” she said, sniffling miserably into the tissue. We’ve been staying at a cabin near Big Bear for the last few weeks. I—I didn’t know what to do; we don’t know anyone around there. I called Sean.”

“You’ve stayed in touch with our brothers?” Kelly asked. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re a lot closer in age to the boys than to me.”

“I talk with Sean a couple times a year maybe. He lets me know if he hears anything from Mom. She calls him once in a while.”

Claudia sensed Kelly stiffen. Erin didn’t know that she had just wandered into dangerous territory. She was unaware of the tacit agreement that Kelly’s mother was a topic to be avoided if at all possible.

“Those would be the times when she wants to hit him up for money,” Kelly muttered.

Erin made a sound of distress. “Fine, Kelly, I get it that you hate Mom, but she’s not—”

“Let’s not go there, Erin. You and Sean weren’t around when I was raising Mickey and Pat. Mom was out hurling herself at as many bars as would take the grocery money. It’s only thanks to sheer luck and the good
will of people like Claudia’s parents and some of the other neighbors pitching in that the rest of us didn’t starve or get split up and put into foster care long before you were ever born.”

Erin’s eyes widened. “But she’s— I didn’t know it was going on that long.”

“I’ll just bet you didn’t.”

The sudden burst of hostility charged the air and Claudia found her neck and shoulders aching from the tennsion. Reaching up to massage the taut muscles, another flash of memory washed over her: the day the Brennan family moved into the rattiest house on the block.

The hand-lettered cardboard For Rent sign had finally disappeared from the front yard of the old Drew house across the street and a few doors down from Claudia’s parents’ home. The sign had stood there since the previous Christmas when the widowed Mr. Drew had suffered a massive stroke. His children, who apparently had their own busy lives and couldn’t be persuaded to take him in, had moved him into a nursing home, where he died six weeks later. A realtor hammered the For Rent sign into the grass the day after the
funeral.

On that Saturday, the weekend beforeClaudia was due to enter kindergarten, the weeds in the yard of the Drew house were taller than the flowers they choked. The concrete driveway was cracked and stained with the oil of the 1952 Dodge Coronet that had rested there, probably since before she was born.

Squeezing herself behind an ancient elm in her parents’ garden, six-year-old Claudia watched two sweaty men in sleeveless T-shirts unload a moving van stacked with furniture shabby enough to match the house. A car pulled into the driveway. She could still remember being impressed by the woman who climbed out of the driver’s seat. Ruby red halter top, shorts that showed off long, tanned legs. Georgia Brennan, Claudia later learned. The mother.Three children spilled out of the car. Two small boys and a little girl around Claudia’s own age. They had been out of the car only moments before the girl was running around the yard in a futile attempt to corral the boys.

“Kelly Ann Brennan!” the mother screeched, oblivious of curtains twitching in disapproval in windows across the street. “Can’t you do anything right, you lazy girl? You’re about as useless as your father was. Didn’t I tell you to watch your brothers?” The mother’s voice reached a pitch that could set dogs howling. “You get those boys inside right now and wash them up.

And don’t let me see or hear a peep from any of you till dinner. You hear me, Kelly Ann? Do you hear me? What did I just say?”

That night, Claudia’s own mother held forth over dinner about what she termed “that unladylike caterwauling.” It was the first of her many commentaries on the Brennan family matriarch. On Monday, when she and Kelly met on their way to the first day of school, Claudia had invited her new friend over to play with her Barbie dolls. Kelly looked like she desperately wanted to say yes, but instead she told Claudia that she had to go straight home and take care of her brothers because her mother would be passed out on the couch. At the time, Claudia didn’t understand what that meant, but over the years there were many occasions
where she saw for herself.

Before Kelly turned sixteen, two more fatherless Brennan kids—Erin and Sean—were crammed into the two-bedroom house. But by then, Kelly spent most of her free time at Claudia’s home anyway. She made her escape from the sardine can with great relief when Claudia’s parents invited her to live with them full-time until the girls completed high school.

When Georgia Brennan informed her eldest daughter that she was moving her four younger children to Banning, where housing was far cheaper, Kelly had said nothing. Banning was only about a ninety-minute
drive from their current home in Santa Monica, but it might as well have been a thousand miles away.

Returning her attention to the present, Claudia realized that the uncomfortable silence between the sisters was unbroken. She cleared her throat and prepared to mediate. “Why don’t we get back to the little girl who’s missing. That’s where we need to focus our attention.”
Kelly’s cheeks puffed as she blew out a long breath. “You’re so right, Claud. The only thing we should concentrate on is making sure my niece is safe.”

“You’re gonna help me, aren’t you, Kelly?” Erin looked young and vulnerable as she made her appeal. “Sean said you’re a really smart attorney and you’d know what to do.”

“He said that because I kept him out of jail when he got arrested for dealing pot. But that’s another story. I think we have to take this note to the police. This line about ‘the suffering’ is scaring the crap out of me.”

“We can ask Joel about it,” Claudia suggested. “He can tell us who to talk to.”

Kelly made a gun finger and pointed it at her. “Obvious choice. But first, I think we need some more information about what kind of person Rodney is.”

“There’s a lot of information in this handwriting sample,” Claudia said.

“And as I said earlier, some of it is troublesome.”

Kelly said, “If you were to write up a report on it, we might be able to get a judge to—”

“Wait,” Erin interrupted. “Who’s Joel?”

“He’s my guy—my—” Boyfriend felt slightly ridiculous at forty. Significant Other was worse. “He’s a detective with LAPD.”

Erin looked doubtful. “I’m not so sure we should—I mean, I don’t want Rod to get in any trouble. I don’t think he would actually hurt Kylie.”

“Well, pardon me,” Kelly said, throwing up her hands. “But what about what he wrote in this note? Holy Christ, Erin, if you don’t think Kylie is in trouble, what the hell are you here for?”

“I didn’t know what else to do.” Erin rubbed her hands over her face, which was pretty, even without the benefit of any makeup. “He didn’t take Tickle with them. That’s what really got me worried.”

“Tickle? Who, or what is Tickle?”

Erin leaned down, unzipped her bag again and reached inside. When she withdrew her hand, she was holding a fuzzy brown stuffed bunny that had seen a lot of wear. “Kylie never, ever goes anywhere without Tickle. That means she had to be asleep when Rod took her. She’s probably come totally unglued by now.”

The three women looked at each other with sober faces, fully comprehending the importance of the stuffed toy to a small child.“What the hell was Rod thinking, Erin?” Kelly asked. “Don’t you have any idea at all why he would take Kylie like this? What do you think he plans to do with her?”

Erin shook her head. “I don’t know, Kelly, I just don’t know.”

“Why don’t you tell us what led up to it,” Claudia encouraged her.

“Something like this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. What’s been going on lately between you?”

Erin began to speak, slowly at first, drawing the words out as if she were reluctant to part with them. “We’ve been arguing on and off for a couple of days. He never said anything about leaving, though. I never guessed he would take the baby! Can’t you do something, Kelly?”

“Is he Kylie’s father?” Kelly asked.

“Of course he is.” Erin said indignantly.

“And you’re legally married?”

“Yes! We’ve been married almost six years.”

“You got married at eighteen?” Kelly looked as if she was going to explode, but she forced herself to stay on track. “Has he ever abused her or you? Hit you or . . . ?”

“No, of course he’s never done anything like that. We’re God-fearing people. He’s a little older than me, but Rod’s been a good husband. We did missionary work together for three years before I got pregnant.”

“Even missionaries can get into trouble,” Kelly pointed out. “How much older than you is he?”

Erin answered reluctantly. “He’s thirty-eight.”

Kelly did a quick calculation in her head. “Fourteen years is more than just a bit older, honey child. Okay, like Claudia said, we’ll start by talking to Joel about taking the note to the police; see if he thinks they would view it as a threat since there’s a child involved.”

“I’ll call him right now,” Claudia said, taking out her cell phone.

Kelly rose and stretched her arms high above her head. “Erin, let’s go to the kitchen while she’s making the call. I could use a cold one.”

Claudia watched them go, hoping her friend was talking about iced tea or a soda. Kelly had been working hard at staying sober and for the past several months had been successful. She hoped the stress of Erin’s situation wouldn’t push her into changing that.

After a disappointing chat with Jovanic, Claudia joined the sisters in the kitchen.

“He said that as Kylie’s father, Rodney has a legal right to take her. I asked him about the possibility of issuing an Amber Alert, but he said under the circumstances, they can’t. The wording of the note is ambiguous. It’s not a direct threat, so there’s no evidence that he intends to harm her.”

“Damn.” The ice cubes clinked against the glass as Kelly handed Claudia a diet cola. She turned to the refrigerator and got out a bag of French rolls, mayonnaise and mustard, sliced meats and cheese, arranged them on the kitchen counter. Claudia had a feeling that it wasn’t because Kelly was in the mood for lunch; she just needed something to do, to help her contain the agitation that her busy hands telegraphed.

She returned to the refrigerator, dug in the crisper drawer and found a tomato and lettuce. Went back for a jar of pickles. Went back again, but found nothing more. “Let’s talk about the handwriting,” she said, busying
herself with her sandwich-making preparations. “You saw danger signs, didn’t you, Claud?”

Claudia chose her words with care. “There are indications of some . . . problems. But I’d like to enlarge the note on the computer so I can look at it in more detail.” There was no point in offering a hasty opinion that could lead to mistakes. She added, “If you would scan it and e-mail it to me, Kel, I’ll have a proper look at it when I get home. Six-hundred DPI would be high enough resolution to show the fine points when I blow it up.”

She asked Erin to let her see the note again. The block printing Rodney Powers had penned on the scrap of lined paper told her that the writer had high control needs. He could be opinionated and more than a little selfimportant. It wouldn’t be easy to get to know him—or to break through his defenses if he didn’t want to believe something, regardless of how hard one tried to convince him.

Flipping the paper over, she ran her fingers across the back, feeling ridges where the pen had dug hard into the paper on the other side. She glanced over at Erin, who was watching her closely. “Do you know what kind of surface he wrote on?” she asked. “Do you think he might have put a magazine under the paper, or something like that?”

“We don’t read outsider magazines,” Erin said, disparaging. “we just took our Bibles. I’m pretty sure he wrote it on the kitchen table. That’s where I found it.”

Without comparing the note to additional samples of Rodney Powers’s handwriting, there was no way to know for certain whether the degree of emotional depth indicated by the considerable pen pressure was his habit, but of one thing Claudia was certain: when he wrote the note Rodney had been laboring under powerful emotions. “He’s stubborn,” she mused aloud. “Needs to feel he’s in control. I believe he would have planned this ahead. This is not the type of person who would act on the spur of the moment without first knowing what he was going to do and how he was going to accomplish it. He’s not someone who
easily caves under pressure.” She glanced over at Erin, who was twisting her tissue to shreds. “Who do you know that he might have gone to for help? It would be hard for a man to handle a small child on his own.”

Erin shook her head. “Not Rod. He’s crazy about Kylie. He spends more time with her than I do. He knows how to handle her. Anyway, he was raised TBL. He doesn’t know any outsiders.”

“TBL? What’s that?”

“Our church, The Temple of Brighter Light. We don’t associate with anyone who’s not a member. Well, unless it’s for a good reason, like this, of course. That’s why I’m sure Rod doesn’t know anyone outside well enough that he could ask for help.”

Kelly left her sandwich-making for a moment to wipe her hands on a kitchen towel. She tossed the towel onto a small washing machine in the corner and turned to her sister. “Erin, if you’re both so heavily involved in the church, how about your pastor? Wouldn’t Rodney listen to him?”

Erin looked as though she might begin to weep again. “Brother Harold would be so disappointed in him. I don’t want to tell him about Rod leaving. That’s why I have to find him and Kylie myself. With your help, I mean.”

“If you don’t associate with outsiders, can you think of anyone inside the church he might have turned to?” Claudia said. “Someone he has a close relationship with?”

“All the TBL members are close. It’s the most supportive, wonderful bunch of people you could ever meet. I’ve been a member since I was fifteen.”

Kelly said, “I was in the middle of a divorce back then. I was pretty messed up, but one of the boys told me that you’d run away from home.”

It was a period in their lives that Claudia remembered well. Kelly, inconsolable when her second brief marriage ended, had gone on a bender that lasted months; a month more in rehab. Surprising that any of the details of Erin’s split from the family had stuck.

“Don’t worry about it, Kelly,” Erin said. “You and the older boys were all gone by then, so it was pretty much just Sean and me. Mom kept taking off for days at a time, but nobody knew, we never told anyone. At school they said I was a delinquent, so I decided to become one.” Her laugh sounded hollow. “Unfortunately for me, living on the streets of Banning was even worse than being home, so I ended up hitchhiking to Hollywood.”

Kelly turned away from them and started layering slices of turkey and provolone on the French rolls, assembling sandwiches as if her life depended on it. But not before Claudia noticed the tears of regret that brightened her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Erin,” Kelly said in a trembly voice. “I abandoned you, too. But after I got out of that house I didn’t want to ever look back. I wanted to believe you were going to be treated better than I was. I made myself think that way. I’m just so freaking sorry I failed you.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad. It all worked out for the best.” Erin gave a weak smile. “It was actually exciting and fun for a while, but I got tired of that life really fast. There are hundreds of runaways in Hollywood.

They have this amazing network, sharing what they’ve got with each other and helping each other survive. Their methods may not be exactly conventional, but they sure are effective.”

Kelly was busy getting plates out of the cabinet, so Claudia asked, “Dare I ask what happened next?”

“God sent me to the TBL shelter, Teens for the Lord.” Suddenly, Erin’s face was shining and her prettiness became more apparent. “It was so awesome. It was a day that Brother Harold ‘just happened’ to be preaching there. But I know that was no coincidence; it had the hand of God written all over it. They do so much good at the shelter.”

“Tell us about this Brother Harold. You mentioned him earlier.”

“He’s our spiritual leader at TBL. He and Sister Grace—she was in charge at the shelter—they talked to me about the end of time, which was pretty terrifying until they showed me how I could be saved. They invited me to go back to the Ark with them,”

“You mean like Noah’s ark?” Kelly interrupted. “You live on a boat?”

Erin gave her head an impatient shake. “No, it doesn’t look like the Bible ark. It’s the best! Sort of our own little world that keeps TBL separate from the outsiders. In Bible times, God told Noah to build an ark to save his family from the flood. Our Ark is to keep the TBL family safe until the end-of-time days, which is coming soon.”

“Back up a minute,” Claudia said. “This Brother Harold took you there to live when you were fifteen?” She did her best to look neutral, but she knew her skepticism must show on her face.

“Brother Harold and Sister Grace—she was his wife, but she had cancer and the Lord took her to be with him about five years ago.” Then Erin’s mouth dropped open as she got the implication. “Hey, wait a minute, there was nothing inappropriate going on. It’s just, I wasn’t going to go back home, no way, no how. So when they invited me to the Ark, I said I’d go with them and try it out. Right away, I knew I was in the right place. I finally had a real family.” She shot an uneasy glance at her older sister. “I mean, at the Ark we eat all our meals together—real food, not Chicken McNuggets or a box of macaroni-and-cheese every other night.”

“It’s okay, hon.” Kelly looked unusually chastened. “I understand. Our family wasn’t exactly Leave It to Beaver.”

For the first time, Erin seemed to relax a little as she extolled the virtues of her substitute family. “The brothers and sisters at the Ark couldn’t have been more kind and loving. They were willing to work with me and help me clean up my act, get off drugs. I started going to school again—we have our own private classes at the Ark. There are regular school lessons, plus I trained to become a missionary. They taught me how to talk to other people about what we believe in, to help them be saved, too. It was really hard at first, talking to strangers who didn’t want to listen. But now I can talk to just about anyone.”

“A minute ago, you said something about the end-of-time days,” Claudia said. “What’s that about?”

Behind her sister’s back, Claudia could see Kelly shaking her head, discouraging her, but Erin’s face lit up as she jumped at the chance to explain the beliefs that she had adopted. “We’re living in the End of Time days right now!”

“End of Time daze,” Kelly muttered.

Erin ignored the jibe and continued. “The earth is about to be destroyed--”

“What does that mean?” Claudia asked. “Destroyed how?”

“We’re gonna see a whole series of natural disasters. Everyone who doesn’t know how to be saved will be destroyed with the earth, and it’s gonna happen really soon. This time we’re living in, it’s like, well, it’s like just before your alarm clock goes off in the morning—you know how you wake up just before the alarm? That’s where we are now, the alarm is about to go off. If you want to be saved, you have to pay attention right now, and wake up.” She nodded in earnest as she spoke, as if encouraging her listeners to think hard about what she was saying.

Kelly brushed aside the sermon. “Look, Erin, I want to know what happened with Rodney that would make him do something so drastic and so rash as to take Kylie?”

Erin’s beatific look faded fast. Her lower lip quivered and her eyes filled. “I told you, we’d been fighting.”

“Yes, you did. So, what was the fight about?”

The tears dried as fast as they’d started and Erin’s tone sharpened. “What does it matter what we fought about? It’s personal. The important thing is, he took my Kylie away, and I want her back.”

“Erin,” Claudia said. ”If you want our help, we need to know what happened. Why don’t you want to tell us what you were fighting about?”

“Because you won’t understand if I tell you, I know you won’t. Why isn’t it good enough just to know we had an argument?” Erin said it like a petulant child, peeved about not getting away with avoiding something
unpleasant.

“We can’t help you if we don’t have all the facts,” Claudia pressed.

“Just tell us the truth,” Kelly added. “We’re not going to judge you. You don’t have to hide anything, just tell us what happened. And don’t bother to bullshit a bullshitter, Erin. Believe me, there’s nothing you can say that I haven’t said or done a thousand times over. Maybe if we know what we’re dealing with, we can come up with a plan to get my niece back.”

Erin looked from one to the other of them with the distrust of a wounded animal in the forest. When she realized that neither was going to back down, she shrugged, giving up on the debate. “Okay, fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. I know how you outsiders are; your minds are totally made up and closed.”

Kelly and Claudia exchanged a surprised glance, their eyes telegraphing the same message—What’s going on here?
“Like I told you, we were in the mountains,” Erin said. “We were there because we enrolled Kylie in a super-special TBL program. It’s called Jephthah’s Daughters. It’s one of those things that comes up only once in a lifetime. It was getting to be time for her to go into the program and we were there in the mountains, getting her ready for it.”
“Let’s go back to the patio,” Kelly suggested, picking up her sandwich.“This is getting interesting.”

When they were settled around the table once again, Kelly said. “Okay, whose daughters?”

Claudia said, “Jephthah’s. I remember the story from Sunday school because at the time, it scared the hell out of me. Jephthah was a judge in ancient Israel. He asked God to help him win a big battle, and in return, he offered to sacrifice the first person who came out of his house to greet him when he got home.”

“Oh, hell no,” Kelly said. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

Erin nodded, looking gratified that Claudia was familiar with the name.

She took up the story. “The Lord gave Jephthah the victory. When he got home, the first person to come out of the house was his only daughter, who he loved with his whole soul.”

“Holy shit.”

Throwing her sister a glare of disapproval for her use of profanity, Erin continued. “Jephthah was devastated. He told his daughter about the promise he’d made, but she was, like, You have to keep the promise, you gave your word to the Lord God. So she asked if she could have two months off to mourn her virginity, because, of course, she would never get to be married and have sex or anything. At the end of the two months, she was ready to let herself be sacrificed.” Then she hastened to add, “Of course, the way we do
it is more like a symbolic sacrifice. Like going to a convent.”

Both Claudia and Kelly stared at her. “You’re sending your three-year-old baby to a convent?”

“Well, that was the original plan. That’s why we were in the mountains; we had the two months to get ourselves ready. But the longer we stayed there, the more I knew I couldn’t do it. When I told Rod I’d changed my mind, he wouldn’t listen to me. He loves Kylie, but he’s been working toward becoming an elder since he was a kid, and putting her into the program would seal the deal for him. It’s a really prestigious thing for a TBL member. This is a rare opportunity that only comes up once every few years.” Erin huffed
a big sigh. “Look, I know it’s a great thing to give your child to God, but . . .I just wasn’t ready to do it.”

“Good choice,” Kelly mumbled, stuffing potato chips into her mouth as if to gag a comment that she knew would be left better unsaid.

Claudia said, “Why couldn’t Rod wait until she’s old enough to have a say in the matter?”

Erin’s eyes went to the bits of sodden tissue that dotted her jeans. She picked at the pieces, not looking up as she spoke. “It’s not like that. It has to be done at a certain time. She has to go into the program on her third birthday. That’s the requirement.”

An awkward silence fell over them, and Claudia knew that Kelly was thinking the same thing she was. When no one spoke, she put the question into words. “When is Kylie’s third birthday, Erin?”

Erin buried her face in her hands. Her words were muffled as she spoke through her fingers, but Claudia had no trouble understanding her.

“It’s on Saturday.”

Read Chapter 1 - Dead Write by Sheila Lowe - 3rd in Series

Dead Write Excerpt

Chapter 1

The Olive Avenue off-ramp materialized out of the pre-dawn fog like something from a dream. The exit sign, chalkboard green during daylight, looked almost black in the darkness. Claudia Rose steered the vintage XJ6 off the Golden State freeway, melting smoothly into the light stream of street traffic.

The late winter morning had started cold and early—three-thirty. Chill bumps had rippled her skin as she slipped from under the covers and silently gathered her clothes. Jovanic stirred and mumbled a promise to keep the bed warm. Working as a detective for LAPD, he was accustomed to being roused in the middle of the night. But though he urged her to hurry back, Claudia knew he would be asleep again before she closed the front door behind her.


The GPS was telling her to turn left, then right on Front Street,not far from the Metrolink Station. Another left, another right. She followed the directions blindly, scanning the row of industrial buildings for the television studio. With any luck, she would get her Hard Evidence interview done and make it home to Playa de la Reina and Jovanic by
six-thirty.

A segment producer for the faux-news show had called the day before, needing a handwriting expert for the weekend’s lead item: the latest celebrity misbehaving. The producer, Peggy Yum, said that the early morning show aired live on the East Coast at 8:00. Given the three hourtime difference, Claudia would need to arrive at the Burbank studio before sunup.

She had almost turned it down. But Peggy Yum didn’t easily take “no” for an answer. Her pretty face and misleading smile hid a personality tougher than a strip of rawhide. She’d been quick to point out that if Claudia refused the job, there were other handwriting analysts, some perhaps less ethical, who would be more than happy to fill the breach. Besides, the free advertising she would get in terms of TV time was worth more than she might earn in six months.

The handwriting Yum wanted examined stemmed from the DUI arrest of a young female singer who had taken over the headlines. Her third arrest. Worse, this time, the disgraced diva’s two-year-old son had been in the car with her, adding child endangerment charges. Yum had somehow obtained a copy of a note the singer had written to her boyfriend while in custody at the Lynwood Jail, Los Angeles County’s main lockup for women. Despite her star status, the Beverly Hills judge who’d sent her there had run out of patience and was threatening to extend the singer’s stay to thirty days.

Claudia had agreed to analyze the handwriting, which Peggy Yum subsequently scanned and emailed to her, but as soon as she opened it she could see that there was little she would be willing to publicly discuss.
The first thing she noticed in the large size and extreme roundness of the letters, which reflected the singer’s profound need to have the world revolve around her. The girl had already proven the truth of that assessment by her behavior. The lower loops were left open in a hook shape that pointed to the left. After studying the writing, Claudia formed the opinion that the young woman had probably been the victim of childhood sexual abuse. But she wouldn’t say that on the air. Even misbehaving public figures deserved some privacy.

***

Greeting her in the studio’s reception area, Peggy Yum led Claudia to a small room, explaining that the production company rented the remote space when they needed to interview someone far away from the in-studio hosts. She wouldn’t be able to see the New York hosts as they questioned her about the handwriting, but they, and the audience, would see her on the monitor.

With the exception of a club chair, a television camera mounted on a tripod pointed at the chair, and a monitor, the makeshift studio was bare. A swath of black fabric had been draped behind the chair where
Claudia would sit for the interview, providing a backdrop.

The videographer, a youth in sweatshirt and jeans, was doing double duty as sound man. He hooked her up with an earpiece and a lapel microphone, snaking the wires up under her suit jacket and clipping them to her collar. When he was satisfied that they were as unobtrusive as he could get them, he stepped away and asked her to count to ten for a sound check. Yum said to sit tight, she would be on after the next commercial.

Waiting for the signal that they were going live, Claudia rehearsed in her head what she was going to say. Then Yum came to stand behind the monitor and held up three fingers—two—one. Mouthing the countdown. The host’s voice came through her earpiece:

“Next, internationally recognized handwriting expert, Claudia Rose, who is going to give us her opinion on the handwriting of...”

Almost before she could blink, the segment was over and she was being unmiked, gathering her briefcase and jacket, getting ready to head out. It didn’t feel as if the segment had been her finest five minutes.Peggy Yum seemed to think otherwise. Hollywood excitement sparked through the hip black frames of her DKNY glasses. “Claudia, what you do is so awesome, I’m gonna use you in a really big segment. People need to hear more about handwriting analysis. This is gonna be huge—I can feel it!” She leaned into a pretend hug and air kisses. “Gotta run, I’ll call you!”

Alone in the frigid Jag, waiting for the heater to kick in, Claudia watched the sun rise over the San Gabriel mountains, glad the interview was over. She was looking forward to crawling back into bed with Jovanic. Working in the hours after midnight appealed to her in a way that getting up early didn’t. It was as if the secrets hidden in handwriting were easier to access late at night when she was free of the distractions of phone calls and email. Maybe I’m part vampire. Note to self: check the mirror for a reflection.


Not bothering to cover her yawns, she retraced her drive and got back on the freeway, rerunning the interview and Yum’s parting words through her head. She’d heard the hype before, and told herself not to take it too seriously. Maybe Yum would call, maybe not. That’s show biz. Then her new cell phone rang and sent her heart into overdrive. Only yesterday Jovanic had insisted upon the purchase of the phone, dragging her to the mall and standing over her for forty-five minutes, leading her through various models before she lost patience and told him to choose one. It didn’t matter to her whether her cell phone could download music or allow her to Twitter the world. Why did she have to be in touch with the world at all?

For more than a month, she had resisted thinking about the reason why she needed a new phone: her last one had been destroyed by a murderous psychopath who’d killed someone Claudia knew, and then had pursued her, too. She had been the one who’d found the decomposing body of her friend. Over the intervening weeks, the memory of that horror refused to be erased or even softened. Yet, she had also put off replacing the old phone, as if doing so would be an act of disloyalty to the psychopath’s victim. As if the purchase of a new one would be a final step in closing that chapter of her life, allowing her to move on and leave her friend behind.

The phone continued to ring. She glanced at the LCD display and read Private Caller. Early morning calls didn’t usually bring good news. She felt a flicker of apprehension as she tapped the answer button on her earpiece. “Good morning, Claudia Rose speaking.”

“Please hold for Baroness Grusha Olinetsky,” a female voice said, not waiting for her to respond before the line went silent.

Claudia’s attention sharpened. Baroness? She heard a change of sound on the line and a throat being cleared.

“Claudia Rose?” The husky voice pronounced it cloudia. “I need to meet vit you as soon as possible.” The heavy accent curled around the words, transforming w into v. “I need you to analyze some handwritink. Is oorgent matter.”

Claudia rolled her eyes. Every client thought their matter was urgent. “What kind of analysis is it that you need?” she asked. “Is this a forgery case, or....”

“No! No forgery. I am matchmaker; vorld class matchmaker. You never hear of me?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think so.”

“Is okay. You call me Grusha. Ve be friends. Ven you come to New York to see me?”

“New York?”

An old Camaro doing ninety raced past, closely followed by a motorcycle, its rider looking like Green Lantern in black leathers and a neon lime helmet. Even at dawn, L.A. traffic had its own special brand of insanity.

“You come right away to my office,” Grusha Olinetsky said. “Look at some handwriting. Tell me about the people, vat they are like.”

She made it a demand, not a request. An image of what Grusha Olinetsky’s own handwriting might look like crossed Claudia’s mind. It was a game she played with herself when she met someone new and interesting. As pushy as the baroness sounded, she would probably crowd her words close together and press the pen deeply into the page, demonstrating emotional intensity. And with her imperious manner, long t-bars.

Claudia said, “If you need the analysis quickly, you can overnight the handwritings to me. I’ll return the originals afterwards. I don’t need to come to New York for that.”

“Nyet!” Just one word, but adamant. “Cannot take from here. Don’t vorry, I pay you good. You come tomorrow, I make plane ticket for you. Is oorgent.”

She’d said that before. Still, Olinetsky’s urgency did not have to become hers. And so far, the baroness hadn’t said anything that made Claudia want to get on a plane on Monday and fly to the east coast. She interrupted as Grusha started to talk about flight arrangements. “Wait, please. I’ll need you to give me more information than this. You’re asking me to travel a long distance to see you, but you’re not giving me any details. I need you to tell me something about the purpose of the analysis.”

The silence on the other end of the line dragged out, the reply so long in coming that Claudia began to wonder if she had hit a dead zone and lost the call. She was about to ask, Can you hear me now? when the Baroness spoke again.

“So. I use graphology for long time. I know is good tool to learn about people and I have every member analyzed. Helps me know more about them and who is good match. But last graphologist make some mistakes. Bad mistakes. I see you on TV show this morning, I call them up and ask for your number. I vant to meet you face-to-face and then I vill know if you are the one who should replace this bad person.”

Claudia was beginning to get the feeling that there was a lot being left unsaid that might affect her decision as to whether or not she would accept the assignment. “What’s the name of the graphologist?” she asked more sharply than she had intended. “Who have you been using?”

Grusha Olinetsky spat the words as if they tasted bad in her mouth. “His name is Andrew Nicholson. Incompetent! I do not trust this man to vork for me another time.”

Claudia hesitated. She and Andy Nicholson might work in the same field, but she couldn’t bring herself to think of him as a colleague. Throughout the years she had known him, Andrew Nicholson had made it a habit to inflate his credentials out of all proportion to the truth. It didn’t seem to bother him that he was committing perjury. A few months back, he and Claudia had gone toe-to-toe on opposing sides of a major

forgery case. Her client’s attorney had exposed Nicholson’s lies and was now threatening to file charges against him. Andy had been seeking revenge against Claudia ever since, concocting outrageous tales and telling them to anyone who would listen.

Maybe Andy’s luck had run out. Maybe Grusha Olinetsky had found a chink in his armor.“Tell me more,” said Claudia at last.

* * *

She quickly stripped out of the business suit she’d worn for Hard Evidence. Jovanic rolled over and followed her with sleep-bleared eyes as she slid under the covers and backed up against his long, lean body. After a couple hundred nights of practice they fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

***

A couple of hours later, after they had steamed up the windows, then dozed for a while, Claudia told him about the phone call. “You’ll never guess who my new client is.”

Jovanic got up and headed for the bathroom, his voice floating back to her. “Is it, ummmm, Michelle Pfeiffer?”

“You wish.”

“Barack Obama?”

“Now you’re just being silly.” She heard the toilet flush and the faucet running, then he was back, diving under the covers and snuggling next to her. She gave his arms a vigorous rub. “You’re freezing.”

“So warm me up,” he said, nuzzling his cold chin against her neck and making her squirm.

She slid a leg over his hip. “You plum wore me out already, Columbo.”

“You wimp,” he teased. “So, tell me. Who’s the new client?”

“Her name is Baroness Grusha Olinetsky. She runs a ritzy dating club.”

The rude Bronx cheer he gave made his opinion of her new client more than clear. “I know exactly who you’re talking about. She was on some trashy TV show awhile back. What does she want with you?”

“To analyze handwriting, of course.” She turned over to face him.

“What’s wrong?”

He gave her a skeptical look. “I don’t know, babe. She looked like a sleazy character to me. You might want to think twice before you get involved with her.”

Claudia arched up and gently caught his bottom lip between her teeth, then let go. “I’ve had other sleazy clients and you’ve never complained. Anyway, my job is to analyze handwriting for them, not judge their morals. And check this out—she wants me to come to her office in New York and meet with her. Tomorrow.”

Jovanic’s fingertips halted their lazy journey along her thigh. “New York? What about Annabelle?”

Annabelle Giordano was a troubled young teen who was staying in Claudia’s home for a while. She had been another intended victim of the psychopath. Although she put up a front of fierce independence, the girl’s vulnerability was apparent to Claudia, especially in sleep, when nightmares made her cry out in panic.

“You know I’ll make arrangements to take good care of Annabelle,” Claudia said. “I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem. Are you gonna be a problem?”

He frowned. “That kid clings to you like a life-preserver. She’s not going to like it.”

“I know, but maybe it’s about time she started loosening her grip on me a little bit.”

“Now you’re just rationalizing. I can see that you’ve already decided to go.”

Claudia tickled the hair curling across his belly. “Listen, Columbo, in case you’ve forgotten, you’re the cop; I’m the one with the psych degree. I’ll take good care of Annabelle, don’t worry your pointy detective head about it.”

Jovanic was silent for a long moment before his fingers started moving again, brushing her skin with the lightest of touches. “Why doesn’t this woman just Fedex you the handwriting she wants analyzed?”

“I don’t know, except it sounded like she didn’t want to let them out of her sight. Maybe there’s something valuable about them. I’ll find out when I get there.”

“How long?”

“She didn’t know for sure, but at least three or four days, maybe a little longer.” Claudia braced herself for a bigger objection, mildly surprised when he gave in without further argument. She added, “Andy Nicholson’s been working for her. Apparently, he screwed up—no big surprise—and that’s why she wants to hire me.” The prospect of being called in to fix Andy’s mistakes pleased her immensely. “How could I refuse an opportunity like that? It’s one thing that I personally can’t stand him, but he gives the whole field of handwriting analysis a black eye.”

Jovanic continued to look unhappy. “I think you ought to stay out of his face, babe. That asshole would just as soon put a hit out on you as look at you. He won’t appreciate you scooping up his client.”

“She’s not his client anymore, and I didn’t take her away from him, she called me. Hey, I’m not worried about Andy Nicholson, his only weapon is words.” She began to recite in a singsong voice, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”

Jovanic removed his hand and sat up, throwing the blankets off. His scowl sent a clear signal that he didn’t appreciate her lame attempt at humor. He stood up and reached for his shorts, pulled on a tee-shirt.“Claudia, for god’s sake, haven’t you had enough shit in your life lately? Do you really need to do this right now?

She knew he was talking about the discovery of her friend’s body. His words were like a bucket of icy water, dousing her enthusiasm for the job.

What she had gone through had left her feeling that she’d lost any semblance of control over her life. It didn’t matter how much she tried to push away the grotesque images of the bloated body she had stumbled across, they nipped endlessly at the periphery of her consciousness like a little yapping dog. She thought this must be what schizophrenia was like, battling voices that wouldn’t be silenced.

Jovanic had been aware of her depression and anger since the murder, but she didn’t want anyone, including him, to see how nakedly exposed she felt. She’d been there before.

A flash of memory—large hands pulling her where she didn’t want to go; threatening: I’ll hurt you if you don’t do what I say.

As if she hadn’t been hurt anyway. She pulled the covers up around her neck and squeezed her eyes shut, as if doing so would protect her.

“Claudia?” Jovanic was leaning over her and he sounded concerned. He sat down on the edge of the bed, encircling her in his arms, holding her safe. As if she could ever really be safe.

“Baby, you don’t have to go to New York right now,” he said, letting her know that despite her best efforts, he could see through her with a detective’s eyes. A lover’s eyes.

She wanted to answer that she would call Grusha Olinetsky and cancel the assignment; that she would stay here and let him take care of her. But she knew that if she gave in now, she would never be able to stand on her own again. So instead, she said in a tight voice, “Andy Nicholson isn’t going to hurt me and there isn’t any danger in this job,

it’s an exciting opportunity.”

“Did Olinetsky tell you what kind of mistakes Nicholson made?” Jovanic prodded, refusing to let it go.

Claudia lifted a bare shoulder in an elaborately casual shrug. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll find out when I get there.”



Used with permission by author Sheila Lowe