Read The Girl On Legare Street for Free Online Page B

looked.
    The stranger began to walk toward me, giving me a better chance to see her in the fading light. She was shorter than my own five feet eight inches and slender—what most people would call petite. Her wavy blond hair hung loosely around her shoulders and Burberry overcoat, and I saw as she grew closer that she carried a notepad and pencil.
    “Do I know you?” I asked, studying her more closely, trying to place where I’d seen her before.
    “Not in person,” she said, stepping closer so I could see the long lashes over clear blue eyes.
    I froze, finally realizing why she seemed so familiar. “Emily?” I whispered, my throat tight with shock.
    She looked at me oddly. “I used to get that a lot.” She bent down and scratched General Lee behind his ears, and I belatedly noticed that he hadn’t let out a peep and was trying to roll onto his back to allow this stranger to scratch his belly.
    I tugged on his leash to bring him closer to me. “Who are you?”
    She stood and faced me and I felt the shock course through me again. Sticking her hand out toward me, she said, “I’m Rebecca Edgerton. We spoke briefly on the phone. About your mother.”
    Absently, I shook her hand, unable to tear my gaze away from her face. And then the word “mother” brought me back to attention. I yanked my hand away. “Oh, the reporter from the newspaper. I remember.”
    “I thought I might come see the house she grew up in. Start at the beginning of her story.”
    I continued to stare at her, unable to shake my first impression. “You look so much like . . .” I couldn’t say the name again.
    “Emily. I know. I’ve let my hair grow so I guess the resemblance is even stronger now, but when Emily and I worked together at the paper we would get confused for each other all the time. People used to say that when Jack stopped dating me and started dating Emily he wasn’t even aware that he’d switched girlfriends.” She laughed, the sound broken, pierced like a veil.
    I took a deep breath, more relieved than I could explain.
    Rebecca’s brow wrinkled. “I didn’t realize you knew her.”
    “I, um, I didn’t, actually.” I thought for a moment, trying to come up with a better way to explain that I knew what a dead woman looked like because I’d seen her ghost. “Jack must have shown me a picture.”
    She nodded. “Oh, well. That explains it then.”
    There was something in her expression I couldn’t read, something unexpected that made me take a step back. “Well, it was nice meeting you.” I pulled on the leash, annoyed to notice that my dog had made himself very comfortable by nestling at her feet. “Come on, General Lee. Let’s go home and eat dinner.” He stared at me blankly, not moving.
    Rebecca took the opportunity to close the distance between us. “Since you’re here, maybe you could answer a few questions. Nothing too personal, I promise. Just enough to get me started. If I say anything out of line, just tell me and I’ll stop.”
    The dog was looking up at Rebecca with adoring eyes, and I figured it had to be the blond hair. He was male, after all. “I really don’t think so. We’re estranged, and I’m afraid your story will have a negative tone if you start with me. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.”
    “I want the truth; that’s all. I hope to get enough interviews to make it a balanced article, but I’m beginning to think that I can’t write it at all without insight from her only child.”
    “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to. I know very little about my mother. The truth or otherwise. She left my father and me when I was only seven years old.”
    Rebecca looked down at her notebook and flipped a page. “Yes. I’ve got that. It was right after your mother’s trip to the emergency room. A miscarriage, I believe.”
    “A what?” I stared at her blankly, not sure I’d heard correctly.
    She glanced up at me. “A miscarriage. A serious one. She almost died according to the