Free Manhattan Mayhem by Mary Higgins Clark

her doctor. Even teenagers get stretch marks.”
    “So you could tell.”
    He didn’t acknowledge her statement.
    “Did she tell you that her parents kicked her out of the house? If you must know, she came to me for help. I took her in and gave her spending money. And then, may God forgive me, I left her with my housekeeper and fled to Europe and didn’t return until it was over. She put it up for adoption, you know. It was a terribly lonely time for her, I’m sure.”
    It amused him that she’d said “If you must know,” as if he were pressing her to tell him all these things that flowed out as if she’d kept them locked up a long time and was glad at last to say them aloud.
    “Why did she go to you for help?” he asked.
    She looked surprised at the question. “Well, because I was her godmother. Didn’t you know?”
    He did know. It was why he’d sat down beside her. “I guess I’d forgotten.”
    He glanced at her husband, who was driving the Jaguar through Central Park from the west side to the east.
    “Then …” Sam left his awkward question unasked.
    She laughed. “You’re thinking of the godfather who left her the three million? That was my first husband, George. It wasn’t easy for George to give money away. I nearly had to threaten to kill him if he didn’t put her in his will. She was cut out of her parents’ will. I wanted her to have something, even if it took her a long time to get it. Then, when George got so sick, I had to tell him, please, she isn’t in so much of a hurry for it. But it was too late. He was gone, and she wasn’t broke anymore.”
    “But then she gave it all away.”
    “I should have realized she might. She didn’t want to be anything her parents are, including rich. And she took to heart that Bible verse that causes so many of us anxious nights.”
    “Which one?”
    “The one about how it’s harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”
    Her husband smiled at the traffic ahead of him.
    Sam stared out a window. “Do you think she’s in heaven?”
    “She’d better be, or what’s a heaven for, if it won’t take angels?”
    “Do you want to end up in heaven?”
    “Why do you think we take all those trips to Egypt? I’m searching for pygmy camels.”
    He laughed. “That’s still going to take a very big needle, isn’t it?”
    For the first time, her husband spoke. “You’ve never heard of the Seattle Space Needle?”
    Sam laughed again. He liked these people.
    After a bit, he said, “I understand why you can’t stand her parents.”
    She nodded. “Loathsome people. No mercy. From them to her, or from me to them.”

    Bunny Darnell’s husband magically found a parking space near the Frick museum, and then he threaded their trio smoothly past a doorman and into an elevator that opened directly into a penthouse apartment.
    “Buffet to starboard,” Mrs. Darnell advised Sam. “Drinks to port, host and hostess receiving guests amidships, in front of the windows. Will you want a ride back with us?”
    “I’ll get myself home. Thank you.”
    “No problem,” she said, adding, “as the young ones say, though I wish they wouldn’t. Whatever happened to a simple gracious ‘You’re welcome’?”
    She then surprised him by placing a hand lightly on his shoulder to give herself a boost up to kiss his cheek.
    “If you’re lucky, they won’t remember you,” she whispered, causing him to turn to her so sharply that he knocked her briefly off balance. Sam grasped her elbow to steady her.
    He apologized as people around them stared with concern at her and disapproval at him.
    Bunny Darnell looked straight into his eyes and said quietly but firmly, “Don’t be sorry for what you’ve done, Sam.”
    He stared as she walked away, then he turned blindly toward the windows.
    When he could think clearly again, he joined a line of people waiting to speak to the family. All around, he heard comments marveling