Free Lust, Money & Murder by Mike Wells Page B

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    When the plane landed in Chicago, instead of changing planes for the flight to Washington, D.C., she bought a ticket to Pittsburgh. She had not been home since she’d graduated from Bromley. Something told her it was time she came to terms with her past.
    She rented a car at the Pittsburgh Airport and found herself driving to her old house in Garfield. A thousand memories flooded her mind as she drove down Penn Avenue, passing familiar landmarks— the little market where she used to shop, the laundry, bus stop where she had walked a thousand times back and forth to her house.
    As she slowly rolled by the tiny, humble dwelling itself, it looked even tinier and humbler than she had ever remembered it, and the neighborhood much more run-down. She could see the balcony her father had built onto the back, the paint peeling. She could see herself as a little girl, held in her father’s arms.
    Your great-great-great-great grandmother was an Irish Princess. She lived in a beautiful castle. It had a moat, and a –
    What’s a moap, Daddy?
    She felt a sharp pang in her heart and sped away.
     
    A few minutes later, she pulled up to the Bromley Academy for Girls. She went inside to the main office. Ms. Prentice had long retired and had been replaced by a new, young director. There was a security guard on duty at the front desk, also a new touch. Even he was a stranger.
    “Can I help you?” he said.
    “I’m a Bromley grad,” Elaine said. “I’m just going to walk around the grounds, if it’s ok...”
    “Knock yourself out.”
    Elaine went back to the rental car and, from the trunk, retrieved a small pot of chrysanthemums. She trudged through the snow around to the back of the main building, past the soccer field, across the hill, until she reached the remains of the church. Ms. Prentice had arranged for her father’s body to be buried there, in the old graveyard. The school had paid for everything.
    Elaine squatted in front of the simple headstone and brushed away the snow.
     
    IN MEMORY OF PATRICK KEEGAN BROGAN, A WONDERFUL FATHER AND GREAT FRIEND OF THE BROMLEY ACADEMY FOR GIRLS
     
    Elaine stared at the words cut into the slab, tears coursing down her face. She placed the pot at the foot of the marker. Suddenly she fell forward, weeping, overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness and despair.
    “I wish I could talk to you Daddy,” she gasped, pressing her hands and face against the cold marble. “I don’t know what to do.”
    She wept for a few minutes, and then became aware of a crunching sound behind her in the snow. She turned around. Two girls about 12 years old on horseback, in their riding helmets, were moving along the side of the graveyard.
    Elaine wiped her eyes and waved. The girls waved back.
    She thought of Kaitlin, and how they had grown apart.
    When Elaine went back to the car, her grief faded into a sweet sorrow. She would cope, somehow. She was a Brogan . We’re made of the tough Irish stock , she could hear her father saying. She would go to goddam Bulgaria and see what happened.
    If things didn’t improve, she would quit the Secret Service.
     
     

CHAPTER 1.11
     
    Sofia, Bulgaria turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The city had a distinctly European flavor, with balconied buildings overlooking tree-lined, cobblestone boulevards that rattled with slow-moving trams. The summer air was filled with the smell of flowers and the sounds of laughter and romantic accordion music. There was simplicity to the Bulgarian people and the way they lived, that Elaine found charming and down-to-earth.
    In the center of the city, the men and women were better dressed than in the States, the men in suits and the women in stylish skirts or dresses, most wearing high heels. When they walked in couples, the woman would often take the man’s arm the old fashioned way.
    The males, with their dark eyes and swarthy looks, were handsome enough, but their attitude towards females left much to be desired. In some parts of