Read Online I've Got You Under My Skin by Mary Higgins Clark - Free Book Online Page A

room service, and unpacked her one suitcase. It contained the three outfits she had selected to bring with her, as well as her supply of new cosmetics.
    In one of her e-mails, Laurie Moran had requested Claire’s size and height, saying that she would have wardrobe changes available.
    Wardrobe changes! Claire had thought when she read the e-mail. Why on earth would I need changes?
    But then she had understood. Moran would provide gowns similar but not identical to the ones they had worn twenty years ago at the Gala.
    They would reenact a few of the scenes in the films, like the one of the four of them clinking glasses or with arms around one another, posing for the cameras. And individually being questioned by the police.
    I know I look good, Claire thought. Now I’m so like my dear mother.
    A light tap at the door told her that room service had arrived with the chicken salad and iced tea she had ordered.
    But as she nibbled at the salad and sipped the tea, Claire realized that she was not as brave as she had thought.
    Something was telling her not to go forward with her plan.
    Just nerves, she tried to reassure herself. Just nerves.
    But it was more than that.
    Like a drumbeat in her head, her inner voice was saying, Don’t do it. Don’t do it. It is not worth the risk!

13
    I t had been a long trip from Cleveland to Westchester Airport. A heavy rainstorm had caused their plane to sit on the tarmac for two hours, and even though they were flying on a small private jet, there was little space to move around. This made it very difficult for Rod’s back. At one point, she suggested they just forget the whole thing.
    “Alie, this is your chance to get the degree you always wanted. Between Powell and the production company, you’ll net three hundred thousand dollars. It will pay for medical school and all the other expenses, but every cent counts. You know how desperately you have always wanted to be a doctor and then go into medical research,” Rod had said in refusal.
    Even if I can commute to school, I will have to be studying all the time. Where does that leave Rod? Or if I have to go away to school, does he leave his job at the pharmacy and come with me but then have nothing to do? she wondered. But if that happens, then the pharmacy loses both him and me, and we have to hire two new people. I don’t know how that’s going to work.
    It was three o’clock by her wristwatch when they landed in Westchester. By then Rod’s expression was sufficient proof of the pain he was in. After he hobbled on crutches from the cabin to his waitingwheelchair, Alison bent over him and whispered, “Thank you for making this trip.”
    He managed a smile as he looked up at her.
    Mercifully the driver, a ruddy-faced man of about fifty with the build of an ex-boxer, was waiting for them in the terminal. He introduced himself to them. “I’m Josh Damiano, Mr. Powell’s chauffeur. He wanted to be sure you had a comfortable ride from the airport to your hotel.”
    “How kind of Mr. Powell.” Alison hoped that the contempt she felt did not show. Now that they were back in New York, a kaleidoscope of memories was flooding her mind. Neither one of them had been in New York in fifteen years. That was when the doctors had told Rod there would be no more operations.
    By then their money was gone and Rod’s family was taking out loans to support them, but Alison had managed to take the necessary courses at night for a year and get her license as a pharmacist. They had gratefully seized the opportunity to go to Cleveland and work in his cousin’s pharmacy.
    I loved New York, she thought, but I was happy to get away from it. I always thought that the minute people saw me, they wondered whether I’d killed Betsy Bonner Powell. In Cleveland, for the most part, we have lived quietly.
    “There are benches near the doors,” Damiano said. “Let me get you settled comfortably and go for the car. I’ll try not to be too long.”
    They watched