The Widow's Son Read Online Free PDF Page B

the emerald eyes of a Druid princess, high cheekbones (sprinkled with just the right amount of freckles), and shimmering auburn hair that cascaded down a swanlike neck, she possessed the kind of willowy, athletic body capable of spiking volleyballs through a hardwood floor.
    It was a little before noon when I walked into the Center. A middle-aged volunteer sat at the front desk chomping on a tuna fish sandwich while reading a Maeve Binchy paperback. She looked up, licked a dab of mayonnaise from her lower lip, and nodded toward the conference room.
    I thanked her and walked across a frayed carpet to a pair of open sliding doors. Directly opposite the entrance to the boardroom was a wall featuring three rows of Irish crests that represented the family names of those who had contributed generously to the Center.
    On the north and south walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, with a few sets of tooled leather bindings behind the glass cases. Nice stuff, but no match for what I hoped to find in Ted Follis’s cardboard banker boxes.
    Natalie and her daughter sat facing each other at the end of a long oak table close to the south wall. Claire, wearing her school uniform, gazed in silence at her mother, who was giving her a quiet but heated lecture.
    The pale-haired child looked pensive, but not particularly concerned by the admonition. I assumed the speech was about her performance at school. Natalie had mentioned once to Josie that the principal had threatened to hold Claire back a grade for what the school psychologist had described as “behavioral idiosyncrasies.”
    It certainly wasn’t for lack of intelligence. During weekends and school holidays she could be found at a table in the front of our store devouring books from the history, science, and even philosophy sections. Josie had cultivated her trust by suggesting titles such as David Lindberg’s
The Beginnings of Western Science
and listening when the young teen seemed particularly vexed about something. But we hadn’t seen her at the shop since the beginning of summer.
    I’ve mentioned Claire’s long, wispy hair, which was almost white, and the pale skin that seemed to scarcely cover the blue veins in her forearms. She was slender to the point of being anorexic and small-boned. She was reserved as well, but none of these things made you think she was delicate.
    In fact, there was an odd self-assurance about her as if she saw things through those piercing dark orange eyes that other people couldn’t. She had some boyish features—a strong brow, jutting chin, and small hips. The same characteristics, viewed from a different angle, however, could seem very feminine, even beautiful. To that extent there was a lot of her mother in her. But something else, too. Her father must have been an interesting-looking man.
    Claire attended Ursuline Academy, a Catholic girls’ school, at great financial sacrifice to Natalie. To help her mother with the costs, the fourteen-year-old worked three evenings a week at an assisted living home where she collected and washed soiled bedsheets. According to what she told Josie, she loved being among the old people, particularly when she could comfort those about to die.
    The Phelans lived in a rented single-story bungalow just east of Troost Avenue, behind Rockhurst University. The neighborhood had two sides to it—one moderately poor, the other moderately well-to-do. The part nearest the college was populated by caring families who were clean and gentle and well mannered. The other was rougher—dark alleys, the rat in the road, mysterious, vaguely threatening, shabby houses sheltering wife-beaters.
    It was on this unpleasant side where Claire had been raised. It was also two blocks from where I’d lived before my grandfather rescued me from my abusive dad.
    I was thinking of this when the girl’s head turned slowly and she locked her X-ray eyes on mine. Natalie, having followed Claire’s gaze, jumped up and rushed over to