less-traveled hallways and finally slipping sideways into the bar, where I asked the bartender to call me a cab.
“And a coffee to go,” I added. “Heavy on the cream and sugar.”
Outside, Atlanta churned in all its chaos. Inside the Ritz, however, it was all potpourri and feather duvets and squares of dark chocolate on my pillow, none of which provided a single clue to what was going on.
I checked my tote bag one more time. Car keys, house keys, office keys—every tool of access I needed to get back into Eric’s and see what was in that desk of his, especially his calendar.
Returning to the scene of the crime. Excellent girl detective behavior.
Chapter 4
Eric’s cul-de-sac reeked of spooky. Police tape still ringed the neighbor’s driveway even though the Lexus had been towed, and with the exception of the crime scene clean-up crew, the street was deserted. I saw a white panel van parked nearby, probably a plumber or exterminator, and I prickled. All of a sudden, even the ordinary felt dangerous.
His office had a similar vibe, especially in the half-light of his desk lamp. I took several swallows of coffee, hoping the caffeine would clear my jumbled head. I allowed one pang of guilt, then I sat down and got to work spying on my brother.
His password was easy to guess—BFSKINNER. He used it for everything, despite my telling him what a dumb idea that was. Now I was glad he hadn’t listened, because with that one word, I suddenly had access to his entire life—files, programs, photographs, everything.
But the first thing I did was pull up the Internet and type in the name Eliza Compton.
Her murder flashed front and center, the top story. I saw myself in several background shots, looking unfocused and vaguely guilty. And awful, Rico had been right about that. I looked like I’d seen a ghost, and then I realized with a start that I had. From the second I’d peered into that car, my vision had been clouded with a stranger’s ghost.
Eliza Compton was haunting me, only not in some supernatural way, like in the stories I spun for the tourists down in Savannah. She haunted me with the smell of her blood, the sound of her voice, the gleam of the silver bracelet, strangely untouched with gore.
Her Facebook profile intensified the feeling. She’d been very pretty, with liquid brown eyes and bobbed chestnut hair layered with wispy bangs. In her profile shot, she wore a silver halter top, low rise jeans, and a coquette’s smile. She’d ignored the concept of privacy settings, which meant that even though I wasn’t her “friend” I had complete access to her life. Within two minutes I knew that her favorite band was Slipknot and her favorite club was Vortex, the grinning goggle-eyed skull unmistakable even if the photo seemed to have been shot out of the window of a moving car. No mention of where she lived, but she worked at a place called Beau Elan, a mixed-use development Rico had briefly considered before finding a more appropriately artsy loft over in Sweet Auburn.
Beau Elan. Cookie-cutter and predictable, I was betting. Not words I would have associated with the girl on the page.
I sifted through her friends, her photos. Lots of beautiful people, but no photos of Eric, which was a relief. Just this parade of sharp young faces, generic in their prettiness. It occurred to me that one of these attractive darlings might be her killer. I knew the statistics—more often than not, people were murdered by someone they knew. Someone who snowboarded, who liked macaroni and cheese, who posted videos of sleepy kittens to YouTube.
It was too much, this life spread out before me like a dumped-out drawer. How was my brother connected to this, my respectable brother with the gold-rimmed glasses and the hair just beginning to gray at the temples? What could he possibly have in common with this beautiful, tasteless girl?
I glanced at our family portrait. I’d never noticed the way his upper lip curled, the way his eyes narrowed. Like I was betraying not only him but our entire genetic line.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said. “If you’d just get your ass back to Atlanta, I wouldn’t have to be digging through your drawers.”
I turned my chair so I was facing the ridiculous crossed swords, not the portrait, and got back to work.
I found his cache of business cards in the top drawer. Most were unfamiliar and uninteresting, but