Free We'll Meet Again by Mary Higgins Clark

Working as investigative reporter on the Molly Lasch case in Greenwich wasn’t exactly a job he would have chosen if he had been in her shoes. But of course he wasn’t, and he had no idea how Fran Simmons felt about her father’s suicide.
    That louse left his wife and teenage daughter to face the music, Tim thought. Simmons took the coward’s way out. Tim was confident it was not something he would have done. If
he
had been in that situation, he’d have gotten his wife and daughter out of town, then faced the consequences of his actions himself.
    He’d covered the funeral for the
Time,
and he remembered seeing Fran and her mother coming out of the church after the Mass. She’d been a kid then, with downcast eyes and long hair that fell over her face. Now Fran Simmons was extremely attractive, and he found that she had a direct handshake, a warm smile, and a way of looking straight into his eyes. He knew she couldn’t read his thoughts, couldn’t know that he’d been mentally rehashing the scandal surrounding her father, but for the brief moment of the handshake, Tim felt guilty and awkward.
    He apologized for bursting in on them. “Usually Gus is by himself at this hour, trying to decide what will go wrong with the newscast.” He turned to go, but Fran stopped him.
    “Gus told me that your family lived in Greenwich and that you grew up there,” she said. “Did you know the Lasches?”
    In other words, Tim thought, she’s saying I know you know who I am and all about my father, so let’s skip that. “Dr. Lasch, I mean Gary ’s father, was our family doctor,” he said. “A nice man and a good physician.”
    “How about Gary?” Fran asked swiftly.
    Tim’s eyes hardened. “A dedicated doctor,” he said flatly. “He took wonderful care of my grandmother before she died at Lasch Hospital. That was only weeks before his own death.”
    Tim did not add that when his grandmother had been ill, the special-duty nurse who frequently attended her was Annamarie Scalli.
    Annamarie, a pretty young woman, had been a terrific nurse and a nice, if rather unsophisticated, kid, he remembered. Gran had been crazy about her. In fact, Annamarie had been in the room with his grandmother when she died. By the time I got there, Tim thought, Gran was gone, and Annamarie was sitting by her bed, crying. How many nurses would react like that? he wondered.
    “I’ve got to see what’s going on at my desk,” he announced. “Talk to you later, Gus. Nice to meet you, Fran.” With a wave he left the office and headed down the corridor. He did not think it fair to tell Fran how totally his opinion of Gary Lasch had changed after he heard about his involvement with Annamarie Scalli.
    She’d been only a kid, Tim thought angrily, and in a way she was not unlike Fran Simmons, the victim of someone else’s selfishness. She’d been forced to give up her job and move out of town. The murder trial brought national attention, and for a time she was in every gossip column.
    He wondered where Annamarie was now and worried briefly if Fran Simmons’s investigation would hurt the new life she might have built for herself.

15
    Annamarie Scalli walked briskly down the block to the modest home in Yonkers where she began her daily rounds of home care for the elderly. After more than five years of working for the visiting nurse service, she had made her peace with life, at least to a degree. She no longer missed the hospital nursing she once had loved. She no longer looked every day at the pictures of the child she had borne. After five years it had been agreed that the adoptive parents were no longer required to send her an annual picture. It had been months since she received the last photo of the little boy who was growing up to be the image of his father, Gary Lasch.
    She used her mother’s maiden name now, Sangelo. Her body had filled out and, like her mother and sister, she was now a size 14. The dark hair that used to bounce on her