Loss of Innocence by Richard North Patterson Read Free Book Online

grateful daughter.”
    “I appreciate your passion,” Charles said, his face brightening, “as well as your forbearance.” He smiled at Peter. “Whitney’s notions of equity developed early. When Janine was seven and Whitney was five, Anne and I paid Janine to watch her little sister while we went to a cocktail party next door. When Whitney found out we’d given Jeanine a quarter for babysitting her, she demanded a dime for having to be the baby.”
    Whitney was never sure whether this tale was meant to indicate her jealousy, compliment her precocity, or intimate that she retained a five-year-old’s sense of justice. But everyone laughed. Squeezing her hand, Peter asked, “Is that true?”
    “So I’m told,” Whitney said. “In my version, I demanded a dollar for putting up with Janine.”
    At once, Whitney felt the others relax. “I almost forgot,” Charles said, absently fishing into his coat pocket to retrieve a key chain with two keys, brass and silver. He stood, placing the keys in Peter’s hand.
    As the others watched, Whitney’s fiancé stared at the keys with a pleased but puzzled smile. “What are they for, sir?”
    Charles shook his head. “I suggest you take Whitney to the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and Sixty-fourth. If you need a clue, look for the engraved gold plate beside the door of an apartment building. The one that reads, MR. AND MRS. PETER BROOKS .”
    Whitney was speechless. She had imagined looking with Peter for a place in the West Village, closer to the offices of Padgett Brothers. Gazing up at Charles, Peter flushed. “I can’t think of anything adequate to say.”
    Anne, Whitney realized, was studying her face. Following his wife’s gaze, Charles said in a mollifying tone, “Perhaps I shouldn’t deprive you two of the fun of house-hunting. But that’s the building where Anne and I lived until Janine was two years old. We have so many happy memories.”
    “As well you should,” Janine told her father. “But the plaque should read BIRTHPLACE OF JANINE DANE .”
    Clarice grinned at her across the table “Really, Janine, envy is so unbecoming.”
    To Whitney, this seemingly flippant barb at Janine concealed an effort to dispel the awkwardness of Whitney’s silence. Catching the spirit, Janine rolled her eyes, tossing her hair in a parody of her own vanity. “Yes,” she sighed, “I suppose my matchless beauty should be enough.”
    With this Whitney stifled her ambivalence, speaking the words she knew her father needed to hear. “It’s the gift of a lifetime,” she assured him. “Knowing that you and Mom started there makes it all the more special.”
    With obvious pleasure, Charles raised his glass. “To the marriage of a lifetime,” he toasted.

Six
    After dinner, Charles invited Peter to indulge in a snifter of Armagnac on the open-air porch—a 1923 Laberdolive from Gascony, which he and Anne had discovered while celebrating their twentieth anniversary in France, and so reserved for the most special occasions. Snifters in hand, he found Whitney gazing out the window of the dining room, and paused. “I don’t want to stifle you,” he said apologetically. “But the comfort we enjoy at our dinner table will not always be available in the social world of Peter’s business. Like it or not, he won’t be making his career among avatars of Bobby Kennedy.”
    Despite his gentle delivery, Whitney felt patronized. “I know that,” she said stiffly.
    “I’m sure you do,” her father responded with the same paternal calm. “Nonetheless it’s awkward to disagree with your husband in front of others, especially when it’s a matter of first impressions. Most often you’ll be the youngest woman at the table. As you and Clarice were tonight.”
    Still touchy, Whitney heard—or imagined—a tacit comparison. “Clarice barely said a word.”
    Charles smiled faintly. “A sign of her social intelligence. Including, I thought, one helpful intervention. She