A Dangerous Liaison Part Five Read Free

eyes. They had the same dimpled chin. Their mouths both curled in the same way. Jesus , Haslem was Cooper’s father. Then I realized that couldn’t be right; they had different names. I squinted at the photo, and spotted it. A plastic rectangular name badge pinned to the front of Cooper’s sweater.
    I remembered now, we all had to wear them.
    I could just make Cooper’s out. But it didn’t say William Cooper. It said:
    “Billy Haslem.”

Chapter 3
    Petra
     
    I stared at the journal on Cooper’s desk. It was one of those expensive moleskin journals, bound in soft leather. It was extremely worn.
    Holding my breath I picked up the book, opened it, and started reading. It was a journal. Cooper’s journal. The first thirty or forty pages were written by the teenage Cooper. The writing was full of typical teenage angst. There were lots of complaints about the world and how badly it had treated Cooper. He described how much he hated the cool kids and how he despised Alec because Alec was with me. The further I ploughed through, the more I realized how truly obsessed with me Cooper had been. But I didn’t have time to wade through Cooper’s subconscious. I started flicking through the journal, skipping pages. As the months and years went by the entries became sparser. The handwriting changed, became less adolescent, more confident and competent. The entries were more succinct and sometimes cryptic. Finally when I’d almost given up, I found what I was looking for.
    I’m going to get rid of every trace of the project. And I’m going to make that son of a bitch Reader do it for me.
    My blood went cold.
    I turned over the next page. There was one more entry.
    I’m going to blow up that damn lab.
    The project’s lab – that was back in the United States, wasn’t it? But hadn’t I seen another entry? I flipped back through the journal before finding it at the bottom of a page of self-indulgent ranting. 
    They’ve moved the project’s lab to keep it safe. It’s now under the American Embassy in Rome. The sweat on my back went cold. At any one time there were maybe a hundred people in the embassy. Stuffing the photo, the newspaper cutting, and the journal in my pockets I sprinted out of Cooper’s office, along the corridor, and down the five flights of stairs to the ground floor, and out of the police station.  
    The American embassy was on Vittorio Veneto. It was only a few blocks away but with the streets packed with cars it would be quicker to run. I bent over to catch my breath for a moment, then headed for the embassy.
    Alec was innocent. He wasn’t the killer.
    The thought kept circling around my mind as I ran through the narrow streets. It had been Cooper all along. But had Alec agreed to take a bomb into the American Embassy? No, I couldn’t believe that. Cooper must have sold him some lie. I just had to tell Alec the truth before it was too late.
     
    ***
     
    “Alec, stop.”
    Alec froze at the top of a long flight of stone steps leading to the embassy’s entrance. He was holding a leather attaché case in his right hand.   
    “Turn around.”
    The fingers of Alec’s hand clenching the attaché case flashed white, but he turned around slowly.  Emotions battled for supremacy on his face. He raised his left hand, palm up, towards me.
    “Stay back, Petra.”
    I stopped not because of what he’d said but because of the extremity in his voice.
    “Don’t come any closer.” 
    I stayed where I was, my eyes fixed on the attaché case. The bomb had to be in there. After a long moment I met Alec’s gaze.  Did he know? I tried to push the thought away but it kept coming back. Did Alec know he was carrying a bomb into the American Embassy? I’d seen enough evidence to prove that Cooper and his need for revenge were at the root of all this. But if Alec was involved as well it would break my heart.
    “Petra, stop!” shouted Alec, his voice tight.
    Without realizing I’d taken a few steps toward