Bloodline Read Free

I read it, I had to face an inescapable fact."
    "That you need to diet, right?"
    "No. That I need a new scale. My old one is obviously broken."
    Jack closed his eyes and shook his head. "You sucked me right into that one, didn't you."
    "What can I say? I'm shameless."
    "Why do I even try? Next time I'll stop at Muller's on the way."
    Abe grinned. "An elephant ear you'll bring me, right?"
    "Right. Maybe we're due for some comfort food."
    "'We'?"
    "Had that dream again last night."
    "Oh." Abe opened the bagel package, adding, "It could be maybe you'll keep on having it until you tell her."
    That startled Jack. Could it be? No…
    "Doesn't explain the watcher and how he seems to trigger the dream. But I fully intend to tell her the whole story. I just need the right moment, the right circumstance."
    He'd been searching for that moment and circumstance for months now. Was it simply cowardice?
    "You're afraid of her reaction?"
    "You think I should be?"
    "I don't know. A terrible thing was done to her—to both of you, and Vicky as well. You're not to blame, but…"
    Yeah… but. His only blame was loving her, but would she see it that way?
    "She's lost her baby and almost robbed of her livelihood. She's having a hard enough time accepting those losses—and that's while believing herself the victim of a terrible accident. So how the hell is she going to handle knowing…?"
    Abe stared at him. "The truth?"
    "Yeah. The truth: That the hit-and-run was intentional, and not simply to hurt her, but to kill her and the baby simply because of their connection to me, because they mean something to me." Something, hell—everything. "What's that going to accomplish besides causing more pain, and more fear?"
    "II truth she wants, truth she should have. The longer you wait, the harder it will be when this right moment you mention comes—if it ever does. Maybe it's come and gone already."
    Maybe it had.
    "She's improving, getting closer and closer to where she'll be able to paint and illustrate again. Once she can do that she'll feel she's able to exert a little more control over her life."
    "Why? She should be different from everybody else?"
    "I hear that."
    Jack polished off his bagel and grabbed Abe's copy of the Post . He flipped through it in silence while Abe studied Newsday .
    "Here's something," Abe said. "A fellow named Walter Erskine died in Monroe Hospital the other night."
    Jack frowned. "So?"
    "Says he's survived by his sister, Evelyn Bainbridge, of Johnson, New Jersey. Your hometown already."
    It hit with a flash. "Crazy Walt! He lasted this long? I thought he would've boozed himself to death long before now." He shook his head. "Harmless guy, but nutty as a Payday."
    "Says he's going to be buried in Arlington."
    "Yeah, he was a vet. Medic in Nam, if I remember."
    Too bad. He had fond memories of Crazy Walt, and unaccountably warm feelings for him… a vague recollection of Walt saving his life as a kid. Or maybe not. Kind of a blur. So many things from back then were blurred.
    Rest in peace, Walt. You sure didn't have much when you were alive.
    After a while Abe said, "Oh, I got a call last night from Doc Buhmann."
    "Who?"
    The name rang a bell but Jack couldn't place it.
    "My old professor. I sent you to him when that Lilitongue thing was causing all that trouble."
    "Right, right. The guy from the museum."
    Peter Buhmann, Ph.D., associate conservator of languages in the division of anthropology at the Museum of Natural History, professor emeritus at the Columbia University Department of Archaeology. Blah-blah-blah. They'd met only once, briefly, at his office in the museum.
    "How's he doing?"
    "Well enough. Getting ready to retire to Florida come the end of the year. He was asking about you."
    "Me? Why?"
    "Since he met you he can't stop thinking about the Compendium of Srem ."
    "Oh?" Jack felt a prickle of unease across his nape. "Why is that?"
    "Something about you intrigued him, he says. A scholar you weren't, yet you were