Gone Read Online Free

Gone
Book: Gone Read Online Free
Author: Mallory Kane
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Romance, Contemporary, ROMANCE - - SUSPENSE
Pages:
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the
offices. And that concludes the tour. Have a seat.” He grabbed a
stack of books from the only other chair in the room, but she waved a
beautifully manicured hand.
    “No. I really don’t have time. I’ve got yoga this morning and
I’m taking a cake-baking class in the afternoon.”
    Joe laughed. “You’re going to yoga dressed like that?”
    “Don’t be silly. I have my yoga outfit in here.” She indicated
the large Coach leather tote over her shoulder.
    “Okay. So, what’s so important you had to take time out of your
busy day to drive all the way out to Metairie?” he asked, smiling.
    “It’s actually not funny, Joseph. I had a very odd visitor a
couple of days ago. Ethan Delancey.”
    “Delancey?” Joe frowned. He, like most people in New Orleans,
knew that Kit Powers had had a long affair with the notorious Louisiana
politician Con Delancey. The affair had lasted until Con decided to run for
governor two years before his death. Up to that point, neither Con nor Kit had
ever tried to hide it, although they’d never flaunted it, either.
    Most older folks in the area figured Delancey was entitled,
since rumors had flown for years that Lilibelle, Con’s wife, had locked her
bedroom door after the birth of their third child.
    “What did he want?”
    Kit glanced around, noticed Joe’s diploma and some other framed
documents on the wall next to the door and stepped over to examine them. She was
stalling, and that wasn’t like her.
    “Kit, what’s wrong?” he asked.
    She turned and clasped her hands in front of her. “You read
about the murder of Senator Darby Sills, I assume,” she said.
    “Sure.” He frowned at her. She’d never made excuses for her
lifestyle, never acted ashamed or guilty about the lovers she took. He and
Teague knew men from every walk of life as friends of their mother, although few
of them had been more famous or more notorious than Con Delancey. Was Senator
Sills one of her conquests? “What about it?”
    “Detective Delancey brought me something that was found in
Darby Sills’s house. He claimed he didn’t know how Sills had come across it, but
that it appeared to be the only copy.”
    A bad feeling began in Joe’s chest, pressing down, making it
hard to breathe. “The only copy of what?”
    She dug into the tote and pulled out a thin manila folder that
appeared to have only one sheet of paper in it. She handed him the folder and
turned to gaze at the framed documents on the wall again.
    Joe waited for a few seconds, thinking she’d explain, but she
didn’t. So he set the folder squarely in front of him on his desk and, after a
bit of hesitation, made himself open it. The words he saw at the top of the form
added a hundred-pound lead ingot to the weight on his chest.
    “What is this?” he asked rhetorically, as his eyes swept down
the form and back up. Of course, it was obvious what it was. The question he
should have asked rose like a lump in his throat when his gaze landed on a small
rectangle toward the top of the page. That tiny area contained a piece of
information he had never known, never asked for, never thought he’d wanted.
    The form was his birth certificate and in the space for Father
was the name Robert Connor Delancey. He swallowed against a lump in his throat,
started to speak, failed, cleared his throat and started again. “Is—is this
true?” he croaked.
    Kit turned around and met his gaze straight on for the first
time since she’d come into his office. “Yes,” she said. “That’s a copy of your
official birth certificate.”
    “Why didn’t you—were you ashamed to tell me?”
    Her eyes widened with surprise. “No,” she said, shaking her
head. “No, darling. Of course not. I loved Con Delancey and he loved me. And he loved you.”
    “Then why didn’t you ever tell me?”
    “You may not believe me and I know you probably won’t
understand, but it was out of respect.”
    “Respect?” he said, cutting her off with a laugh.
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