Once Upon a Lie Read Online Free PDF Page B

treasure, even when it eventually would hold no recognition of who she was or what they once meant to each other. “Mavy!” he exclaimed, leaning over and giving her a big kiss. He pulled out the chair across from her.
    His pants were on backward, the drawstring for his sweats trailing down over his backside.
    “The concierge is interesting,” Maeve said.
    “Doreen?” Jack said. “She’s two sandwiches short of a picnic.” He leaned in and smiled conspiratorially. “If I do say so myself.”
    Maeve smiled.
    “To what do I owe this enormous pleasure?” he asked.
    “You lift weights?” she asked.
    “Amazing, right?” he said, flexing a bicep in her direction. “Give me one other guy at seventy who can lift as much as I can.”
    “I can’t think of anyone, Dad,” she said, but then again, she didn’t know too many seventy-year-old men, and even if she did, he wasn’t one of them. But she didn’t share that with him.
    “I can bench-press more than Lefkowitz,” he said. “And he was Golden Gloves back in the day.”
    “Impressive, Dad,” she said, sneaking a look at her watch. “Listen, I have to talk to you about something.”
    “What did I do?” he asked, his brow furrowed. Anytime Maeve had to talk to Jack, it usually meant trouble of some sort, and he was smart enough to know that.
    “You didn’t do anything, Dad,” she said. She didn’t think he had, but she couldn’t be sure. She looked out the window, the lovebirds drifting by, their arms entwined.
    “Get a room,” Jack mumbled.
    She knew it was useless to ask, but she had to. “Dad, where were you a week ago Saturday?”
    Jack screwed up his face, deep in thought. As if that would help. He searched his brain for the answer and came up empty, using what he always did when he was at a loss: a big smile. “Not a clue.” He took a gander at his left bicep. “Do you know where you were?”
    “At the shop,” she said. He looked at her quizzically. “The Comfort Zone?”
    “Ah, yes,” he said, but she wasn’t sure he knew what that was.
    “I’m easy to keep track of.” She tried again. “Think, Dad. A week or so ago?”
    He gave it another shot. “Church?” He wiped a bead of sweat that had appeared on his forehead, the fruits of his exertion still exhibiting themselves in little ways. “Why?”
    “Were you really at a church?” she asked.
    He knew the jig was up. “What did that old battle-ax Harrison tell you? She’s framing me, I tell you. It’s a frame-up!” he said, cracking himself up with his own joke.
    Maeve knew better than to get frustrated with him and offered a little laugh in return for his overacting. “She’s not framing you, Dad. She just let me know that you weren’t here and nobody signed you out. She was wondering—I was wondering—where you might have gone.”
    “What difference does it make?” he asked, his own frustration at his lack of memory showing its face. He turned around and glared at the man sitting by the television and in an uncharacteristic display of ill temper yelled at him to turn the volume down. “I hate when you do this, Maeve. I’m a grown—”
    “Man,” she finished. “I know. You’re a grown man. But I need you to stay put, Dad. I really, really want to keep you here.”
    As quickly as the anger came, it was gone, replaced by the Jack she knew and loved. “And what would be the big deal about a week ago Saturday?” he asked.
    “Nothing,” she said. “No big deal. You were probably at the river, right?”
    “Probably,” he said. “That’s my favorite spot, you know.”
    It wasn’t the first time he had told her, nor would it be the last.
    “A week ago Saturday, you say?” he asked. The set of his mouth told her that he was absolutely sure about what he was going to say. “It was book club. We read Water for Elephants . Brand-new book. Had the library in the village hold it for me. Hated it. Don’t like elephants. Never did.”
    The book wasn’t