Second Chance Read Online Free PDF

house, as was the lamp above
the door.
    I knocked hard on the door and could barely feel my
fist I through the glove, I was that cold. A tall, heavyset man of
about fifty with ruddy cheeks and silvery hair and beard answered my
knock. He was wearing wire-rim glasses, a black turtleneck sweater,
and checked wool slacks that made him look, rather winningly, like a
spiffy St. Nick.
    "Can I help you?" he said in a friendly
voice.
    "You can if you're Professor Heldman."
    "I'm Art Heldman. And you are . . . ?"
    "My name is Stoner, Professor Heldman. I'm
searching for a student of yours, Kirsten Pearson."
    "She's lost?" the man said with alarm.
    "She's been missing for four days. I've been
hired by her father to find her."
    "Poor kid," he said, shaking his head.
"Please come in."
    Heldman ushered me down a hall to an oak-paneled
study. The room was furnished with Georgian pieces—a stately
armoire, a desk like a three-tiered ship of the line, two mahogany
armchairs with embroidered backs, and several bookshelves with
mullioned fronts and leaded glass panes. A facsimile of Dr. Johnson's
dictionary sat on a stand in one corner, spotl it like a shrine.
    Heldman was clearly proud of the room. On his salary,
a lot of scrimping and saving must have gone into fitting it out. He
let the knickknacks work on me for a moment, then went over to the
armoire, took out a bottle of Dewar's, and poured two fingers of
Scotch into a tumbler.
    "Here." He handed the drink to me. "You
look frozen."
    "Close to superconductivity."
    Heldman laughed hoarsely.
    I swallowed half of the drink, and my eyes clouded
up. Another couple of swallows, and I started to feel my body again,
as if I were putting it on piece by piece like a suit of clothes.
    Heldman seated himself on a chair beside a small
cherry wood table. There was a second chair across from him. I sat
down on it.
    "You say Kirsty's missing?" he said.
    "For four days."
    "You've tried her apartment, of course?" he
said, leaning forward with the air of a friendly neighbor.
    "That was the first place I looked. She wasn't
there. Her roommate suggested that she might be with a man named
Stein."
    "Jay?" Heldman drew back slightly, as if
the neighborhood had changed.
    "I was told that Kirsty had been seeing him on a
regular basis. He claims that she hasn't been."
    The man nodded slowly. He'd started to look less like
St. Nick and more like St. Sebastian, as if the mere mention of Stein
caused him physical pain. I figured it was because I was talking
about a colleague, but it was also possible that he knew the truth
about Stein and Kirsten and wasn't happy about it.
    "You've spoken to Jay?"
    "About twenty minutes ago. He hasn't seen Kirsty
since Thursday morning. Apparently she stopped at his apartment
before leaving town. Stein says to discuss her brother."
    "She stopped here too. The same morning. And she
did mention her brother."
    He said it like he was trying to back Stein up. But
it was clear from his tone that Ethan Pearson hadn't been the only
topic of conversation.
    "She was thinking about going to see Ethan while
he was in town," Heldman went on.
    "Did she say where he was staying?"
    "No, just that he was eager to talk to her."
    "Do you know what about?"
    He shook his head. "Kirsty's always been a
little vague when it comes to Ethan. At least, she has with me. I
don't think he's a healthy influence on her—if that's what you want
to know. At least, he doesn't seem to be from what I've read of her
novel."
    "Which novel is that?"
    Heldman spread his hands as if he were opening a book
in front of me. "Kirsty's been working on an autobiographical
piece for the past couple of months. A kind of therapeutic exercise
to help her put her life in order after this past summer. She calls
it Second Chance."
    "Why Second Chance?"
    I thought of the sign on Kirsty's door.
    "Because she doesn't believe in them," he
said wryly. "At least, not for her."
    "Is Stein in the book?"
    Heldman sighed. "Yes. She hasn't finished