Read Online Before I Say Good-Bye by Mary Higgins Clark - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mary Higgins Clark
Ads: Link
was all better.
The next morning Nell had rushed down to the dining room. “Where’s Grammy? Is she up yet?”
Her grandfather was sitting at the table; Gert was with him. “Grammy is in heaven,” he had said. “She went there last night.”
When I told him that she had come into my room last night, he thought I’d been dreaming, Nell remembered. Gert believed me, though. She understood that Grammy had come to say good-bye. And then later, so did Mom and Dad.
Adam, please come to me. Let me sense your presence. Please give me the chance to tell you how sorry I am before I say good-bye to you.
For the rest of the night, Nell waited, lying awake, staring into the darkness. As dawn broke, she was at last able to weep—for Adam, for all the years they would not spend together, for Winifred and Adam’s associates, Sam and Peter, who had been on the boat with him.
And she was able to weep for herself, because once again she had to become used to living without someone she loved.
thirteen
S AFELY ENSCONCED in the backseat of the limousine, Peter Lang reflected on the collision that had taken place earlier between his car and the trailer truck. He had been on his way into Manhattan for a meeting with Adam Cauliff, cruising along on the Long Island Expressway, just about to enter the Midtown Tunnel, when bang! Collision!
Five hours later, Lang, with a cracked rib, his lip cut and head bruised from the impact, was picked up at the hospital by a limousine service and driven through teeming rain to his home in Southampton.
His oceanfront estate, in the most exclusive section of that exclusive community, had been given to him by his parents when they decided to divide their time between Saint John’s in the Caribbean and Martha’s Vineyard.
The house was a turn-of-the-century, sprawling white colonial, with hunter-green shutters. The two-acre gated property also contained a swimming pool, tennis court and cabana, and was enhanced by a velvety green lawn, flowering shrubs and meticulously pruned trees.
Married at twenty-three and amicably although expensively divorced at thirty, Lang had cheerfully settled into the role of what was once known as a man-about-town. Blessed with blond good looks, sophisticated charm, reasonable intelligence and a quick sense of humor, he also had inherited an uncanny instinct for acquiring land that would someday become valuable.
That instinct had originally motivated his grandfather, prior to World War II, to buy hundreds of acres in rural Long Island and Connecticut, and his father to invest heavily in Third Avenue property in Manhattan when the elevated railroad tracks were about to be taken down.
As his father proudly boasted when he talked about his forty-two-year-old son, “ ‘Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations’ doesn’t apply to our family. Peter’s turning out to be the smartest of the lot of us.”
With his usual casual generosity, Lang tipped the limousine driver and let himself into the house. He had long ago pensioned off the couple that had been employed there from the time he was born. In their place he had hired a daily housekeeper and used a small catering firm to take care of the extra demand when he had guests.
The house was dark and cool. Whenever he found it necessary to be in the city for a meeting with his real estate partners—typically held on a Friday afternoon—he usually spent the night in his Manhattan apartment and drove to Southampton early the next morning. That was what he would have done if he had met Adam and the others on the boat today, but the accident on the way in had made that impossible.
Now Peter found himself glad to be in this house, glad to be able to fix a quiet drink and take stock of his aching body. His head throbbed. He ran his tongue over his lip and grimaced at the realization that the swelling there was increasing.
The driver of the tractor-trailer—Peter could still feel the moment when he knew the crash
The next morning Nell had rushed down to the dining room. “Where’s Grammy? Is she up yet?”
Her grandfather was sitting at the table; Gert was with him. “Grammy is in heaven,” he had said. “She went there last night.”
When I told him that she had come into my room last night, he thought I’d been dreaming, Nell remembered. Gert believed me, though. She understood that Grammy had come to say good-bye. And then later, so did Mom and Dad.
Adam, please come to me. Let me sense your presence. Please give me the chance to tell you how sorry I am before I say good-bye to you.
For the rest of the night, Nell waited, lying awake, staring into the darkness. As dawn broke, she was at last able to weep—for Adam, for all the years they would not spend together, for Winifred and Adam’s associates, Sam and Peter, who had been on the boat with him.
And she was able to weep for herself, because once again she had to become used to living without someone she loved.
thirteen
S AFELY ENSCONCED in the backseat of the limousine, Peter Lang reflected on the collision that had taken place earlier between his car and the trailer truck. He had been on his way into Manhattan for a meeting with Adam Cauliff, cruising along on the Long Island Expressway, just about to enter the Midtown Tunnel, when bang! Collision!
Five hours later, Lang, with a cracked rib, his lip cut and head bruised from the impact, was picked up at the hospital by a limousine service and driven through teeming rain to his home in Southampton.
His oceanfront estate, in the most exclusive section of that exclusive community, had been given to him by his parents when they decided to divide their time between Saint John’s in the Caribbean and Martha’s Vineyard.
The house was a turn-of-the-century, sprawling white colonial, with hunter-green shutters. The two-acre gated property also contained a swimming pool, tennis court and cabana, and was enhanced by a velvety green lawn, flowering shrubs and meticulously pruned trees.
Married at twenty-three and amicably although expensively divorced at thirty, Lang had cheerfully settled into the role of what was once known as a man-about-town. Blessed with blond good looks, sophisticated charm, reasonable intelligence and a quick sense of humor, he also had inherited an uncanny instinct for acquiring land that would someday become valuable.
That instinct had originally motivated his grandfather, prior to World War II, to buy hundreds of acres in rural Long Island and Connecticut, and his father to invest heavily in Third Avenue property in Manhattan when the elevated railroad tracks were about to be taken down.
As his father proudly boasted when he talked about his forty-two-year-old son, “ ‘Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations’ doesn’t apply to our family. Peter’s turning out to be the smartest of the lot of us.”
With his usual casual generosity, Lang tipped the limousine driver and let himself into the house. He had long ago pensioned off the couple that had been employed there from the time he was born. In their place he had hired a daily housekeeper and used a small catering firm to take care of the extra demand when he had guests.
The house was dark and cool. Whenever he found it necessary to be in the city for a meeting with his real estate partners—typically held on a Friday afternoon—he usually spent the night in his Manhattan apartment and drove to Southampton early the next morning. That was what he would have done if he had met Adam and the others on the boat today, but the accident on the way in had made that impossible.
Now Peter found himself glad to be in this house, glad to be able to fix a quiet drink and take stock of his aching body. His head throbbed. He ran his tongue over his lip and grimaced at the realization that the swelling there was increasing.
The driver of the tractor-trailer—Peter could still feel the moment when he knew the crash
Similar Books
