Read Online No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark - Free Book Online

voice.
    â€œThanks. Yes, I read all the articles.”
    â€œWhat scares me is that some other real estate broker is bound to contact Celia Nolan and let her know that she could easily break the contract, and then tell her they’d be happy to help her find a new home,” Robin said.
    The last hope Georgette had that somehow everything would work out vanished.
    â€œOf course. You’re right; someone is likely to do that,” she said slowly. “I’ll see you at the office, Robin.”
    Georgette replaced the phone on the receiver. “There’s no out,” she said aloud. “There’s simply no out.”
    Then her mouth tightened. This is my livelihood somebody’s ruining, she thought. Maybe the Nolans don’t want to file charges, but if I lose that sale,somebody’s going to suffer. She picked up the phone, called the police station and asked for Sergeant Earley. Even as she was told that he would not be in for another hour, she realized that it was not seven o’clock yet. “This is Georgette Grove,” she told Brian Shields, the desk officer whom she had known since he was a child. “Brian, as you must certainly be aware, I sold the house on Old Mill Lane that was vandalized. I may lose that sale because of what happened there, and I want Clyde Earley to understand that you people have got to find out who has done this and make an example of them. Mike Buckley admitted he painted the sign on the lawn and left the doll last Halloween. I want to know if you’ve questioned him yet.”
    â€œMs. Grove, I can answer that,” Shields responded hastily. “Sergeant Earley went over to Mike Buckley’s school and pulled him out of class. He has an alibi. His father backed up his story that he never left the house the night before last.”
    â€œWas his father sober?” Georgette asked caustically. “From what I understand about Greg Buckley, he ties one on pretty regularly.” She did not wait for an answer. “Ask Sergeant Earley to call me at my office when he gets in,” she said.
    She replaced the phone, started to walk to the staircase, the cup of coffee in her hand, then stopped abruptly as a faint hope occurred to her. Alex Nolan is a member of the riding club. In the process of looking for a house, he had told her that his law firm had asked him to head up their newoffice in Summit, so there are a couple of good reasons why he wants to be in this area. There are a few other listings available that might interest him and his wife. If I offer to show Celia Nolan other houses, and even forgo my sales commission, maybe she’ll go along with me. After all, Alex Nolan did publicly admit that I tried to tell him about the history of the house.
    It was a possibility—maybe a forlorn one, she realized, but at least a possibility.
    Georgette went into her bedroom and began to untie the knot of her robe. Or is it time to close the agency? she wondered. I can’t keep on losing money. The frame house on Main Street that she had bought so cheaply twenty-five years ago would sell in a minute. All the other houses around it were now offices. But what would I do? she asked herself. I can’t afford to retire, and I don’t want to work for anyone else.
    I’ll try to interest the Nolans in another house, she decided. As she showered and dressed, another possibility occurred to her. One Old Mill Lane started out as a very happy home when Audrey and Will Barton bought it. He saw the possibilities in that broken-down mansion and turned it into one of the most charming residences in town. I remember driving by to watch the progress of the renovation, and seeing Will and Audrey working together, planting flowers with Liza standing in her playpen on the lawn.
    I never believed for a minute that Liza intendedto kill her mother or tried to kill Ted Cartwright that night. She was a child, for heaven’s sake. If that