All Around the Town by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

the overhead lights. After rummaging successfully for the key to the top drawer of his desk, he opened it, got out the letters and began to reread them.
    The first one had come two weeks ago: "Darling Allan, I'm reliving now the glorious hours we spent together last night. It's hard to believe that we haven't always been madly in love, but maybe it's because no other time counts for us, does it? Do you know how hard it is for me not to shout from the rooftops that I'm crazy about you? I know you feel the same way. We have to hide what we are to each other. I understand that. Just keep on loving me and wanting me the way you do now. Leona."
    All the letters were in the same vein. One arrived every other day, each talking about wild love scenes with him in his office or this house.
    He'd had enough informal workshops here that any number of students knew the layout. Some of the letters referred to the shabby brown leather chair in the den. But never once had he had a student alone in the house. He wasn't that much of a fool.
    Grant studied the letters carefully. They were obviously typed on an old machine. The o and the w were broken. He'd gone through his student files, but no one used a machine like that. He also did not recognize the scrawled signature.
    Once again he agonized about whether to show them to Karen and to the administration. It would be hard to predict how Karen would react. He didn't want to upset her. Neither did he want her to decide to give up her job and stay home. Maybe he would have wanted that a few years ago, but not now. He had a big decision to make.
    The administration. He'd bring the Dean of Student Affairs in on this the minute he found out who was sending them. The trouble was he simply didn't have a clue, and if anyone believed they contained an iota of truth, he could kiss his future at this college goodbye.
    He read the letters once more, searching for a writing style, phrases or expressions that might bring one of his students to mind. Nothing. Finally he replaced them in the drawer, locked it, stretched and realized that he was dead tired. And chilly. It was one thing to sleep in a cold room under warm blankets, another to be in the path of a direct draft when you're sitting there in cotton pajamas. Where the heck was the draft coming from?
    Karen always closed the draperies when she was home but he never bothered. He realized that the sliding glass door from the den to the patio was open a few inches. The door was heavy and slow to move on the track. He probably hadn't closed it completely the last time he went out. The lock was a pain in the neck too. Half the time it didn't catch. He walked over, shoved the door closed, snapped the lock and without bothering to see if it had caught, turned out the light and went back to bed.
    He hunched under the covers in the now satisfyingly cold bedroom, closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep. In his wildest dreams he could not have imagined that half an hour ago a slender figure with long blond hair had been curled up in his brown leather chair and had only slipped away at the sound of his approaching footsteps.

    Chapter 20
    FIFTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD private investigator Daniel O'Toole was known in New Jersey as Danny the Spouse Hunter. Under his hard-drinking, hail-fellow-well-met exterior, he was a remarkably thorough worker and quietly discreet in compiling information.
    Danny was used to people using false names when they hired him to check on possibly erring husbands or wives. It didn't bother him. As long as he received his retainer and follow-up bills were paid promptly, his clients could call themselves anything they pleased.
    Even so it was a bit surprising when a woman identifying herself as Jane Graves phoned his Hackensack office Tuesday morning, hinting at a possible insurance claim and engaging him to investigate the activities of the Kenyon sisters. Was the older sister working at her job? Was the younger sister back in college, completing