Free The Shadow of Your Smile by Mary Higgins Clark

desperate enough to order a hit on that doctor, he must be in big trouble, Sammy reasoned. He ought to be able to dip into that foundation and get a million-dollar grant approved for Sammy Barber’s favorite charity. Meaning myself. Of course, itwouldn’t be put that way. Langdon could skim a million off a legit grant. It must happen all the time.
    Sammy bitterly regretted that he had not taped his meeting with Langdon, but he was sure he could make Langdon think he had. And of course at their next face-to-face meeting he would be sure that a tape was running.
    On Monday morning at eleven o’clock, Sammy showed up in the lobby of the Park Avenue building where Douglas Langdon’s office was located. When the security desk phoned to confirm his appointment, Langdon’s secretary, Beatrice Tillman, emphatically said, “I have no record of an appointment with Mr. Barber.”
    When the person at the desk passed the word to Sammy, it was the response he was expecting. “She doesn’t know that the doctor talked to me over the weekend and told me to come in. I’ll wait till he’s available.” He saw the mistrust in the security officer’s eyes. Even though he’d worn his new jacket and slacks and his one tie, he was fully aware that he didn’t have the look of someone who had thousands of bucks to throw away on a shrink.
    The guard gave that message to Tillman, waited, then put the phone down and reached for a pass. He scribbled Langdon’s name and suite number and handed it to Sammy. “The doctor isn’t expected for another fifteen minutes, but you can go upstairs and wait for him.”
    “Thanks.” Sammy took the pass and sauntered over to the elevator bank, where another guard allowed him to go through the turnstile. Mickey Mouse security here, he decided disdainfully.
    Nice offices, though, he thought when he entered suite 1202. Not big, but nice. It was clear that the shrink’s secretary still wasn’t sure if she bought his story but she asked him to sit down in the reception area near her desk. Sammy took care to settle himself so that Langdon would not see him when he opened the door.
    Ten minutes later Langdon came in. Sammy watched as he startedto greet the secretary, who interrupted him and, her voice too low for Sammy to hear, said something to him. Langdon turned and Sammy chortled to himself at the look of sheer panic that crossed his face.
    He stood up. “Good morning, Doctor. It’s really nice of you to see me on such short notice and I do appreciate it. You know how sometimes my head gets all messed up.”
    “Come in, Sammy,” Langdon said abruptly.
    With a cheerful wave at Beatrice Tillman, whose face was a study in curiosity, Sammy followed the doctor down the hall into what he guessed was his private office. It was carpeted in deep crimson. The walls were lined with mahogany bookshelves. A handsome leather-topped desk dominated the room. A wide leather swivel chair was behind it. Two matching chairs finished in a red and cream fabric faced the desk.
    “No couch?” Sammy asked, his tone bewildered.
    Langdon was closing the door. “You don’t need a couch, Sammy,” he snapped. “What are you doing here?”
    Without being invited, Sammy walked around the desk to the swivel chair and sat down on it. “Doug, I made you an offer and you didn’t get back to me. I don’t like to be disrespected.”
    “You agreed to a twenty-five-thousand-dollar price and raised it to one hundred thousand,” a shaken Langdon reminded him.
    “Twenty-five thousand for murdering Dr. Monica Farrell isn’t very much, I figure,” Sammy commented. “She’s not like some intern nobody ever heard of. She’s what would you say . . . distinguished?”
    “You agreed to that price,” Langdon said, and now Sammy could hear the panic he’d expected in Langdon’s tone.
    “But you didn’t get back to me,” Sammy reminded him. “So that’s why the price has gone up again. It’s now one million, payable in