The Second Time Around Read Online Free PDF Page B

of being both apprehensive and eager for a long time. I knew that even though I loved writing the column, it just wasn’t enough to keep me busy. If it was a daily column, it might have been different, but a weekly supplement that has a lot of lead time isn’t much of a challenge once you learn the ropes. Even though I was getting occasional freelance assignments writing profiles of people in the financial world for various magazines, it still wasn’t enough.
    I called down to Boca. Mom had moved into Robert’s apartment after they were married because it had a great view of the ocean and was larger than hers. What I didn’t like about it was that now when I visited, I slept in “Lynn’s room.”
    Not that she ever really stayed there. She and Nick took a suite at the Boca Raton Resort when they visited. But Mom’s changing apartments meant that when I flew down for a weekend, I was acutely aware that Lynn had furnished that room for herself before she married Nick. It was her bed I was sleeping in, her pale pink sheets and lace-edged pillowcases I was using, her expensive monogrammed towel I wrapped around me after I showered.
    I had liked it a lot better when I slept on the convertible couch in Mom’s old apartment. The plus factor, of course, was that Mom was happy and I sincerely likedRobert Hamilton. He is a quiet, pleasant man with none of the arrogance Lynn displayed at that first meeting. Mom told me that Lynn had been trying to set him up with one of the wealthy widows in nearby Palm Beach, but he wasn’t interested.
    I picked up the receiver, touched number one, and the automatic dial did its job. Robert answered. Of course he was terribly worried about Lynn, and I was happy to be able to reassure him that she really would be fine and out of the hospital in a few days.
    Allowing for the fact that he’d been concerned about his daughter, I still felt that something else was wrong. Then he came out with it. “Carley, you met Nick. I can’t believe he was a fraud. My God, he talked me into putting almost all my savings in Gen-stone. He wouldn’t have done that to his wife’s father if he knew it was a scam, would he?”
    *   *   *
    At the interview the next morning, I sat across the desk from Will Kirby, my heart sinking when he said, “I understand you’re Lynn Spencer’s stepsister.”
    â€œYes, I am.”
    â€œI saw you on the news last night outside the hospital. Frankly, I was worried that it might be impossible for you to do the assignment I had in mind, but Sam tells me you’re not very close to her.”
    â€œNo, I’m not. Frankly, I was surprised that she wanted me to go up to see her yesterday. But she did have a reason. She wants people to understand that whatever Nick Spencer did, she had no part in it.”
    I told him that Nick had persuaded Lynn’s father to put most of his savings in Gen-stone.
    â€œHe’d have to be a real skunk to deliberately cheat his own father-in-law,” Kirby agreed.
    Then he told me that the job was mine and my first assignment was to do an in-depth profile on Nicholas Spencer. I had submitted samples of the profiles I’d done previously, and he liked them. “You’ll be part of a team. Don Carter will handle the business angle. Ken Page is our medical expert. You’ll do the personal background. Then the three of you will put the story together,” he told me. “Don is setting up appointments at Gen-stone with the chairman and a couple of the directors. You should go along on them.”
    There were a couple of copies of my column on Kirby’s desk. He pointed to them. “By the way, I don’t see any conflict if you want to keep writing the column. Now go introduce yourself to Carter and Dr. Page, and then stop by Personnel to fill out the usual forms.”
    Interview over, he reached for the phone, but as I got up from