I've Got You Under My Skin by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online

over her face that night. The person who did that has woken up every morning since then and been able to enjoy a brand-new day while Betsy’s body is in a casket in a cemetery.”
    Laurie knew her voice had become heated and angry and that it wasn’t just about Betsy Bonner Powell. It was about Greg and the fact that his killer was a free man. Not only free, but a living, breathing threat to her and Timmy. Then she said, “Sorry, Jerry. I know that I have to be careful not to make this sound like a personal crusade.”
    She picked up the phone. “Time to make another appointment with Robert Nicholas Powell.”

9
    R ob Powell was on the three-hole golf course on the back lawn of his estate. The warm April day was conducive to getting out his clubs and practicing his swing before he joined a foursome at the Winged Foot Golf Club. Not bad, he thought as a well-struck putt rolled to the bottom of the cup.
    Concentrating on his golf game had given him the opportunity to put aside the fact that he had not yet heard from the doctor. The chemo three years ago had seemed to take care of the nodules on his lungs, but he knew there was always a chance they would come back. He had had his semiannual checkup earlier in the week.
    “Par for the course,” he said aloud as he made his way back to the house, swinging his golf club.
    Fifteen minutes until his guest arrived. What did Laurie Moran want? he asked himself. She’d sounded concerned. Is she going to tell me that one of them won’t take part in the program? Rob frowned. I need to have them all here, he thought. No matter what it takes.
    Even if Moran’s report was favorable, Rob had a sense of time going by too swiftly. He needed closure, and when Laurie Moran had come to see him in March and proposed her concept of reenacting the night of the Graduation Gala, it had been the answer to a prayer. Except, Rob thought, I’ve never been much of one to pray. I left all that to Betsy.
    At that thought he laughed, a mirthless sound that came out more like a bark, and was followed by a fit of coughing.
    Why hadn’t the doctor called with the results?
    His housekeeper, Jane Novak, was opening the sliding glass door as he stepped from the cobblestone walk onto the patio. “Hole in one, Mr. Robert?” she asked cheerfully.
    “Not quite, but not bad, Jane,” Rob said, trying not to be annoyed that Jane always asked that after he had been on the greens. If there was one thing about Jane he wished he could change, it was her total lack of any sense of humor. She meant that question to be a joke.
    Jane, a solidly built woman with steel-gray hair and matching eyes, had come to work for him shortly after he married Betsy. He had understood why Betsy was not comfortable with the previous housekeeper, who had been hired by his first wife and who had stayed with him after her death. “Rob, that woman resents me,” Betsy had said. “I can feel it. Tell her it’s not working out and give her a healthy severance check. I know just who I want in her place.”
    The person Betsy wanted was Jane Novak, who had worked backstage when Betsy was ushering in the theatre. “She’s a marvelous organizer. She actually keeps the dressing rooms neat. And she’s a good cook,” Betsy had raved.
    Jane was all of that. After entering the country on a green card from Hungary, she was overwhelmed with joy to be put in charge of the mansion, and, as Betsy had promised, she was fully up to the job. Exactly Betsy’s age, Jane was now sixty-two. If she had any close friends or family, Rob had never seen them. Her very comfortable apartment was located behind the kitchen, and even on her days off, from what he could see, she seldom left it. Unless he was out of town, he knew that at seven-thirty every morning she would be in the kitchen ready to prepare his breakfast.
    Over the years Rob had learned to see the slight nuances in Jane’s placid expression that signaled any kind of distress. As he stepped