Sleep With Fear

Chapter 2

Cars choked the streets of Manhattan as Lara's limousine drove to the Foundation. She turned on the radio to listen to Ariana Grande while the car made its way through the city to 44th Street where a huge building cast its shadow over Bryant Park. Along the way, she used a mirror to fix her makeup after her crying jag.

Out of curiosity, Lara went to her iPhone and typed in the name "Tiffany Fox" into Google. She didn't expect to find anything, but she was shocked to see the face of the dead woman appear on her screen. Even though the woman in her bed had been beaten and mangled, Lara recognized the smiling and cheerful blond staring back from dozens of photos. When she scrolled down, Google showed a brief excerpt from Wikipedia that said, "Tiffany Fox is an Instagram model..."

When Lara tapped the link that took her to the Wikipedia page, where it described Tiffany as a twenty-two-year-old model who got her start on Instagram. It didn't say anything about her being dead, so she figured that news hadn't leaked yet.

An Instagram model had broken into her condominium and been killed. Stranger and stranger.

Lara sent the link in a text message to Cole with the message "This is her."

A few minutes later, Cole sent back an emoji of a yellow face with open eyes, raised eyebrows, and an open mouth. He also added "curiouser and curiouser" in a followup text.

Pain rolled through Lara's head, a reminder of her drinking from the night before. She wished she had taken some painkillers before leaving the house.

She flipped back to her messaging app where she already had a group message thread with her sister Debra Levine and her best friend, Seline Benedict. Their last message had been about the trailer for the latest Channing Tatum movie with a lot of heart emojis.

Lara paused for a moment to collect her thoughts before typing, "I found a dead woman in my bed this morning."

She waited a moment, and a message came in from her sister.

It read, "What, were you that tired? Or drunk?"

Lara responded, "I'm not kidding. When I woke up, the body of a dead woman was lying next to me in bed."

After a few more seconds, Debra replied, "That's not funny!!!"

Lara wrote back, "I'm not joking. Will call you later."

The limo pulled up to the front entrance of the building, and Monty climbed out to hold the door open for her. Lara gave him a smile and a nod.

She walked through the revolving doors out front into the lobby. Lara smiled and nodded at the women behind the front desk as they called out, "Good morning, Mrs. Bradford." She called back "Good morning, Ruth, Candelaria" with a wave and a nod.

Lara noted a slight hesitation in their voices and an intensity in their gaze. They knew. Somehow, they knew.

She stepped onto the elevator to ride it up to the top floor, where she walked out onto a floor of cubicles.

She smiled and nodded at the workers as they called out their greetings, but she could see the same look in everyone's eyes.

When she reached her office, her assistant Meryl got up from her desk and held out a cup of Starbucks coffee. "Morning, Mrs. Bradford."

Lara took the coffee and gave her a grateful nod. "Morning, Meryl. Thanks. What's on the agenda today?"

She walked through the doors of her office to her large antique desk while Meryl followed and read off an iPad.

"At eight o'clock, you have a meeting with Marketing, and Finance to work on next year's budget. Doctor Brandt is coming in at eleven to go over some bullet points for your presentation on Modern Doctors Live next week. Also, you have an appointment at noon to meet with Jeffrey Wilder?"