Read Online Triple Pursuit by Ralph McInerny - Free Book Online

idiotic dance came to mind as diverting small talk.
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    It was when Mario was going on and on about what a wonderful couple Jane and Tim were that Colleen burst into tears.
    â€œColleen, what is it?”
    He put his arm around her and tugged her to him. She could not remember when she’d had such masculine reassurance and protection, and she sobbed helplessly. After that, she had to give him some indication of what worried her.
    â€œIt’s Aggie,” she said.
    â€œAggie!”
    â€œYou know what she’s like?”
    â€œWhat in God’s name does she have to do with your brother’s family?”
    â€œNot the family. Tim.”
    He quickly understood, having been the object of Aggie’s pursuit himself. This enabled Colleen to tell the story in an almost coded manner.
    â€œHe can’t be that dumb. Would he jeopardize his family for that …” The word he used both shocked and delighted Colleen.
    â€œMy uncle saw them together and said that Tim looked guilty as sin. But after that, Aggie was letting everyone know in utter confidence that she had a thing going with my brother.”

    â€œHow did your uncle know?”
    â€œI told him. It was an awful thing to have to do, but the thought of her ruining Tim’s marriage was worse.”
    â€œSomeone has to talk to Aggie.”
    â€œWhat’s the point? She has no conscience.”
    Mario began to talk of what he would do to Aggie at the office, make life hell for her, drive her from the firm, but his voice soon lost conviction. Any campaign against her would surely bring a suit, the kind he himself could win in a walk.
    â€œIt’s not what she’s doing in the office, Mario.” She moved more closely against him. “At least not anymore.”
    â€œWhy can’t she settle for Fremont?”
    Albert Fremont was a lawyer who had been hired at the same time as Aggie and clearly would have loved to be the object of her attention, but what kind of challenge was that for Aggie the man-eater? If only Albert would drop his heroine-worshiping expression and make himself interesting to Aggie, the trouble with Tim might dissolve. But placing one’s hopes in Fremont seemed the definition of despair. A week ago, Fremont had come to Colleen as to a sister with the story of his lack of luck with Aggie:
    â€œYou’re too available.”
    â€œShe doesn’t know I exist.”
    â€œJust ignore her and see what happens.”
    Fortunately, Fremont was a better lawyer than he was a lover, and it soon became obvious to Colleen that Aggie was picking his brains for her own work. But any chance that Albert Fremont might be the answer came apart when he and Aggie were working on a case together and she turned in their work as her own. When the work proved to be full of flaws, she said that Fremont was the author of most of it.
    Fremont exploded. “Aggie, that was preliminary stuff. Why the hell did you turn it in?”
    Aggie looked at Fremont. She could hardly tell him that she had wanted to steal his work and the credit she was sure it would bring.

    â€œYou sounded as if we were through.”
    â€œâ€˜We’? This is finished work!” He waved it in her face and then took it in to a senior partner.
    â€œDid you tell him what happened?” Colleen asked.
    Fremont lifted his chin. “Certainly not. I apologized for the earlier work and replaced it with the finished product.”
    â€œBut Aggie …”
    Fremont’s expression seemed to indicate that he was cured. Aggie’s perfidy had drained love or desire or lust, whatever it had been, from his heart, and from then on he seemed immune to her.
    â€œShe’s lucky you are a gentleman,” Colleen told him.
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    Western Sun Community was a graded development through which the elderly could move from antepenultimate through penultimate to the ultimate stage where total care was provided those whose sun was definitively