I'll Be Seeing You by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online

signal that for his own reasons he was accumulating cash. Just as they won’t pay his personal insurance, I’ve been notified they won’t settle the partnership insurance either, which would be paid to you as satisfaction for his senior partnership in Executive Search.”
    â€œWhich means,” Catherine Collins said quietly, “that because I cannot prove my husband is dead I stand to lose everything. Phillip, is Edwin owed any more money for past work?”
    His answer was simple. “No.”
    â€œHow is the headhunter business this year?”
    â€œNot good.”
    â€œYou’ve advanced us $45,000 while we’ve been waiting for Edwin’s body to be found.”
    He suddenly looked stern. “Catherine, I’m glad to do it. I only wish I could increase it. When we have proof of Ed’s death, you can repay me out of the business insurance.”
    She put a hand over his. “I can’t let you do that, Phillip. Old Pat would spin in his grave if he thought I was living on borrowed money. The fact is, unless we can find some proof that Edwin did die in that accident, I will lose the place my father spent his life creating, and I’ll have to sell my home.” She looked at Meghan. “Thank God I have you, Meggie.” That was when Meghan decided notto drive back to New York City as she had planned, but to stay the night.

    When she and her mother got back to the house, by unspoken consent they did not talk any more about the man who had been husband and father. Instead they watched the ten o’clock news, then prepared for bed. Meghan knocked on the door of her mother’s bedroom to say good night. She realized that she no longer thought of it as her parents’ room. When she opened the door, she saw with a thrust of pain that her mother had moved her pillows to the center of the bed.
    Meghan knew that was a clear message that if Edwin Collins was alive, there was no room for him anymore in this house.
12
    B ernie Heffernan spent Sunday evening with his mother, watching television in the shabby sitting room of their bungalow-type home in Jackson Heights. He vastly preferred watching from the communications center he had created in the crudely finished basement room, but always stayed upstairs until his mother went to bed at ten. Since her fall ten years earlier, she never went near the rickety basement stairs.
    Meghan’s segment about the Manning Clinic was aired on the six o’clock news. Bernie stared at the screen, perspiration beading his brow. If he were downstairs now, he could be taping Meghan on his VCR.
    â€œBernard!” Mama’s sharp voice broke into his reverie.
    He plastered on a smile. “Sorry, Mama.”
    Her eyes were enlarged behind the rimless bifocals. “I asked you if they ever found that woman’s father.”
    He’d mentioned Meghan’s father to Mama once and always regretted it. He patted his mother’s hand. “I told her that we’re praying for her, Mama.”
    He didn’t like the way Mama looked at him. “You’re not thinking on that woman, are you, Bernard?”
    â€œNo, Mama. Of course not, Mama.”
    After his mother went to bed, Bernie went down to the basement. He felt tired and dispirited. There was only one way to get some relief.
    He began his calls immediately. First the religious station in Atlanta. Using the voice-altering device, he shouted insults at the preacher until he was cut off. Then he dialed a talk show in Massachusetts and told the host he’d overheard a murder plot against him.
    At eleven he began calling women whose names he had checked off in the phone book. One by one he warned them that he was about to break in. From the sound of their voices he could picture how they looked. Young and pretty. Old. Plain. Slim. Heavy. Mentally he’d create the face, filling in the details of their features with each additional word they said.
    Except