Die Again Tomorrow by Kira Peikoff Page A

.” he trailed off, seeing his mother’s crestfallen face.
    â€œI don’t understand,” she said. “Why do you have to go that far?”
    â€œYou get so much more for your money,” Emily said. “With the way the economy is going, it makes sense to get out of the city . . .”
    â€œBut we have plenty of money,” Joan said, not caring if she sounded tactless. She turned to her husband. “We can help them out, right, honey?”
    Greg ignored her. “Adam, you have a degree from Harvard Law. Why don’t you take a job you were trained to do, not mess around all day in a music studio? I’m sorry, but it needs to be said. You have to make sacrifices for your family.”
    Adam refused to be rattled. “I’m following my dream, Dad. It would be nice to be near you guys, but right now, this is the best solution for us.”
    â€œAnd I fully support him,” Emily added. “Trust me, I don’t want some dead-eyed corporate lawyer coming home at eleven every night.”
    Joan shook her head. The idealism of youth was galling; that was one thing she and Greg could agree on. Here was their son, highly educated, with every opportunity to make a big success of his life, and he was going to throw it away for some penny-pinching middle-class existence. It reminded her of her own naïveté when she was in her late twenties, with that same dreamy-eyed determination to conquer the journalism world, practicalities be damned. But Greg had come along and saved her the struggle, and now she would try to do the same for him.
    â€œBut would you stay if you could?” she pressed. “If you could have it all?”
    â€œWell, of course,” Adam said. “New York will always be home.”
    She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. So there was hope. She would just have to get Greg to agree to an early release of Adam’s inheritance. It was absurd to think that money could wrench her family apart, when they had so much. There was something else, too—a desperation she couldn’t share with her son, but that she tried to impart with her eyes. Don’t leave me, she thought. Not right now, don’t take Sophia away. If Greg left her in spirit, and they in body, what of her life would remain?
    â€œThere’s no rush,” she said, too calmly. “Let’s just slow down and think this through.”
    â€œThere’s no time to think.” Adam exchanged a meaningful look with Emily, right as Joan noticed that she hadn’t touched her glass of wine. “We’re actually flying out tomorrow to look at houses, because—”
    â€œSophia’s going to be a big sister,” Emily announced, breaking into a grin. Adam patted her belly. “Three months along. With all the time it will take to find a place and move and get settled, we can’t start looking soon enough.”
    Joan’s hand flew to her lips. Elation and despair mounted in equal measure. She reached instinctively for Greg’s hand, but he was raising his glass in a toast. The edge in his voice was not lost on her.
    â€œTo a healthy baby!” he declared.
    Joan raised her own glass, miming celebration. Hers clinked against his. A crystal note rang out, sharp and shrill. It was the sound of her heart breaking.

CHAPTER 6
    Victim
    5 months before, Key West
    Â 
    T he ring of the doorbell on Monday night caught Mrs. Ruth Bernstein by surprise. She had forgotten the sound. No one visited her anymore, not that she minded. At eighty-three years old, widowed and blind, she had grown pleasantly accustomed to solitude. Except for Autumn, her golden retriever guide dog, she spent her days at home alone, in a cozy studio apartment that was small enough to navigate without feeling lost.
    She counted the eleven steps from her recliner to the front door, Autumn’s soft head under her fingertips. The dog and she were like a single