Catch Me If You Can Read Online Free Page A

“You know, I was never sure how I’d feel with him gone. If I’d regret … I don’t know, not trying to get to know him. As an adult.”
    Tag knew that none of his brothers had made contact with their father since leaving home. Nor had their father ever contacted any of them. “Do you?”
    Jace shook his head. “I keep waiting to feel guilty about it. Hasn’t happened yet. What about you?”
    Tag shook his head. His emotions might be a raw jumble, but he knew better than to dwell on things he couldn’t change.
    They both sipped their coffee in silence for a few moments, then Jace said, “You know, Frances says Dad changed a lot, toward the end.”
    So, Tag thought, Jace was wrestling with it a bit more than he’d let on. “Know ing you’re dying can make a per son rethink a few things I guess,” Tag said, with no particular inflection to his tone. “Nine months gives a person a long time to sort things out.”
    Jace nodded. “Yeah, I suppose it would. Although, I don’t know, the man I remember … well, I figured he’d stare even death in the face without flinching. Berating it for daring to take him before he was ready.”
    Tag studied his younger brother. “Does it bother you? That he might have, I don’t know, mellowed or something?”
    Jace held his gaze easily. “No. Although I have to admit I’m curious about it. I try to picture it, imagine him more … laid back, if you want to call it that.” His mo uth curved at one corner. “Can’t seem to picture it.”
    Tag had wondered about that, too, during those long hours in the office last night. Zan’s mother wasn’t the only one talking about how Taggart Sr. had been a changed man. Mick had mentioned it, too, though briefly. Tag knew his father’s friend had wanted, maybe even needed, to talk about it. Stunned by Mick’s initial news, Tag hadn’t exactly been open to that kind of conversation. Ap paren tl y whatever changes his father had made didn’t include reaching out to his only family before he died. Tag supposed he shouldn’t care, seeing as that indifference had always gone both ways. Mercifully, after a few awkward attempts, Mick had let the conversation drop and taken off. And Tag had left the cherry - wood chest unopened.
    “But I think this change, or maybe the start of it, goes back fart her than the cancer diagnosis,” Jace was saying, pulling Tag from his thoughts. “Something happened a few years ago, though I’m not sure what. Zan’s mom didn’t know.” He smiled a lit tl e. “Which means no one knows.”
    A few years ago. That would have been right around the time the land in Scotl and had been deeded to him. If what Jace said was true, Tag doubted it was a coincidence. And he hated to admit it, but the puzzle provoked him. After all, that’s what he made his living doing, solving the puzzles of the past. His job was to put the pieces together from the clues people left behind after they’d gone. He figured out how people lived, why they’d chosen to live where they did, the way they did, how they’d died, what they’d left behind. And why. That he had a deep-seated need to solve these puzzles didn’t surprise him. He hardly needed a degree in psychology to figure that one out.
    But his desire was based on the need to solve these puzzles for others, for the sake of a greater understanding of humanity in general. Yes, his childhood had sucked, and yes, his father hadn’t been a very nice man. But Tag had never felt compelled to dig any deeper than that. His father was who he was. Tag counted himself fortunate he’d gone on to discover something in life that was both rewarding and enjoyable. Despite flirting briefly with a major in Celtic history, his ancestral past, much less his father’s recent one, had never been a puzzle begging to be solved. And Tag didn’t want it to become one now.
    And, if it was possible, he resented his father that much more for even momentarily making him feel otherwise.
    “I