Moonrise Read Online Free PDF

stared at her. She’s like an iceberg, he thought. Implacable, unmovable. And cold as ice.
    The other board members were muttering to one another. Arnold rapped his knuckles on the table to restore order. Paul saw beads of perspiration on the chairman’s brow and upper lip. His hairpiece was slightly askew.
    “I think, in light of this unexpected turn of events,” he said hesitantly, “that we should postpone the election of our new CEO until we have all had a chance to think and consider carefully—”
    “I disagree,” interrupted the comptroller. He was older than Paul, not as old as Arnold; a trim little man, dapper, always impeccably dressed. With just a trace of an Irish accenthe said, “We all know each other here, and we all know both young Greg and Paul Stavenger. I don’t see why we should wait at all.”
    Arnold started to say, “But I—”
    “Let’s vote,” said another board member.
    “Call for the vote,” said still another.
    Visibly defeated, Arnold said, “Very well, if that is the sense of the board. Shall we use the secret ballot?”
    “I’m willing to let everyone see my hand raised,” the comptroller said.
    “Then let us take a fifteen-minute recess before we vote,” said Arnold. “I want to make sure that Greg is with us when hands are raised.”
    The tension eased a little as everyone got to their feet. The comptroller patted Paul’s shoulder and said loudly enough for all to hear, “I’m sure you’re going to make a grand CEO, my boy.”
    Paul mumbled his thanks and made his way around the table toward Joanna. He passed Melissa, who kept her face frozen.
    Joanna was walking slowly toward the big windows at the front of the meeting room. As if by instinct, the other board members drifted away from her, allowing Paul to be alone with her.
    “You didn’t tell Greg first?” he whispered urgently to her.
    She looked up at him, her eyes tired, almost tearful. “I tried to,” she said. “He didn’t show up until just a few moments before the meeting began.”
    “But … before the meeting. Christ, you two live in the same house!”
    “Not any more. Greg took an apartment here in New York. Just after his father’s death. Didn’t you know?”
    Paul shook his head. “Still … breaking it to him like that, in front of the rest of the board …”
    Joanna turned to the windows. “The Clippership from Hong Kong should be arriving in a few moments.”
    “Never mind that. You should’ve told him! Warned him, at least.”
    “I couldn’t,” she said, still staring out beyond the towers of lower Manhattan, the harbor, the gray expanse of Brooklynand Queens. “He hasn’t spoken to me in more than a month. Not since he found out about us.”
    “He knows?”
    Joanna breathed out a shuddering sigh. “He knows.”
    “Then—his father must’ve known.” Paul was jolted by the thought.
    “He probably did.”
    “God almighty.”
    Joanna said nothing.
    “Do you think that’s why he killed himself?” Paul asked her.
    Joanna did not answer for a long moment. Then, “I can’t picture Gregory blowing his brains out over his wife’s infidelity. Not when he’d already turned infidelity into a lifetime career.”
    She sounded bitter. But Paul knew that a man like Gregory had a totally different set of values when it came to his wife’s faithfulness. Still, he never would have thought that Gregory would kill himself, for any reason.
    “Look!” Joanna pointed. “There it is!”
    A pinpoint high in the sky, a flare of rocket flame against the gray-blue background. Paul watched the tiny dot grow into a discernable shape as the Clippership seemed to halt in mid-air, slide sideways slightly, then slowly descend on a pillar of flaming rocket exhaust until it was lost to their view.
    “I still get a thrill every time I see it,” Joanna said.
    And Paul thought that maybe he did love her, after all.
    “Please be seated,” Arnold called from the head of the table. Looking around,