The Girl in White Pajamas Read Online Free PDF Page B

him?”
    “I don’t get your meaning?”
    “Is he a boy toy or are you expanding your mothering instincts to look after someone other than Tiny Tommie?”
    Rose stared at Bogie then burst into laughter. “ Boy toy !” she repeated. “No thanks! I like my men all grown up. And as far as Tommie’s concerned, he’s a good kid.”
    “We’ve had this discussion before, Rose. He’s not a kid, he’s a twenty-four-year old MIT graduate. He shouldn’t be doing IT work in a small business like this. What if he wakes up some morning and decides he doesn’t like us anymore or even worse, gets religion and believes he should tell the world what we’re doing?”
    Rose shook her head. “He’s a sweet guy. He doesn’t have anybody else. We’re his family. And besides, he’s in the doctorate program now so he’ll only be working part time.”
    “And you’re going to continue mothering this three hundred and fifty pound baby?”
    “Yeah,” Rose said as her final word.
    “Matt MacDonald!”
    “Don’t! Don’t even go there! I don’t fuck the employees. Anybody else is my business.”
    “He’s an—”
    “Stop!” Rose warned as she held up her hand.
    Bogie was silent knowing he had pushed her to the limit. He’d have to let it go…for now.
    When Rose and Bogie returned to the reception area, Amanda sat sullenly, phone in hand while Angel perched on the corner of the reception desk stealing glances at her.
    After Rose locked up the office and set the alarms, the small group returned to the Escalade and rode in silence as shades of gray and black took over the city. Bogie studied the city as Angel drove to Bedford Street then took a quick turn onto Kingston Street, then zigged onto Avenue De Lafayette, and zagged onto Washington Street as they followed a circuitous route which ultimately brought them onto Beacon Street going in the proper direction. Bogie was sure he could have run the distance from the office faster than they drove because in running he wouldn’t have to deal with a never-ending maze of narrow one way streets.
    As they drove slowly through the traffic on Beacon Street looking for a parking spot near the McGruder home, Bogie felt his stomach begin to tighten the way it always did when he was near that house. “The Angel always finds a space!” he announced as they approached a small, empty parking space a half a block from the McGruder brownstone.
    The house had been purchased for Elizabeth Culley Shoeberg McGruder when she married her first husband, Bobbie Shoeberg. Her parents owned a double-sized estate on Beacon Hill and believed the Beacon Street house would make a nice starter home for their daughter and Shoeberg, who was the Chief of Police and an aspiring politician. That brownstone had an adjoining wall with Elizabeth’s brother’s red brick-faced house. Elizabeth’s home had a large, black front door and three rectangular front windows which curved to give a bay window effect. The attached house next door had been modified by Elizabeth’s older brother when he inherited the parents’ mansion along with controlling interest in their banking empire.
    Elizabeth’s parents were displeased with her second marriage to Baxter McGruder, who they believed had been little more than a chauffeur to the late Chief of Police. When her parents died, Elizabeth was given their Palm Beach property but no stake in the family’s business. She was provided with an iron-clad trust that would revert to her children upon her death. Although the trust was extremely generous, it was her parents’ way of insuring that Baxter McGruder, who they considered to be a social climber and a money grabber, would not profit from the union with their daughter.
    After her brother moved into the Beacon Hill estate, he had his twin brownstone modified and turned into a two-family dwelling. Its front door was larger now but it only had two front windows on the first floor. Elizabeth was outraged when she learned that