Shades of Grace by Barbara Delinsky

Author:Barbara Delinsky [Delinsky, Barbara]
Language: nld
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Barbara Delinsky
ISBN: 9780061713521
Publisher: Avon
Published: 1996-08-26T22:00:00+00:00

Sophie was having a manicure when Robin Duffy walked into the nail shop and did a double take. “Great minds think alike. I heard Lucy’s manicure was the best for miles. I’m your two-thirty,” she told Lucy. “I’m a little early. I’ll just sit here and relax until it’s time.” She hung her coat on the rack, settled on the sofa by the manicurist’s station, and smiled at Sophie. “Do you come here often?”

Sophie had been in a fine mood until Robin had come in, but no more. She didn’t like phonies. Robin wasn’t there coincidentally. She wanted information.

Looking her in the eye, she said, “I come here every week. I assumed you knew that.”

Robin smiled. “No.” She picked up People, flipped through several pages, then set it down and feigned genuine concern. “How’s Grace? I haven’t seen her around. I heard she was sick.”

“Actually,” the devil in Sophie said, “she’s visiting friends in Antibes. That’s off-the-record, of course.” It would serve Robin right to go after a red herring.

“Is Francine with her?”

“No. Francine’s home working.”

“Poor Francine. I’d love to be in Antibes.” She thumbed through the magazine again. Sophie was putting bets on which question would come next when Robin said, “How long will Grace be gone?”

“Not long. She has work to do.”

Robin nodded. She made a show of reading until Sophie’s nails were done and they switched places.

Sophie would have left the shop right then if she’d had anywhere to go. But it was a raw, drizzly day, not ideal for a stroll, and Gus wouldn’t be back for another fifteen minutes. So she picked up the magazine that Robin had discarded and began flipping through it.

Robin said, “I’ve been trying to get a fix on the little town where Grace was born. For an article on women who’ve made it big from small-town roots. Do you know its name?”

Sophie wouldn’t have said if she did. “No. It’s long gone.”

“So I’ve been told. Flooded. Only I can’t get a fix on a town in Maine that was sacrificed for a dam during the years Grace said. You’d think it would have made the news.”

“I’m sure it did, maybe just not the news you’re checking.”

“I’ve checked most everything. But without the name of the town, I can’t get local news, and if I can’t find mention anywhere else of a town that drowned, I can’t find the name.”

“That is a problem,” Sophie said, and turned a page, but the devil inside her was still at work. “You wouldn’t be trying to upstage Grace, would you?”

“Upstage her?”

“She’ll be telling all in her autobiography.”

“Will she?”

Something about the way she asked made Sophie say, “Why wouldn’t she?”

“The details of her early life may be embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” Grace’s life? “You have to be kidding.”

“Have you ever met her parents?”

“They died long before I was born.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure. If not, I’d have met them. Grace wouldn’t hide her granddaughter from her parents.”

“What if it was the other way around? What if she

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