Let Me Call You Sweetheart

Free Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Mary Higgins Clark

Book: Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online
Authors: Mary Higgins Clark
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers
her father gave them to her, but I could tell she was lying. Her father has all her jewelry now, including everything I gave her."
When the guard indicated their time was up, Reardon stood and looked squarely at Kerry. "Ms. McGrath, I shouldn't be here. Somewhere out there the guy who killed Suzanne is walking around. And somewhere there has to be something that will prove it."
...
Geoff and Kerry walked to the parking lot together. "I bet you didn't have time for any lunch," he said. "Why don't we grab something fast?"
"I can't, I've got to get back. Geoff, I have to tell you that from what I heard today, I can't see a single reason for Dr. Smith to lie about Skip Reardon. Reardon says that they had what amounts to a reasonably cordial relationship. You heard him say that he didn't believe Suzanne when she told him that her father had given her some pieces of jewelry. If he started getting jealous about those pieces, well..." She did not finish the sentence.
...
Sunday, October 29th
On Sunday morning, Robin served at the ten o'clock mass. When Kerry watched the processional move down the aisle from the vestry, she always was reminded of how, as a child, she had wanted to be a server and was told it wasn't possible, that only boys were allowed.
Things change, she mused. I never thought I'd see my daughter on the altar, I never thought I'd be divorced, I never thought that someday I'd be a judge. Might be a judge, she corrected herself. She knew Jonathan was right. Embarrassing Frank Green right now was tantamount to embarrassing the governor. It could be a fatal blow to her appointment. Yesterday's visit to Skip Reardon might have been a serious mistake. Why mess up her life again? She had done it once.
She knew that she had worked her way through the emotional gamut with Bob Kinellen, first loving him, then being heartbroken when he left her, then angry at him and contemptuous of herself that she had not seen him for the opportunist he was. Now her chief reaction to him was indifference, except where Robin was concerned. Even so, observing couples in church, whether her own age, younger, older--it didn't matter--seeing them always caused a pang of sadness. If only Bob had been the person I believed he was, she thought. If only he were the person he thinks he is. By now they would have been married eleven years. By now surely she would have had other children. She'd always wanted three.
As she watched Robin carry the ewer of water and the lavabo bowl to the altar in preparation for the consecration, her daughter looked up and met Kerry's gaze. Her brief smile caught at Kerry's heart. What am I complaining about? she asked herself. No matter what happens, I have her. And as unions go, it may have been far from perfect, but at least something good came of it. No one else except Bob Kinellen and I could have had exactly this wonderful child, she reasoned.
As she watched, her mind jumped back to another parent and child, to Dr. Smith and Suzanne. She had been the unique result of his and his former wife's genes. In his testimony, Dr. Smith had stated that after their divorce his wife moved to California and remarried, and he had permitted Suzanne to be adopted by the second husband, thinking that was in her best interests.
"But after her mother died, she came to me," he had said. "She needed me."
Skip Reardon had said that Dr. Smith's attitude toward his daughter bordered on reverence. When she heard that, a question that took Kerry's breath away had raced through her mind. Dr. Smith had transformed other women to look like his daughter. But no one had ever asked whether or not he had ever operated on Suzanne.
Kerry and Robin had just finished lunch when Bob called, suggesting he take Robin out to dinner that night. He explained that Alice had taken the children to Florida for a week, and he was driving to the Catskills to look at a ski lodge they might buy. Would Robin want to accompany him? he asked. "I still owe her dinner, and

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