Last Writes Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Praise for the Forensic Handwriting Mysteries by Sheila Lowe

  Dead Write

  “Lowe’s list of credible suspects and well-placed red herrings keep us guessing about the villain’s identity till the end, and then, with only a few pages remaining, she delivers one more shocking ‘Kapow!’ . . . Lowe’s expertise as a handwriting expert gives her books authenticity. From tics, t-bars, and twisted loops, to dot grinding and word crowding, readers get a fascinating insider look at the tools and techniques used in graphology.”

  —Los Angeles Chronicle

  “Lowe manages to keep the reader in suspense and wondering not only who did it, but how and why, up to nearly the last page. There’re some interesting surprises and some near misses to keep you glued to your favorite reading spot until the last page.”—Gumshoe

  “[A] solid mystery featuring an engaging amateur sleuth, fascinating tidbits about handwriting analysis, and top-notch writing.”—Cozy Library

  Written in Blood

  “A fascinating and complex murder mystery that keeps readers involved and guessing till the exciting climax.”

  —American Chronicle

  “Readers will relish Sheila Lowe’s fine tale.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Sheila Lowe’s mysteries just keep getting better. Her writing is crisp, and she deftly incorporates interesting information about handwriting analysis along the way. Her characters are rich and fully developed, and her plots sizzle.”—Armchair Interviews

  “If you enjoy forensics, then give these Forensic Handwriting Mysteries a try. It’s a different slant on the field wrapped in some pretty believable story lines.”

  —Gumshoe

  Poison Pen

  “Suicide or murder? Only the graphologist knows for sure in this dynamite debut, the first in a new series, from forensic handwriting expert Lowe. The author’s large nonfiction fan base augurs well for the series.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “[A] fast-paced, crisp, and gritty novel that penetrates the world of celebrity and the dark appetites of those who live in that world.”—Armchair Interviews

  “Debut novelist Lowe wins readers over with her well-developed heroine and the wealth of fascinating detail on handwriting analysis.”—Booklist

  “The well-paced plot develops from uneasy suspicions to tightly wound action.”—Front Street Reviews

  “A perfectly paced mystery with an easy fluidity that propels the reader through the story at breakneck speed.”

  —BookPleasures.com

  Also by Sheila Lowe

  Forensic Handwriting Mysteries

  Poison Pen

  Written in Blood

  Dead Write

  Nonfiction Works

  The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis

  Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, July 2010

  Copyright © Sheila Lowe, 2010

  All rights reserved

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-45764-1

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Acknowledgments

  Heartfelt thanks to all the usual suspects: Bob Bealmear, Bruce Cook, Gwen Freeman, Bob Joseph, Raul Melendez, Barbara Petty, and Ellen Larson for their unflinching critiques. Thanks for making me a better writer. And on the technical side, thanks to Doug Lyle for answering my interminable medical questions. For law enforcement help: Bob Brounsten, Robin Burcell, George Fong, and Ernesto Pittino, I deeply appreciate your willingness to be there for me as needed.

  Rita Frayer and Lynn Ryder were the winning bidders for character names on behalf of the Ventura County Professional Women’s Network. Thanks for supporting a great organization.

  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 envel
ope 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 a bemused expression, as if she were still getting used to the idea. But the surprise of her sister’s arrival was 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 sun-warmed 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 present 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, 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 could break out. Kelly’s emotions could flare unexpectedly, and Claudia 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 goodwill 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 tension. As she reached 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 before Claudia 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 previously rested there, probably since before she was born, and had now been towed away.

  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 hadn’t understood 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.”