The Body In The Big Apple Read Online Free PDF Page A

her friend’s hand. The trickle of words had become a torrent. She saw it all as Emma described it. The hall in their town house, thickly carpeted with Oriental runners. Emma’s footsteps muffled. The voices from the library, Jason Morris’s private domain. Then the crash of crystal on the marble surrounding the large fireplace.
    â€œWhat did you do? Did you confront them? Oh, Emma, I can’t believe this!” She grabbed her friend’s hand now and squeezed hard.
    â€œI wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t think. I just walked inand looked at them. They stared at me as if they couldn’t believe that I was there; then Mother said, ‘You were supposed to be at the Auchinclosses’. I remember thinking what a stupid thing it was to say. I mean, I’ve just learned that my father isn’t my father and she’s blaming me for not being somewhere else.
    â€œJason just looked at me and left the room. He couldn’t handle it. I told my mother that I didn’t care anything about any money. I only wanted to know the truth. Who was my father? She didn’t want to tell me, said it didn’t matter, that he was long gone and I couldn’t see him. It was really strange. Finally I went to bed and stayed there. After two days, she cracked. I wasn’t eating and wouldn’t get up. She’d come in and yell or cry. I didn’t see anyone else. Lucy was in college, thank God.”
    â€œWho was it?” Faith asked gently.
    â€œNathan Fox.”
    â€œNathan Fox!” Faith said. Her voice was too loud and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Nathan Fox!” she said more softly. How to offer condolences in a situation like this? Emma’s father has been murdered, but presumably he had not been much of a presence in Emma’s life, since she’d only found out about him when she was seventeen and since he hadn’t exactly been accessible. She blurted out what was foremost in her mind, “ The Nathan Fox, the one who was just—that is, the one who wrote Use This Book to Wipe Your —”
    â€œYes, yes,” Emma said, cutting her off a tad impatiently. What other Nathan Fox was there?
    â€œI was furious at Mother for never having told me, and things in my life that hadn’t made sense before suddenly did. You know Jason had always favoredLucy, and I thought it was because I was a disappointment to him. I never did that well in school and I was, you know, shy. He likes women like my mother, like Lucy. Women with personalities.”
    That’s an interesting way to put it, thought Faith.
    â€œEmma, you have more personality—and a better one—in your pinkie finger than either of them.” As Faith hastened to reassure Emma, her thoughts were racing in several directions. What a thing to do to a child! And how devastating to discover your father was not your father! She felt a cold fury at Poppy’s total lack of responsibility. At the same time, a voice was saying, Poppy Morris and Nathan Fox! So the photograph had not been misleading. Handsome and, by all accounts, extremely charismatic, he wasn’t just coming for the food and witty conversation at the Morrises’.
    But it was the blackmail note that dominated. “We know everything,” it stated. Emma’s pregnancy. Emma’s parentage. And what else? Faith knew right away. Knew what she’d have done herself. Obviously, Emma would not have been satisfied simply to know her father’s name.
    â€œSo, you got out of bed and tried to find him?”
    Emma nodded. “I got out of bed and ran away. Mother swore that she didn’t know where he was. That she hadn’t heard from him since he went underground. I did get it out of her that he knew about me, though. They named me Emma after Emma Goldman—and all those years I had assumed it was Emma Woodhouse. Mother has a weakness for Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice meets Bonfire of the