Read Online Close to You by Mary Jane Clark - Free Book Online Page A

Wall Street corrected and the pizza deal suffered one setback after another, the investors had become less cocky and more worried. Richards was struggling from week to week to make his payroll. The expensive cars he had leased so that his offices could impress the prospective business sellers sat unused in his company parking lot, as he had had to let some of his people go. But the Mercedes and BMW dealerships didn’t give a rat’s ass about Richards’s economic hard times. The costly leases still had to be paid each month. So did the mortgage on his office building.
    He had so much invested now, there was no turning back. He had long ago divested himself of his stock portfolio, taken a second mortgage on his house, and emptied his sizable IRA account, plowing all the money back into the pizza deal. He was convinced that if he could just keep things afloat a few more months, ultimately it would be all right. And he had just spent most of his afternoon tryingto convince his skeptical and angry investors the same thing.
    Thank God this house is closing on Friday,
he thought as he let himself in through the front door.
There will be another two million dollars in the bank next week.
    He walked slowly from room to deserted room, wondering why he didn’t feel sadder or more nostalgic. He had spent his boyhood and teenage years in this house and his parents had tried hard to provide a life for him that was full of happy memories.
    But he was angry with them nonetheless. They hadn’t been there for him when he really needed them.
    He climbed the large, center hall staircase, feeling tired, his feet shuffling heavily on the polished wooden steps. In the upstairs hallway, he walked right past his old bedroom without stopping, heading directly to his parents’ room.
    It was empty now, the furniture all carted away by the bargain-hunting antiques dealer who had purchased the contents of the gracious home for a fraction of its true worth. But what else could he have done? He didn’t have the time to do the calling around and researching necessary to find out how he could get the best prices for his mother’s carefully acquired antique furniture collection. His time was better spent trying to hold his business deal together, and the quicker the house was empty and sold, the sooner he would have the big cash infusion he so desperately needed.
    The walls of the master bedroom were marked with smudged outlines where the triple dresser and massive four-poster bed once stood. Images of jumping up and down on that big bed as a kid flashed through Richards’s mind, but he pushed the memories aside. He didn’t want to remember the good times. Those were history. The recent past had not been so kind.
    He opened the heavy paneled door and stepped into his mother’s walk-in closet. It, too, was empty now. All her dresses and suits were gone, but the smell of her perfume still lingered. He exhaled deeply to clear his mind as he reached for the dial on the wall at the back of the closet.
    He knew the combination by heart and methodically he turned the safe’s dial back and forth, listening for the sound of the tumblers clicking softly into place. The square panel opened quietly, revealing, just as he expected, nothing inside.
    Larson had known the safe would be empty because he had checked it right after his parents’ death, removing everything in it at the time. His mother’s jewelry, the promissory notes his parents had asked him to sign. This last trip today was a final attempt to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything.

Chapter 26
    Eliza’s eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks were blotchy when she showed up in the makeup room a half hour before airtime.
    â€œHoney!” cried Doris, rushing over and putting her arms around Eliza. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
    â€œOh, Doris,” Eliza whimpered. “Remember that girl I told you was writing me? The one with