Deception by Christiane Heggan Read Free Book Online Page B

moment since they couldn’t be sold, and her salary, she was dead broke.
    Worried the habit would destroy her financially, she had tried to get help, but the therapy class she had joined was a joke. A dozen misfits sat in a circle, listened to one another’s sob stories and tried to figure out why they were so damn screwed up.
    Olivia had lasted two sessions, and all she had learned for her three hundred dollars was that she had zero self-esteem, didn’t trust people and had a deep seated fear of intimacy.
    Pressing on the accelerator, she merged smoothly onto the Garden State Parkway. Fear of intimacy, my ass. Was it her fault that she’d never found the right man? That every jerk she met turned out to be either married or unemployed or on coke?
    She chuckled bitterly. Could she pick them or what? One loser after another. The story of her life—her private life, anyway.
    As the glittering lights of Atlantic City disappeared behind her, she turned the radio to her favorite rhythm-and-blues station and let the soothing music wipe away the tension.
    Sometimes the best way to deal with problems was to ignore them.
    Jill returned from her mother’s house with even more unanswered questions than she’d had earlier today. Too tired to work on the Church Hill designs, she sank into bed only to realize she was too keyed up to sleep. Hands clasped behind her head, she lay in the dark, trying to piece together a puzzle that was getting more complicated by the minute.
    Reflecting on a conversation she’d had with her father back in October, his explanation of why B&A had lost the aquarium commission hadn’t made much sense.
    “Jenner wanted a local architect,” he had told her. “Someone who could deal with unexpected problems immediately.”
    He had lied. And the big question was why?
    A nagging thought, one she had been rejecting all night, wormed its way into her mind again.
    Another woman.
    Jill shook her head, instantly denying the ugly accusation. Her father was incapable of infidelity. He’d adored his wife, had adored her for thirty-six years.
    And yet the thought remained, troublesome, persistent, like a headache that wouldn’t go away.
    Jill was still trying to sort through her tangled thoughts when dawn finally crept over the city, long hours later.

Five
    “Mom, what a pleasant surprise!”
    Smiling, Jill rose from behind her cluttered desk and walked across the spacious, well-appointed office to meet her mother. Amanda had made a valiant effort to pull herself together since her husband’s death, but grief had taken its toll on her beautiful face. Her brown eyes, usually so bright and expressive, had dulled, and an unhealthy pallor clung to her otherwise flawless skin.
    Yet there were some encouraging signs, Jill noted as her mother slipped out of her mink coat and draped it over a chair. Her short auburn hair had been recently styled and she had traded her mourning black for pale gray slacks and a white silk blouse.
    “Henry said you wanted to see me.” Amanda smiled, something she hadn’t done in over a week. “So, here I am.”
    “Mom, you didn’t have to do that. I was planning to stop by the house over my lunch hour.”
    “I know.” Amanda laid her gloves on top of her coat. “But I thought it was time I started taking your advice and got out of the house a little. The fresh air will do me good, and so will getting out of Henry’s way.” She rested her gaze on Jill’s desk, piled high with drawings. “Oh, dear, I’ve caught you at a bad time, haven’t I?”
    “Don’t worry about it.” Jill took her mother’s hand. “I need a break anyway.”
    She led Amanda to an attractive grouping of blue upholstered chairs in front of the large plate-glass window. Below, the views of Central Park and the Woolman ice rink were unobstructed, and as pretty as a Currier and Ives scene.
    “Would you like anything? Tea? My secretary should have something halfway decent tucked inside her