The Melody Lingers On by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

me.’ ”
    Marge took a long breath. “But remember, I think Mrs. Bennett may be going into dementia and maybe that’s something she just got into her head.”
    “It may have been,” Schell said soothingly, “but it was right for you to share it with me. Now I must ask that if you speak to either of the Bennetts you will not tell them
that we have had this meeting.”
    When the door closed behind Marge O’Brian’s departing figure, Rudy leaned back in his chair. I always thought that guy was involved, he thought. Even his mother thinks he is.
    Now, how do we prove it?

13

    A nne Bennett slept late the first night she stayed in her new home. When she woke her head felt clearer than it had in months. Or maybe even since
that terrible day that Parker had disappeared from the sailboat.
    He had gone for the weekend to St. John, where he kept his sailboat. Eric was supposed to fly down with him on the plane but was delayed at his office and didn’t arrive until the next
day.
    I begged Parker to wait until Eric could sail with him but he got angry, Anne thought. He asked me if I thought he was incompetent. I knew enough not to say another word. He went out that
morning alone. The sea was choppy. He never came back. They found the sailboat smashed against the rocks in Tortola.
    She blinked back tears, which so often spilled over when she thought of Parker. It was nine o’clock and time to get up. She threw back the comforter, reached for her robe, eased her feet
into her slippers, and went downstairs to the kitchen. She turned on the Keurig coffeemaker and waited until the “ready to brew” indicator went on. Less than a minute later she was
carrying the cup to the table. I don’t feel like eating anything now, she thought.
    Then she glanced out the side window that looked over the driveway. Sitting at his kitchen table was that nice man, Tony Russo, who had come over and introduced himself when Eric drove her here
yesterday a few minutes after the moving van arrived.
    He had said that he had just moved in as well and that he was opening a restaurant on Valley Road. Then he said that he wouldn’t delay us but he wanted me to know that he’d be back
and forth every day and that I should please call on him if I ever needed assistance of any kind.
    Lane had told her that there was a privacy shade being made and would be installed next week when the spread and draperies arrived.
    Russo had his computer on the kitchen table. Anne quickly changed seats to avoid catching his eye. I won’t have to pull the shade down if I sit in this seat, she thought. I’ll just
pull it down at night.
    She finished the coffee and brewed another cup. While she was waiting she thought again about what she had screamed at Eric last week, that she knew Parker was alive and so did he.
    I had too much wine at dinner, she reminded herself again. The idea that Parker was still alive was probably wishful thinking. She still could feel the thrill of the moment all those years ago
when Parker had called her from his office and asked her to have dinner with him. She was so scared that it had been obvious from that day on the subway steps that she had a terrible crush on
him.
    He was so handsome and so smart. It got around the office that he had received a huge year-end bonus. That night after work I went straight to the delicatessen to tell Mom and Daddy that I was
going out with him.
    Mom was delighted. Daddy was dismissive. “Why wouldn’t he ask you out? You must be the prettiest girl in that company. If he acts like one of those playboy big shots and tries to
make a pass at you, you’ve got to promise me that you’ll march out of that restaurant and take a cab home.”
    Daddy got even more upset when he heard that Parker was picking me up in a car.
    “You could have met him at the restaurant and taken a cab home.”
    By the time Parker and I were married six months later Daddy still didn’t trust him, she mused. He didn’t like