Bloodline Read Online Free PDF

I seem to have a knack for it. I started with a little money back in the nineties when you couldn't lose. I made it grow, and kept it growing even after the bubble burst in 2000—learned you could make money even in a down market if you knew what you were doing."
    "Good for you."
    "And you know what? It's the perfect job for a mother. You do it from home. I'd finish my trades and be logged off before Dawnie walked in the door. I was there for her every day, ready to take her anywhere she needed to go. No having to go through what I did growing up. I gave her every opportunity to maximize her potential—and she has a lot—and now this."
    Okay. Now to the heart of it.
    "So now this older man comes into her life and… what?"
    "He all but takes over, that's what."
    "How does a guy in his mid-thirties take over an eighteen-year-old's life?"
    She looked away. "I think they're having sex. In fact I'm positive they're having sex."
    "Lots of eighteen-year-olds are having sex. Probably most of them."
    "Not with men twice their age."
    Yeah, Jack could see how the thought of your teenage daughter in bed with a guy her father's age could upset you. But since the girl was past the age of consent, you couldn't use the system to pull them apart. You had to go outside the system.
    Where Jack operated.
    "What's her dad think of this?"
    "He's not in the picture," she said, her tone matter of fact. "Never was, never will be."
    He drained his Yuengling. "Okay. Give me the Reader's Digest version. She's working at this diner and he's what—a regular?"
    Christy nodded. "His name is Jerry Bethlehem and he began showing up sometime in January. After a while he started asking to be seated at one of Dawn's tables. I remember her telling me about this really interesting guy with the cool job who was a great tipper."
    "What sort of cool job?"
    "A freelance video game designer."
    Jack nodded. That did sound pretty cool.
    "Dawn's never been into video games, for which I'm glad—nothing but time wasters—but that's just what allowed him to set his hook into her."
    "I don't get it."
    "Neither did I at first. He's clever. He told her she was just the person he needed to talk to because she was an untapped market for games. If he could design a game that appealed to non-playing girls and young women like her, he'd have every video game company in the world pounding on his door."
    "And if she helps him design it, he'll cut her in."
    "Full partnership—fifty-fifty. She'll be queen of the video game industry. Or so he says."
    Money and fame… quite a siren call.
    "So he lures her over to his apartment—"
    "Oh, no. He's too smooth for anything so obvious. A move like that would have set off Dawnie's alarm bells right away. And he has a townhouse, by the way. What he does is suggest they sit down and brainstorm the project at her house so he can meet her folks and assure them that he's not some nut case with bad intentions."
    "Which you believe he's had all along."
    "I don't believe. I know."
    "How?"
    "I…" Suddenly she looked unsure of herself—the first time since she'd walked in. "I just do."
    Jack's skepticism must have shown.
    "Don't look at me like that," she said. "A mother knows. This man is a seducer."
    "So you've met him?"
    "Right in my own living room. Bold as day. 'How do you do, Mrs. Pickering.' 'You have a wonderful-brilliant-beautiful daughter, Mrs. Pickering.' But Mrs. Pickering wasn't born yesterday."
    Jack now knew what the P in Christy P. stood for. Something familiar about "Pickering"… from a long time ago.
    Anyway… a single mother with a guy her own age making a play for her daughter. Sure, the protective instinct comes out, but Christy Pickering seemed to be protesting a tad too much. Maybe more than a tad. Envy, maybe? Jealousy? A little hey-what's-wrong-with-me ? thing going down here?
    "Is this Jerry Bethlehem good looking?"
    She shrugged. "He's no Matthew McConaughey, if that's what you mean, but he's not bad looking. Mostly