In-Laws and Outlaws Read Online Free PDF

exactly keep us informed.”
    â€œI realize that, but you … have ways of finding things out, don’t you? All of you. Somehow I thought you always knew where I was and what I was doing.”
    That brought a slight smile. “Oh, dear. You make us sound like the FBI. We did follow your career the first few years after you left, while you were still in New York. But then we lost track of you.”
    Then they stopped bothering , she meant. “Well,” I said, at a loss.
    After an awkward moment, we both decided it was time to go. Connie was ready and waiting for us.
    When we went to get into the car, two men with cameras swooped down on us, clicking away. I followed Annette’s lead and ignored them. But as soon as the chauffeur closed the door behind us, Connie burst out, “I thought Uncle Oscar had put a stop to that!”
    Annette spoke soothingly. “All Oscar can do is apply a little pressure to the newspaper owners. At least there’s no TV camera crew here shoving microphones in our faces. I hate that.”
    Even though it had been ten years since I last saw either of the women I was riding with, the drive to the private cemetery was mostly a silent one. That was no time for chatting. Besides, it was Raymond I was thinking of then, of the horrible way he’d died and of what his loss would mean to the family. Connie was fighting tears, none too successfully. Last night I’d asked if she had a recent picture of him; the photo she handed me showed a man who’d settled comfortably into his middle years. Raymond’s black hair had started to gray, and the laugh lines around his mouth were more pronounced than I remembered them. There was no sag under the chin, though; the Decker jaw was as firm as ever. One corner of Raymond’s mouth was lifted, as if he were amused. He’d been a good-looking man.
    There were more reporters waiting at the cemetery entrance, and this time TV cameras as well. The windows of the Rolls were up, but that didn’t stop the newspeople from shouting their questions at us as we drove by. Most of what they said was unintelligible through the glass, but one of them I heard quite clearly; she wanted to know who I was. I couldn’t believe they were making this much fuss over the death of one lone financier, even if his last name was Decker. Raymond had been an important man, but he’d kept out of the public eye; most of the world didn’t even know he existed. No, it had to be the circumstances of his death that drew them, the fact that he was the fourth member of the same family to die in as many months. Those seekers-after-truth with their cameras and their tape recorders were hoping for a nice juicy murder story to take back to their editors. The cemetery gates closed behind us, with the guards Rob Kurland had hired glowering at the crowd outside.
    Five rows of folding chairs had been set up along one side of the grave for the family; I hesitated when I saw how many people there were. Everybody in the western hemisphere who’d been born a Decker, married to a Decker, or descended from a Decker was there. And then I was in the midst of them, all those faces I hadn’t seen for so long. I heard more Hello, Gillians and Thank you for comings than I could respond to. None of them seemed surprised to see me; Annette had wasted no time in spreading the word.
    And none of them seemed particularly glad to see me, either, truth to tell; I hoped that was because we were at Raymond’s funeral and not because they’d have preferred me to stay lost. There were some faces there I didn’t know, or only vaguely remembered, from other branches of the family. At the last minute we were joined by a sandy-haired man of somewhat shorter stature than the Deckers—Dr. Tom Henry, Annette’s soon-to-be ex-husband. I was seated in the last row next to young Joel Kurland. I shivered, from the cold; Joel gave me a sad little smile