Once Upon a Lie by Maggie Barbieri Read Free Book Online Page A

circulated that Dolores had every intention of throwing Sean into the Hudson. She didn’t know if Father Madden knew this or was turning a blind eye, the Donovans being solely responsible for the new gym floor at St. Augustine’s. That Madden had sold his soul for a stretch of hardwood didn’t surprise Maeve.
    Margie stood on the outskirts of the family, a tall, attractive woman by her side. The wife, Maeve presumed. Margie eyed Maeve warily, either embarrassed by how much she had drunk at the barbecue a few months earlier, the last time she had seen her, or regretting their conversation, the one that had left Maeve a little upset and feeling less than warm toward the long-lost Margie, e-mails replete with family gossip notwithstanding. Clumsy, she had called her. Maeve thought the word sounded sinister in her brain, given how inaccurate it was. I guess that’s one word for it, she thought. She did the right thing and shot Margie a warm smile, one that hopefully evoked the sadness that she was supposed to feel at the situation and the forgiveness she felt was necessary for biting the woman’s head off at the family party.
    The grand finale—the sprinkling of the ashes—came a lot sooner than Maeve could have hoped for. Next to her, Jack had begun to shiver in his tweed blazer, his hands jammed down deep in the pockets of his khakis. Dolores held the urn aloft and turned toward the river, her wailing becoming one long, steady sob that transcended even the noise of the commuter train rumbling behind them. She beckoned the group closer so that everyone could see the remains of her beloved husband scattered into the river he loved so well, if his fifty-foot sailboat was any indication.
    Dolores pulled the top off the urn and turned dramatically, flinging ashes into what turned into a very stiff north wind. Jack had the good sense to zig as the ashes zagged, leaving Maeve open to the vagaries of the windswept remains of a cousin she had been glad to see go. A few flecks of Sean Donovan landed on her shoulders and on her sleeves. Her stomach did a flip as she took in the amount of ash in which she was now covered, noticing that everyone else seemed to have been downwind of the ashes’ trajectory and clean of any soot.
    Jack looked at her mournfully. “I guess this means we can’t go for clams.”
    Maeve managed to hold down the muffin she had eaten right before she had left the store, but yes, it still meant that they weren’t going for clams.
    It was as if Sean were laughing at her from his grave. See? he taunted. You’ll never be rid of me.

 
    CHAPTER 6
    “Speed dating.”
    Maeve looked up from the mixing bowl. “That’s funny. I thought you said ‘speed dating.’”
    “You know you want to.” Jo hoisted herself over the counter and into Maeve’s work space, something that Maeve had asked her several times not to do, but that she persisted in doing. Jo was a former gymnast, and she still carried herself like one all these years later. She had competed until she had gotten too tall—topping out at a hair below five feet nine—and left her little spandex-suited teammates behind to throw themselves up and over and around the mats at the gymnastics academy where she still held a couple of scoring titles. Reed thin, long-legged, and graceful, she hid her lithe body behind baggy overalls and Doc Marten boots. She never did a backhand spring or anything else to give away her background, but the ease with which she could bend from the waist to pick up a dropped knife or stand on her toes to get something on a tall shelf was a dead giveaway that she was a former athlete and made Maeve, a hair over five feet, envious.
    “You know?” Maeve said, watching Jo’s eyebrows go up in anticipation of her acceptance of the plan. “I really don’t.” She held up her spatula, letting the ganache she was making trail back into the bowl. “Does the consistency of this look right to you?”
    Jo shrugged. “Looks okay. Put