Broken Serenade Read Online Free PDF Page B

began to chat, the little girl turned to the groom again. More composed this time, she called out to him loud enough to make everybody look at her once again. She didn’t care what they thought, if they judged her, or if they made fun of her. She only cared about his answer.
        “Tee, will you wait for me to grow up?”
        Timothy nodded, smiling ruefully.
        “I’ll try, Vee.”
        “Good ,” she said calmly and wiped the last tear that still rested on her cheek like a glistening dewdrop.
        Vivien was able to steal a few chocolate bonbons, and many of her friends came to their residence in Woodside that week. But her piano and French lessons with Mademoiselle Lili ceased forever.
        Mademoiselle Lili had committed suicide that very day. When they had returned from the unfulfilled wedding, they had found her house in flames. Mr. Logan had not reached her in time to save her.
        The young woman’s burned body had been identified using her denture prints and her never-missing anklet that proved to be a common gold jewelry with cubic zirconium. Many believed that Nadine had helped her, and then she had left with Lili’s car. Minutes after, she had suffered that terrible accident on Interstate 1, and as a result, she was missing, probably she had drowned in the ocean. Others went even further with the suppositions and pointed the finger at Timothy and Mr. Logan. Vivien had someone else in mind – that scrawny Igor . However, Lili’s explicit, coherent suicidal note had exculpated everyone in the eye of the law.       
        The gossip regarding Timothy’s wedding, the mysterious disappearance of Nadine, and Mademoiselle Lili’s premature death continued to flow that summer in Woodside as if from an inexhaustible source of morbid imagination. Just until the end of August, when another ill-fated event finally put it to rest. A well-known face plastic surgeon from the area apparently had committed suicide, after he had allegedly shot in the head his entire family: his wife and two teenage daughters. The women had been found wearing huge yellow scarves wrapped around their scarcely dressed bodies.     

 
     
    CHAPTER 2
     
     
           Menlo Park, California, 2011 
     
          T he wipers were taking great pains to remove the heavy downpour cascading over the windshield in vicious, never-ending torrents. Vivien felt an inexplicable inner joy.
        Maybe it was the fact that she loved the rain. She had learned to. After almost fifteen years in Southern California where rain is a rara avis , it was exciting to be in the San Francisco Bay Area again. With small exceptions, the rain was an everyday event here starting in the autumn up until the end of spring.
        Or maybe it was the Halloween that brought so much joy to Vivien’s heart. She made a mental note to stop at the grocery store and buy a couple of bags of bonbons. She expected the neighbors’ kids to come trick-or-treating. I used to have a lot of fun on Halloween nights back then, when I was little, she recalled with a nostalgic smile.  
        At the first stoplight, she turned left. Her beige Lexus Coupe snaked cautiously on the narrow streets of central Menlo Park. She soon found her way into the parking space behind the exquisite antique store she had recently inherited from her grandmother. She had promised her family that she would take good care of it. It was, in fact, an excellent reason for her to return to this part of California that held so many memories. Good and bad. And equally loaded with unique life experiences. Those powerful memories had insistently dragged her back to this place.
        On the other hand, the store supplied her with cash. It was particularly difficult to find students interested in piano and French lessons, even in this area generously populated with wealthy families.  
        As she looked for the perfect spot in the empty parking lot, she passed the back door