Free The Second Time Around by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

married. I immediately offered to buy the house. My wife always loved it, and I had outgrown my first office. At that time I planned to keep the laboratory and play around with some of the early experiments that Dr. Spencer had decided were going nowhere. I asked Nick if he would let me copy only those records. Instead he left them with me. He took all his father’s later files, which he felt held promising research. As I’m sure you also know, his mother died of cancer as a young woman, and his father’s lifelong goal was to find a cure for the disease.”
    I remembered the intensity in Nick Spencer’s face when he told me that story. “Did you use Dr. Spencer’s notes?” I asked.
    â€œNot really.” Dr. Broderick shrugged. “It was a case of the best laid plans of mice and men. I was always too busy, and then I needed the area the laboratory took up to create two new examination rooms. I stored the records in the attic just in case Spencer ever came for them. He never did, until the day after the fund-raiser.”
    â€œThat was only a month and a half before he died! Why do you think he came back for them then?” I asked.
    Broderick hesitated. “He didn’t give any explanation, so of course I can’t be sure. He was obviously unsettled. Tense would be a better word, I guess. But then I said that he’d made the trip for nothing, and he asked me what I meant.”
    â€œWhat did you mean?”
    â€œLast fall someone from his company came for the records, and, of course, I gave them to him.”
    â€œHow did Nick react when you told him that?” I asked, intrigued now.
    â€œHe asked me if I could give him the name or describe the person who was here. I could not remember the man’s name, but I did describe him. He was well-dressed, had reddish brown hair, was of average height, and was about forty years old.”
    â€œDid Nick recognize who it was?”
    â€œI can’t be sure, but he was visibly upset. Then he said, ‘I don’t have as much time as I thought,’ and he left.”
    â€œDo you know if he was visiting anyone else in town?”
    â€œHe must have been. An hour later, when I was on my way to the hospital, he passed me in his car.”
    *   *   *
    I had planned for my next stop to be the high school Nick had attended. I just wanted the usual background of what kind of kid he’d been. But after talking to Dr. Broderick, I changed my mind. I intended to drive straight to Gen-stone, find the guy with the reddish brown hair, and ask him a few questions.
    If indeed he worked for Gen-stone, which somehow I seriously doubted.

T WELVE

    A fter he left the hospital, Ned drove home and lay down on the couch. He had done his best, but he had failed Annie. He had the gasoline in a jar and had a long string in one pocket, the lighter in another. One single minute more, and he could have done to that room what he had done to the mansion.
    Then he had heard the click of the elevator door, and he saw the Bedford cops. They knew who he was. He was sure they didn’t get close enough to see his face, but he didn’t want them to start wondering why he was in the hospital now that Annie was dead.
    Of course he could have told them that he was there because he had an appointment with Dr. Greene. It would have been the truth—Dr. Greene had been busy, but he’d squeezed him in during his lunch hour. He was a nice man, even if he had agreed with Annie that heshould have discussed the sale of the Greenwood Lake house with her.
    He hadn’t told Dr. Greene that he was angry. He had just said how sad he was. He’d said, “I miss Annie. I love her.”
    Dr. Greene didn’t know the real reason Annie had died, that she had rushed out of the house, into the car, and been hit by the garbage truck, all because she was so mad at him about the Gen-stone stock. He didn’t know that Ned had