Read Online The Day the Siren Stopped by Colette Cabot - Free Book Online

icon, put in a password, and began pointing out the files on the desktop.  She seemed to understand it all, and more importantly, she seemed actually interested in what she was doing.  Their little lesson was interrupted by a phone call, and she took the message efficiently, then went back to the task at hand.
     
    “Have you ever considered a career in real estate?” Phillip asked.  “There's an evening training course beginning in a few weeks in Brumley.  The company would be happy to pay the tuition if you'd like to attend.”
     
    “I'd love that!” she exclaimed.  “Only I don't have a way to get there.  I have no car.”
     
    “How do you get here?” he asked.
     
    When she told him that she walked, he nearly fell over backwards.
     
    “I'm sure someone from around here will be taking the licensing class,” he said.  “I'll let you know, and I'll pay for the gas.”  He started to walk away, then remembered something else.  “What size do you wear?”
     
    “You mean clothes?” she asked, confused.  “This skirt is a seven, I think.”
     
    “You look a little smaller than my wife,” he said.  “She's giving a bunch of clothes to charity because she's put on weight.  I'll have her bring them over here instead.  You can go through them first.  You'll need something to wear at this job, and I know you don't have the money yet.  Hang in there, Kathy Mae.  It'll all come together for you.  It was like that for me once, and somebody gave me a hand up.  You'll do the same for someone else some day.”
     
    “Thanks, Phillip,” she said, “I appreciate all of this, really.”
     
    The day passed uneventfully, and Kathy Mae was happy to keep busy so that she didn't think too often about Mason.  She found over a dozen outfits among Mrs. Buggerby's castoffs, and spoke to Phillip's contact for school which would begin in two weeks.  She was a woman about her own age coming from Ashton and would be passing right through Borough on her way to Brumley.  They arranged to meet at the turn-off to her road, giving her only a half-mile walk.  And, Kathy Mae learned that her aunt's property was owned by Andrew Graves—a name which she recognized as her belonging to her biological father.  That confused her.
     
    She had always been told that her father and mother had been messed up on drugs, that they both had passed her on to Aunt Anna, her mother's sister.  None of that made sense.  If he had been such a loser, how is it that he owned property?  And, why would Aunt Anna be living there instead of her own mother?  To whom had those monthly payments been going?  The mortgage seemed to have been paid years ago.  It had been paid in a lump sum by an insurance company.  He had invested in a mortgage life policy, so when he died the loan was automatically paid off.  These were things with which she intended to confront Aunt Anna that evening.
     
    That discussion had become sidetracked by the spectacle of her arrival home in Phillip Buggerby's car.  Of course her aunt read this simple courtesy the wrong way.  He had offered to help her inside with the huge bundles of trash bags filled with clothes, but he understood that Kathy Mae was embarrassed by the condition of her home as well as the woman of which he had learned much about on the drive home. 
     
    Kathy Mae had explained her confusion over the information on the deed.  Phillip had wanted to help, but beyond the name on the document, there was nothing he could add.  One thing he knew for sure.  If her father had died, the house actually belonged to her.  Since Lolita Graves had re-married, suggesting either divorce or widowhood, there was no other heir directly related to Andrew Graves—of which they knew, anyway. 
     
    Her simple curiosity about the property had led to half a dozen more.  She needed to search death certificates, divorce records, and even birth records to see if she had any siblings of which she had been