Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) Read Online Free PDF

kept his steps light until he had positioned his right hand over the alarm button disguised in the intricate Greek-key molding.
    â€œHello,” he called out, then waited in vain for an answer. “Hello,” he called again. “Who’s there?”
    No answer came back.
    â€œRiley!” he shouted again, wondering if he might have mistaken his employee’s day off. He let go of the library-door alarm, fixing his sights on the wainscoting just inside the front door. On the left, beneath its uppermost molding, there was another button, and Billy moved toward it rapidly, as though it were the next base in a dangerous game of tag. At the foot of the staircase, he managed to flick both light switches with a single stroke, at once illuminating not only the clear-and-russet crystal chandelier that hung suspended on a velvet-wrapped chain in the oval stairwell but the second-floor gallery. Yet the light revealed nothing out of the ordinary, no clue as to what he’d heard, and so, as it continued, the stillness grew ever more unsettling. Again he drew a long breath but this time held it, counting as he struggled to hear inside the silence.
Eight, nine, ten,
he told himself.
Eleven
—oh, what the hell, it was no use. As he exhaled, a high-pitched wail issued from over his shoulder. He spun immediately and saw his five-year-old grandson, Stuart, mounting the mahogany banister at its summit, laughing, ready to slide.
    â€œDon’t do that,” Billy told him. “You’ll wreck the garland.”
    â€œI’ll put it back,” Stuart pleaded.
    â€œNo you won’t. It’s not that easy. It took them hours to install, to get it just right.”
    Stuart hesitated.
    â€œCome down here,” Billy said. “Let me have a look at you, young man. You’ve grown again, haven’t you?”
    â€œYes,” Stuart said as he jumped from the railing, then raced noisily down the uncarpeted stairs.
    Billy hugged him, kept his hands on the boy’s shoulders as they separated as if to study him anew. It had never occurred to him that he would have a black grandchild—but then why shouldn’t it have? he mused. In her choice of a husband, as in just about every aspect of her life, his daughter, Cynthia, had broken with convention. “Where are your mother and sister?” Billy inquired. “I didn’t know you were here.”
    â€œWe came early,” Stuart said.
    â€œAnd you didn’t hear me come in?”
    â€œNo way! We were watching a video.”
    â€œWhat were you watching?”
    â€œI don’t know. One Emily wanted.”
    â€œI see,” Billy said.
    â€œShe has a crush on the guy who’s in it.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œShe told her friends. I heard her. Do you know Ty Hunter?”
    â€œNot personally. I know who you mean, though.”
    â€œHe’s the one.”
    â€œHe’s a bit old for her, don’t you think?”
    â€œHe’s very old,” Stuart agreed.
    â€œI mean, he must be thirty, or even in his early thirties by now,” Billy said, intending his sarcasm for his own ears only.
    â€œYeah, probably,” Stuart said. “Anyway, Emily used to have his picture on her wall.”
    â€œDid she? When he was just starting out?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œNow that you mention it, I think I do remember that.” Actors as a rule were a group of which he took little notice. But only a few years earlier, the bank on whose board he sat and for which he’d reluctantly agreed to do that ad had considered using Ty Hunter in a campaign for its Captiva
credit card. While the board had dithered, Hunter’s career had taken off, and the new movie star’s agent and manager had nixed any projects other than feature films. Which was a shame, Billy had always felt, because no matter how much they reminded him of carnival people, matinee idols were one step ahead of card