The Melody Lingers On Read Online Free PDF Page A

thought nothing of calling Lane minutes after she arrived home. Sometimes they asked why Lane
didn’t change jobs. Lane’s answer always was that Glady’s bark was worse than her bite and it was deeply satisfying to work for someone who was so incredibly talented. “I
learn something from her every day,” she told them. “She not only is a marvelous designer but she can read people like a book. I wish I had that talent.”
    The phone rang twice during the time that she and Katie were having dinner but she did not check her messages until after Katie was tucked into bed at eight thirty.
    Both of them were from Eric Bennett, asking her to have dinner with him on Saturday night.
    She hesitated, put down her cell phone, then picked it up again. The image of the attractive man who, with a touch of irony in his voice, had walked them through the Bennett mansion filled her
mind.
    Glady had said that she thought Eric might be innocent of any knowledge of the scam. “
Might
be innocent,” not
is
innocent, Lane thought.
    She hesitated, then pushed the call-back button on her cell phone.

8

    W ere you talking to that nice young woman who was here with Glady Harper?” Anne Bennett asked her son. She had come into the former breakfast
room just as he was ending his conversation. They were about to have their usual late dinner.
    “Yes, I was,” Eric said, smiling.
    “I Googled her,” Anne told him as she sat at the table and unfolded her napkin. “Thanks to you that’s the one thing I’ve learned to do on the computer.”
    Eric knew that his mother had learned to use the Internet after the Fund failed because she wanted to see any news article that applied to his father. He had refused to teach her how to use
Twitter because of the never-ending references to him. They came not only from the bitter investors who had lost all their money but also from comedians who had made Parker Bennett a source of
their jokes. “Park your money with Bennett and you’ll never have to pay income tax again” was one of the latest.
    He did not tell his mother that he had Googled Lane Harmon as well. “And what did you find out about her, Mother?” he asked.
    “She has an interesting background,” Anne said with a nervous gesture as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
    Watching her, Eric thought of how his mother’s hair used to look. She had worn it in an elegant silver-tinted upsweep perfectly coiffed by Ralph, her longtime hairdresser. His blood boiled
when he thought of how, after ten years as a valued customer and a generous tipper, she had been barred from returning to his salon. “Your presence will upset too many of our clients who lost
money investing with your husband,” he had explained.
    His mother had returned home choking back tears. “Eric, he wasn’t even apologetic,” she had told him. Now a stylist from an inexpensive salon in Portchester came to the house
once a week.
    He opened the bottle of pinot noir that was in a Waterford crystal decanter next to his chair.
    Marge O’Brian, their full-time housekeeper of fifteen years, was his father’s staunchest defender and still came in to serve his mother lunch and dinner and to tidy up. One of the
great problems of moving to New Jersey was giving up Marge, who could never leave her family in Connecticut.
    Tonight he knew she had prepared a Waldorf salad, salmon, and wild rice, his mother’s favorite dinner. He only hoped that when it came she would do more than pick at it.
    Now he asked, “And what did you find out about Lane Harmon?”
    “She was widowed in a car accident before her baby was born. She’s the daughter of Gregory Harmon, the congressman who they said had the potential to be the next Jack Kennedy. He was
killed in a crash when he went on a golf outing in a private plane with three of his friends. Lane was only seven years old. Isn’t it terrible that she suffered that kind of loss
twice?”
    “Yes, it is.” Eric reached for