The Stranger. Kathleen O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ B, you’d make much better decisions about Step C. And save yourself a lot of grief in the process.

      So naturally, as soon as Mallory closed down the bookstore that night, with the ugly echoes of the metallic voice still ringing in her ears, she headed straight for a visit with her mother.

      The Heyday Chronic Care Center was brightly lit and welcoming, though it was late by the time Mallory arrived. The nurse at the front desk smiled and waved her back to the private rooms. No one bothered to make Mallory sign in anymore. They all knew her too well. She’d been coming through those double glass doors almost every night for two years now.

      Her mother’s room was dim, and the satellite television was set to a classical music station. Small white letters inched their way up the black screen. Verdi, the letters said. Rigoletto.

      In spite of everything, now that she was here, Mallory felt herself begin to relax. Her mother always had that effect on her. Even now.

      Dropping her heavy purse on the floor, she plopped down onto the bedside chair, kicked off her sandals and took her mother’s hand in a warm hello squeeze.

      “I’m sorry I’m late, Mom,” she said. She leaned her head back against the soft headrest and shut her eyes. Verdi washed over her like a bath, cleaning away the dirty feeling that had clung to her ever since she’d spent five minutes on the telephone with a blackmailer. “It was a crazy day.”

      But where should she begin? Ordinarily, on these visits, she kept the conversation light and upbeat. She didn’t burden her mother with the petty problems of everyday life. She didn’t mention the overdue bills or the crummy book sales. She didn’t mention that Dan, her bum ex-husband, who had never forked over the last installment of the divorce settlement, was now dating a teenager and said it was “serious.” Not that Mallory cared, except that apparently this teenager was expensive, which meant that Dan was even less likely to get around to paying up.

      And, of course, she never, ever mentioned what she had discovered about Mindy. How could she? They’d all been so horrified when Tyler Balfour had uncovered a prostitution ring at Moresville College. And when they had learned that the Rackhams’ own little café had been the headquarters, the rendezvous point for the girls and their customers, her mother had been furious and mortified.

      Then, about three months later, one of the betrayed wives whose husband had been “outed” in Balfour’s story had thrown a gasoline can through the front window of the café and followed it with a lighted match. Heyday firefighters had done their best, but the place, which Elizabeth Rackham had built from scratch after her own divorce twelve years ago, had burned to the ground.

      “I’ve got a big problem, Mom.” Mallory didn’t open her eyes. She just held on to her mother’s soft, graceful hand. Elizabeth Rackham was fifty-five, but she didn’t look a day over forty. Everyone said she was the most beautiful woman they had ever met.

      “It’s about Mindy. She’s fine right now—the wedding is only eight weeks away. Frederick is crazy about her, it’s really sweet to see them together. But there’s someone—someone who would like to spoil things. I think I can stop this guy, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do.”

      She felt hot moisture pushing at her eyelids, so she squeezed her eyes even more tightly. She would not cry. Crying over a problem fell into Step B, and strong women never indulged in Step B.

      “What should I do, Mom? Should I protect Mindy, no matter what it takes? I just don’t know what she’d do if she lost Frederick now. She’s better, really she is. It’s not like before, when she…when she didn’t even want to go on living.”

      Her throat closed painfully as she remembered that horrible time. The blood all over the bathroom, spilling over Mindy’s pale wrists like red lace cuffs.

      Finally she opened her eyes, letting the tears fall silently down her cheeks. She looked at her mother. If only she would answer her. If only she would give her some advice, tell her what to do.

      But she wouldn’t, not ever again. Elizabeth Rackham looked as if she were peacefully sleeping, but it was nothing as natural as that. She’d had a stroke two years ago, and the doctors told Mallory that, according to all the tests, her mother wasn’t aware that her daughter was in the room.

      The next morning, Mallory got in the car, a brown paper package on the seat beside her, and drove carefully through the silver spring rain. She passed the police station. She passed Roddy’s house. She passed the Heyday Chronic Care Center. She found the sign that said “Maryland—Fell’s Point Harbor” and she hit the gas. She’d have to hurry if she was going to be on that ferry before eleven.

      CHAPTER TWO

      TYLER BALFOUR WAS running late, and he didn’t like that. He refused to spend all day playing catch-up, so he pulled out his cell phone, called his assistant and, after about two seconds’ hesitation, told her to cancel his lunch with Sally.

      The two seconds were because Sally, a beautiful blonde with the temper of a blazing redhead, had warned him that the next time he canceled a date she would assume he was canceling the whole relationship.

      She didn’t mean it, of course. It probably wouldn’t take him more than another two seconds to sweet-talk her out of her snit. But he realized suddenly that he probably wouldn’t bother. Sally was gorgeous, but the thrill was gone. She was too high-maintenance anyhow. Two seconds here, two seconds there…it added up.

      On the spur of the moment, he also told his assistant to ditch his three-o’clock interview. That interview was worthless. The guy might be a U.S. Senator, but he wouldn’t ever talk on the record, and Tyler hated anonymous sources.

      Besides, he needed to free up some serious time. The man he was on his way to meet right now might be a lot less exalted, but he was a whole hell of a lot more interesting.

      Dilday Merle was the chair of academic affairs at tiny Moresville College in Heyday, Virginia, which meant that, in the grand scheme of things, he was pretty much nobody.

      But when Professor Merle had called Tyler yesterday and asked for an hour to talk about the Heyday Eight, Tyler hadn’t even hesitated. Hell, yes, he had time. He’d make time. The Heyday Eight had won Tyler a Pulitzer when he broke the story a few years ago, and they were expected to make him a couple of million dollars next year, when he published his detailed hardback version of the scandal.

      He’d taken his time finding the right publisher, though several houses had been interested. He wanted to find someone who would let him tell the story straight, not just as pure exploitation. And, of course, he’d wanted a lot of money.

      It was ironic, really. Eight ditzy blond college girls who spanked grown men with toy whips, then bedded them for fun and profit, had done what a decade of serious investigative reporting couldn’t do. They had set Tyler free from the underpaid grind of life at a daily newspaper.

      No clock-punching for Tyler anymore. Mostly he worked on the upcoming book, which the publisher wanted to call Shenandoah Sex Circus, though Tyler was fighting to keep it simple. The Heyday Eight was good enough.

      If he wrote anything else these days, he did it for magazines. In-depth and on his own schedule. In fact, his New Yorker piece should have hit the stands today. He had arranged to meet Dilday Merle in front of Bennie’s News Stand on M Street. If he hurried, he might get there early enough to grab a copy before the professor showed up.

      Bennie had СКАЧАТЬ