Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

Kramers have always kept a sharp eye out for heavy drinking, or worse, drug use. If your brother had encountered some kind of problem, it didn’t begin or continue under this roof.”
    This from a man who didn’t know Mack, who only knew about him. The message was loud and clear. Don’t look here for your brother’s problem, lady.
    â€œI don’t mean to suggest that anything about Mack residing here triggered his disappearance. But you can understand that it makes sense for me to start searching for him in the last place where he was seen. The brother I knew would never willingly cause my mother and father and me the griefand anxiety we have been living with for ten years.” I felt the tears that were always too close to the surface shining in my eyes as I corrected myself. “I mean the anxiety my mother and I experience constantly. I think you may already know that my father was a 9/11 victim.”
    â€œYour brother never seemed like the kind of young man who would just disappear without a mighty important reason,” Gus Kramer agreed.
    His tone was sincere, but I did not miss the glance he shot at his wife or the fact that she was nervously biting her lips.
    â€œDid you ever consider the possibility that your brother may have experienced a cerebral hemorrhage or any other physical condition that might have given him an attack of amnesia or even partial amnesia?” Howard Altman asked.
    â€œI’m considering everything,” I told him. I reached into my shoulder bag and took out a notebook and pen. “Mr. and Mrs. Kramer, I know it’s been ten years but could I just ask you to tell me what you remember about anything Mack did or said that might have some significance? I mean, sometimes we think of something that didn’t occur to us at the time. Maybe as Mr. Altman just suggested, Mack had some kind of amnesia attack. Did he seem in any way troubled or worried, or as though he wasn’t feeling well physically?”
    As I asked these questions, I thought of how, after the police gave up on trying to find Mack, my father then hired private investigator Lucas Reeves to continue the search. For the last few days I’ve been reviewing every word of his files. Everything the Kramers told him was in my notes.
    I listened as Mrs. Kramer hesitantly, then enthusiastically,told me how Mack was the kind of young man who always held the door open for her, who put his laundry in his hamper, who always picked up after himself. “I never saw him look troubled,” she said. The last time she had seen him was when she tidied up the apartment he shared with two other seniors. “Both of the other boys were out. He was working on his computer in his bedroom and told me the vacuum wouldn’t bother him. That’s the way he always was. Easy. Nice. Polite.”
    â€œWhat time was that?” I asked her.
    She pursed her lips. “About ten o’clock in the morning, I would guess.”
    â€œThat would be right,” Gus Kramer confirmed quickly.
    â€œAnd you never saw him again?”
    â€œI saw him leave the building at about three o’clock. I was on my way home from the dentist. I was putting my key in the lock of our apartment. Gus heard me and opened the door. We both saw Mack come down the stairs. He waved as he went through the lobby.”
    I watched her glance at her husband for approval.
    â€œWhat was Mack wearing, Mrs. Kramer?”
    â€œWhat he had on in the morning. A T-shirt and jeans and sneakers and . . .”
    â€œLil, you’re mixed up again. Mack was wearing a jacket and slacks and an open-necked sport shirt when he left,” Gus Kramer interrupted sharply.
    â€œThat’s what I meant,” she said hurriedly. “It’s just I keep seeing him in the T-shirt and jeans because that’s when I had a little talk with him that morning.” Her face convulsed. “Gus and I had nothing to do with