Fool Me Once Read Online Free Page B

please feel free to call me.”
    Olivia watched in a daze as the attorney stood up and put on his overcoat. Faster than a lightning bolt, both dogs chased him to the door. Olivia heard the little pinging sound made by the alarm system when the door opened and closed.
    She burst into tears.
    If what the attorney said was true, her whole life was a lie. A big, fat lie!
    She cried harder. She had a mother. Had had a mother. A mother she never knew. A real, live, flesh-and-blood mother like all her friends had, like Sara Kelly’s mother. Olivia bolted from the chair and raced to the powder room off the great room. The dogs huddled and whimpered at the strange sounds emanating from behind the closed door.
    Ten minutes later Olivia literally crawled out of the powder room on her hands and knees, her face splotchy and red. She crawled across the slick hardwood floors she’d helped her father install. Tongue-and-groove. She’d thought that phrase so funny as a child. Her father had allowed her to hand him the pieces of wood and showed her how to lay them down. She’d been so proud that he allowed her to help. “It’s just you and me, kid, ” he always said after they finished a project. Just you and me, kid . Yeah, right. I think you left someone out, Daddy.
    It wasn’t until she was back in her favorite chair that she saw that the will was still on the coffee table. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to touch that. No way was she ever going to touch that . Absolutely, she was never, ever going to touch that.
    Alice pawed her mistress’s leg for attention. When there was no response, the dog ran to the kitchen for her food bowl, carried it back, and dropped it at Olivia’s feet. Cecil barked. Olivia looked at her watch. It was time for Alice’s supper. Cecil, too, since she was dog-sitting. She felt a hundred years old when she heaved herself to her feet and made her way to the kitchen.
    Olivia reached into the cabinet for the dog food. Her father had allowed her to screw the knobs into the cabinets. Just you and me, kid . A duo instead of a trio. She started to cry again, the tears rolling down her cheeks like a waterfall. She sniffed as she scooped out the food into two bowls and watched as both dogs gobbled it down. She let them outside. It was snowing harder. It always snowed in February. Her father was probably basking on the deck of his boat, sharing a glass of wine with Lea at this hour. It was probably warm and balmy, and they were probably both wearing shorts and T-shirts.
    She needed to call her father. What should she say? How should she say it? Just you and me, kid . Now it was her father and Lea. And, she wasn’t a kid anymore.
    Nothing was what it seemed. Not even the picture of “her mother” on the mantel.
    Alice scratched against the door as Cecil tried to nip her ear. Olivia opened the door, towel-dried the dogs, handed each of them a treat. She should think about her own dinner. She reached for a box of Cheerios and carried it back to the great room. She set the box down and made a fire.
    Olivia was a little girl again as she hugged her knees to her chest and watched the flames dance behind the ornate grate. She picked at the dry cereal, sharing it with the two dogs sitting next to her. She had to think, but her brain suddenly wasn’t working.
    Just you and me, kid.
    Liar! Liar!
    Both dogs crawled into Olivia’s lap and snuggled with her. How warm and comforting they felt. Suddenly, a red-hot streak of rage, hot as the fire she was looking at, ripped through her. What kind of mother would…would…ignore her daughter for thirty-four years? Who was this woman who had left her entire estate to a daughter she’d ignored all her life?
    Well, the only person who could answer those questions, other than possibly the attorney, was her father. And only he could tell her who was in the picture on the mantel.
    Olivia got to her feet and rummaged