Read Online The Second Time Around by Mary Higgins Clark - Free Book Online Page B

then came back and kissed the top of her head. Three blocks away he had a heart attack. The doctor said he was dead before he hit the ground.
    Nicholas Spencer was smiling in this picture, but his eyes looked pensive, even worried.
    The first four pages of the paper were all about him. There were pictures of him as an eight-year-old Little Leaguer. He’d been the pitcher on the Caspien Tigers. Another picture showed him at about age ten with his father in the laboratory of the family home. He’d been on the swim team in high school—that picture had him posing with a trophy. Another had him in a Shakespearean costume holding something that looked like an Oscar—he’d been voted best actor in the senior play.
    The picture of him with his first wife on their wedding day twelve years ago made me gasp. Janet Barlowe Spencer of Greenwich had been a slender, delicately featured blonde. It’s too much to say that she was a double for Lynn, but there’s no question that there was a very strong resemblance. I wondered if their similarity had anything to do with his getting together with Lynn.
    There were tributes to him from a half-dozen local people, including a lawyer who said they’d been best friends in high school, a teacher who raved about his thirst for knowledge, and a neighbor who said he always volunteered to run errands for her. I took out my notebook and jotted down their names. I guessed I’d be able to find their addresses in the phone book, if I decided to contact them.
    The following week’s issue of the newspaper coveredthe fact that the Gen-stone vaccine that Spencer’s company had claimed would be the definitive cure for cancer was a failure. The article noted that the co-chief executive of Gen-stone had conceded they might have been too hasty in publicizing its early successes. The picture of Nick Spencer that accompanied the story appeared to be company issued.
    The newspaper that came out five days ago had the same picture of Spencer but carried a different caption: “Spencer Accused of Looting Millions.” They used the word “alleged” throughout the article, but an editorial suggested that the appropriate award for the town to have offered him should have been another Oscar for best actor and not its first “Distinguished Citizen Award.”
    â€œCall me Milly” was offering me more coffee. I accepted and could see that her eyes were snapping with curiosity at the sight of the pictures of Spencer side by side on the table. I decided to give her an opening.
    â€œDid you know Nicholas Spencer?” I asked.
    She shook her head. “No. He was gone by the time I came to town twenty years ago. But let me tell you, when those stories came out about him swindling his company and his vaccine being no good, a lot of people around here got mighty unhappy. Plenty of them bought stock in his company after he got the medal. In his speech he said it might be the most important discovery since the polio vaccine.”
    His claims had been getting loftier, I thought. Had it been a case of rope in one more bunch of suckers before you disappear?
    â€œThe dinner was a sellout,” Milly said. “I mean, Spencer’s been on the cover of a couple of national magazines. People wanted to see him up close. He’s the only thing resembling a celebrity this town ever produced. It was a fund-raiser, of course. I hear that after they heard his speech, the board of directors bought a lot of stock in Gen-stone for the hospital’s portfolio. Now everybody’s mad at everybody else for thinking up the award and getting him here for it. They won’t be able to go ahead with the new children’s wing of the hospital.”
    The coffeepot was in her right hand, and she put her left hand on her hip. “Let me tell you, in this town Spencer’s name is mud.
    â€œBut God rest him,” she added reluctantly. Then she looked at me.