Authors: Elizabeth Evans

Suicide's Girlfriend (25 page)

Burton, Joyce
did not appear in the telephone directory. Candace hesitated before turning the pages of the big slippery book to
Haynes, Rick
. Using the dead man as an avenue to Joyce Burtonâwould it be somehow disrespectful? she wondered. Too utilitarian? Orâa more primitive bell chimed in her headâwould it somehow bring her uncomfortably close to Haynes in the world of the dead?

But that was silly. Babyish. You had to be brave.

She flipped the pages and found the name quickly in its spot in an upper-right-hand corner.
Haynes, Rick.

Suppose someone did not know the owner of that name was dead, and not just dead but dead by his own hand, his death his own creation. To such a person, the name would appear no different from any of the other names that followed it in the columnâa Scott and a Sean and a Sharonâbut Candace knew that
Haynes, Rick
had been transformed to something magical, mysterious: an artifact if not a piece of art.

Significant.

She smoothed her finger over the directory page, the tiny letters and numerals of the name, address, telephone number; then, while she let the telephone ring for Joyce Burton, she carefully tore the page from the directory and she folded it into a square that she placed in her pocket, meaning to save it just as she would have saved any letter that had been meant especially for her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suicide's Girlfriend
is
ELIZABETH EVANS'S
fifth book. The recipient of numerous awards for her writing, Evans makes her home in Tucson, Arizona.

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ALSO BY ELIZABETH EVANS

The Blue Hour

Carter Clay

Rowing in Eden

Locomotion

COPYRIGHT

SUICIDE
'
S GIRLFRIEND
. Copyright Â© 2002 by Elizabeth Evans. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 0-06-095467-1

EPub Edition July 2015 ISBN 9780062434425

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