Read Online Any Minute by Meyer Joyce Bedford Deborah - Free Book Online Page B

with a father who was an alcoholic and who had left his mother to feed a family of six on money she made doing other people’s ironing. Like Sarah, Tom failed to realize that money and things were not what his children needed. It was
him
they wanted.
    “Look,” he said. “All I asked you to do was have a look at the list.”
    “Which I did. I looked at the list.”
    “And?”
    “It was quite the lineup.” Then she reiterated her position, her words controlled. “Tom, I’ll put together the best managed-futures fund I can for the Nielsen family. I’d be happy to rely on my own intuition and expertise to bring them back into the fold. But I won’t resort to manipulating prices under the table as you’ve suggested. I won’t resort to paybacks.”
    Tom hadn’t built this company by being indecisive or under-handed, and he convinced himself that he wasn’t being dishonest now. He was simply taking advantage of the same creative options that other successful commodities traders knew to employ. If he was willing to be somewhat more inventive than others, well, just chalk that up to his experience and his commitment to his sons and to his single-minded focus on leaving a legacy for them.
    Lauren Davis had made one mistake and one mistake alone. She had confronted Tom Roscoe. That was something nobody did and stayed around to talk about.
    “If you won’t do everything under your power to pursue your career here, Lauren,” he told the woman sitting across the desk while her eyes blazed at him, “I’ll have to hire someone else who will.”

     
    Sarah punched the button on the elevator in the Roscoe Building. The brass door slid shut and, above it, the numbers started to climb.
    She leaned against the wall and stared at the ceiling, discouragement a leaden weight in her chest.
    Sarah had planned a special day for Mitchell to make up for missing the Cubs game. To her disappointment, it hadn’t worked that way at all.
    Where she’d hoped Mitchell would be interested in the ticker numbers streaming across the boards, he’d spent his time spinning round and round in the pit, getting tangled up in about a thousand Ethernet cables instead.
    When she’d wanted to introduce him to the ninth-floor guys who called her “Andretti,” Mitchell had conveniently gone missing in a sea of legs.
    When she’d tried to teach him how to buy and sell with hand signals, Mitchell had turned so timid and scared that he’d cried, “Mom, this isn’t for kids,” at which she’d lost her patience with a horrible snap. “What’s the difference? If you can get excited for Zambrano and Edmonds at the ball game, then at least try to do it for me!”
    She berated herself.
What is it with you, Sarah? Can’t you do anything right for them anymore?
Her job might be strenuous, and maybe she struggled putting in long hours down in The Loop, but Mitchell and Kate meant everything to her. Why was she always losing her temper with the kids?
    Sarah loved them both so much she couldn’t catch her breath when she thought of it. If anything ever happened to one of them… she couldn’t imagine how she would keep going. Imagine someone who could talk a cookie right out of the hands of a little boy! Imagine someone who could convince a child in one minute,
one minute
, that he could be a trusted friend! The very thought filled her with terror when she remembered how fast Mitchell opened up to a complete stranger. And a street bum at that!
    I saw him at the Cubs game.
Mitchell had seen more than forty thousand people at the Cubs game.
He was watching me and Dad.
Those words sent chills up her spine.
    She’d scolded Mitchell soundly about it the minute she’d gotten him away. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk to strangers?” she’d asked, gripping his shoulders. “Didn’t I tell you to ask an adult before talking to anyone like that? Didn’t I tell you to always check with me first?”
    He’d scuffed the curb with his toe and hadn’t