Read Online Echoes of Titanic by Mindy Starns Clark - Free Book Online Page B

to feel guilty for something completely out of her control, Kelsey flipped off the TV and popped a frozen dinner into the microwave. She wanted to draw the family tree and then add in the information from Rupert’s claims, just to get a better picture of what he’d been trying to spell out. It would have been easier to do so using an app or an ancestry-related website, but seeing as how she’d left both her phone and her laptop at the office, she’d have to do this the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper.
    Sitting down on the floor at the coffee table, she ate her dinner as she worked. She decided to start with herself and her brother, Matt, at the bottom and work her way up, creating a chart. She only got as far as their parents, however, when she realized she hadn’t even contacted them yet about what had happened today. Mortified, she immediately got up and retrieved the phone. Though her father may or may not understand what she was saying depending on how lucid of a day he was having, her mother definitely needed to hear this from Kelsey herself and not by accidentally running across it some other way, such as online or in the newspaper.
    Unfortunately, there was no answer at her parents’ house, so she left them a message saying there had been a big problem at the office today and that she needed to talk to them about it as soon as possible. It was odd not to find them at home, she thought, glancing at the clock on the microwave as she disconnected the call. These days, taking her father anywhere was so much trouble that her parents rarely went out at all anymore, except for doctorvisits and the like. Where could they possibly be at a quarter to seven on a Tuesday night?
    Frustrated, she dialed Matt instead, thinking he might know where their parents could be. She thought his call was about to go to voice mail too when he surprised her by answering.
    â€œHey, Kels,” he said loudly, “sorry about the noise. I’m on my way home from work. I was just about to head down into the subway. Listen, I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t make it to your thing today. I thought I’d be able to pull it off, but then one of my students had a big meltdown when I caught her cheating on an exam, and after that things kind of fell apart. There was this whole big drama with her and me and the dean, and it dragged on all afternoon. I feel terrible about it, but there was nothing I could do.”
    Clearly, he was oblivious to what had happened at Brennan & Tate, so rather than competing with the street noises to bring him up to speed, she simply told him the same thing she had said in the message she’d left for her parents, that there had been a big problem at the office and that he should go straight home and turn on the TV to see what he had missed. “Try the Headline News channel. The story’s on their loop. Oh, and don’t talk to any reporters, okay? They’ll probably start calling you soon, once they track down who you are and how they can reach you.”
    As soon as she said it, she realized that maybe her parents were home after all, but that they, too, had simply turned off the phone’s ringer, as she had, because they were being badgered by the news media.
    â€œDid you say reporters?” he yelled, his voice nearly drowned out by what sounded like a passing train. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œJust turn on the TV as soon as you get home and then call me!” she yelled back before hanging up the phone.
    How frustrating. Glancing over toward the fridge, she thought about hopping on the stair stepper to work out some of her tension but decided she was getting too far off track. First things first. She would check her messages to see if maybe her parents had called earlier, and then she would get back to work on her family tree.
    Dialing into voice mail, Kelsey was shocked when the automated system announced she had twenty-seven messages.