Blackbird Fly Read Online Free PDF

of spearmint chewing gum.
    “ At Harry’s office,” she said
slowly, trying to breathe. “He was trading options when he died,
and they were called. He lost whatever he was trading, our money,
and a lot more. I won’t be liable for that, will I?”
    “ Normally, no.”
    She stared at him, willing him to speak.
“Normally?”
    “ The house is safe, since he put the
mortgage insurance in your name. And the French property is too
complicated to touch. That leaves the life insurance policy — ” He
paused, frowning, as if life insurance was nauseating.
    “ Do you mean — can they garnish
that?”
    “ I think we can avoid that. But
there’s a problem Mr. McGuinness wasn’t aware of.”
    The other shoe hovered, preparing to drop. She felt
it deep in her guts, the looseness, the hollow sense of doom. You thought that was bad, eh? Well, let me tell ya.
    She swallowed hard and looked him in the eye. “Tell
me.”
    “ Creditors would have to sue the
estate, which if the debts were large enough — and from what you’re
telling me maybe they are — they definitely would. Even I would
sue.”
    “ And litigation isn’t your bag. What
are you saying?”
    He grimaced. “Lawsuits are potential problems, if
there are creditors. But the immediate problem is that he borrowed
against the life insurance.”
    She stared at Troy’s oversized forehead. She had
already decided how much she would set aside from the insurance for
Tristan’s prep school, then college, and the funeral expenses. But
this was what Harry had used to play the options market. This was
how much he cared about the security of his family. Damn him. It
was gone, all of it. Harry had borrowed against it and lost it
all.
    She may have swatted Troy Lester with her purse.
Lawyers! Who could trust them?
    In the kitchen Merle stared again at the meager list
of sums on her notepad. Her parents would want to help if they
thought she was in trouble. She swept up the checks and statements
into her address book and put them on the shelf over the kitchen
desk. The last thing she wanted was their pity. They had their own
problems, everybody did. One thing she’d learned already since
Harry’s death — there was only so much sympathy in the world, then
people turned back to their own woes. And who could blame them? The
world was a hard, unfair place. She would lie and tell her parents
Harry left them secure and well-off.
    They stood under her father’s big golf umbrella then
shook themselves in the front hall. Her mother was still an elegant
woman, not as straight and tall as she used to be but always finely
coiffed, her gray hair pinned up in a twist. Tonight she wore a
simple black dress and pearls. They were at the age when funerals
were unfortunately common. Maybe they’d come from one. Merle
glanced down at her sweatpants and Harry’s old Penn t-shirt. Making
an effort was, well, such an effort.
    “ Someone here?” her father said,
fixing his blue eyes on her as if she was hiding a boyfriend
upstairs. Jack Bennett never lost that protective feeling toward
his five daughters. He looked tired though, the bags under his eyes
tinged with blue. He was dressed in a dark suit from his attorney
days, a blue shirt with no tie. He missed the law, he told her at
Christmas, missed the action, hated being old and put out to
pasture. She would tell him about old McGuinness the Turd one day,
whose retirement plan was to keel over at the water
fountain.
    “ Tristan’s home. He was having
trouble studying. Maybe he went back too soon.”
    Bernie — her mother Bernadette — insisted on going
upstairs, exclaiming over his black eye, and swearing to keep it
secret from Grandpa Jack. She loved having secrets with her
grandchildren and could be trusted for six or seven minutes. In the
hallway outside Tristan’s room, she took Merle’s hand.
    “ Everything is all right then,” she
said in her firm schoolmarm tone. “You’re strong and young. It
seems hard now but