The Shadow of Your Smile Read online

  BY MARY HIGGINS CLARK

  Just Take My Heart

  Where Are You Now?

  Ghost Ship (Illustrated by Wendell Minor)

  I Heard That Song Before

  Two Little Girls in Blue

  No Place Like Home

  Nighttime Is My Time

  The Second Time Around

  Kitchen Privileges

  Mount Vernon Love Story

  Silent Night/All Through the Night

  Daddy’s Little Girl

  On the Street Where You Live

  Before I Say Good-bye

  We’ll Meet Again

  All Through the Night

  You Belong to Me

  Pretend You Don’t See Her

  My Gal Sunday

  Moonlight Becomes You

  Silent Night

  Let Me Call You Sweetheart

  The Lottery Winner

  Remember Me

  I’ll Be Seeing You

  All Around the Town

  Loves Music, Loves to Dance

  The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories

  While My Pretty One Sleeps

  Weep No More, My Lady

  Stillwatch

  A Cry in the Night

  The Cradle Will Fall

  A Stranger Is Watching

  Where Are the Children?

  BY MARY HIGGINS CLARK AND CAROL HIGGINS CLARK

  Dashing Through the Snow

  Santa Cruise

  The Christmas Thief

  He Sees You When You’re Sleeping

  Deck the Halls

  MARY HIGGINS CLARK

  The Shadow

  of Your

  Smile

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

  incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or

  are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events

  or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Mary Higgins Clark

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or

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  First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition April 2010

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  Designed by Jill Putorti

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Clark, Mary Higgins.

  The shadow of your smile : a novel / Mary Higgins Clark.

  p. cm.

  1. Women psychologists—Fiction. 2. Criminologists—Fiction.

  3. Brothers—Fiction. 4. Twins—Fiction. 5. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 6. Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.L287S48 2010

  813'.54—dc22 2009043894

  ISBN 978-1-4391-7226-1

  ISBN 978-1-4391-9987-9 (ebook)

  Acknowledgments

  In my last book I wrote about the medical miracle of a heart transplant and that the recipient may have taken on some of the characteristics of the donor.

  This story concerns a different miracle, one that medical science cannot explain. Last spring I attended the Beatification Ceremony of a nun who founded seven hospitals for the aged and infirm and is credited, by the power of prayer, with saving the life of a child.

  At that beautiful ceremony, I decided I wanted to write about that subject as part of this novel. I have found it to be an insightful journey—one that I hope you will enjoy sharing.

  As always I’m indebted to the faithful mentors and friends who make smooth the path as I labor at the computer.

  It has been a constant joy that Michael Korda has been my editor for thirty-five years. From page one to The End, his guidance, encouragement, and enthusiasm have been an unfailing source of strength.

  Senior Editor Amanda Murray has accompanied us every step of the way with her wise suggestions and input.

  Thank you always to Associate Director of Copyediting Gypsy da Silva; my publicist, Lisl Cade; and my readers-in-progress Irene Clark, Agnes Newton and Nadine Petry. What a grand team I have.

  Many thanks to Patricia Handal, coordinator of the Cardinal Cooke Guild, for her invaluable and generous assistance in discussing the canonization process.

  Many thanks to Detective Marco Conelli for answering my questions about police procedure.

  Thanks also to patent attorney Gregg A. Paradise, Esq., who advised me about patent laws, an important element in this story.

  It is high time that I give a tip of the hat to marvelous photographer, Bernard Vidal, who for twenty years has journeyed from Paris to take my cover photo and to Karem Alsina, master hair stylist and makeup artist, who allows me year after year to put my best face forward on the back cover of the newest book.

  No accomplishment would have any meaning if it were not being shared with my husband, John Conheeney, spouse extraordinaire, and our children and grandchildren. You know how I feel about all of you.

  And now my readers and friends, I hope you curl up and enjoy this latest effort. Happy Reading and God bless you one and all.

  For my youngest child

  Patricia Mary Clark

  “Patty”

  whose wit, resilience, and charm

  has brightened all our lives

  With Love

  The Shadow

  of Your

  Smile

  1

  On Monday morning, Olivia Morrow sat quietly across the desk from her longtime friend Clay Hadley, absorbing the death sentence he had just pronounced.

  For an instant, she looked away from the compassion she saw in his eyes and glanced out the window of his twenty-fourth-floor office on East Seventy-second Street in Manhattan. In the distance she could see a helicopter making its slow journey over the East River on this chilly October morning.

  My journey is ending, she thought, then realized that Clay was expecting a response from her.

  “Two weeks,” she said. It was not a question. She glanced at the antique clock on the bookcase behind Clay’s desk. It was ten minutes past nine. The first day of the two weeks—at least it’s the start of the day, she thought, glad that she had asked for an early appointment.

  He was answering her. “Three at the most. I’m sorry, Olivia. I was hoping . . .”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Olivia interrupted briskly. “I’m eighty-two years old. Even though my generation lives so much longer than the previous ones, my friends have been dropping like flies lately. Our problem is that we worry we’ll live too long and end up in a nursing home, or become a terrible burden to everyone. To know I have a very short time left, but will still be able to think clearly and walk around unassisted until the very end is an immeasurable gift.” Her voice trailed off.


  Clay Hadley’s eyes narrowed. He understood the troubled expression that had erased the serenity from Olivia’s face. Before she spoke, he knew what she would say. “Clay, only you and I know.”

  He nodded.

  “Do we have the right to continue to hide the truth?” she asked, looking at him intently. “Mother thought she did. She intended to take it to her grave, but at the very end when only you and I were there, she felt compelled to tell us. It became for her a matter of conscience. And with all the enormous good Catherine did in her life as a nun, her reputation has always been compromised by the insinuation that all those years ago, just before she entered the convent, she may have had a consensual liaison with a lover.”

  Hadley studied Olivia Morrow’s face. Even the usual signs of age, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, the slight tremor of her neck, the way she leaned forward to catch everything he said, did not detract from her finely chiseled features. His father had been her mother’s cardiologist, and he had taken over when his father retired. Now in his early fifties, he could not remember a time when the Morrow family had not been part of his life. As a child he had been in awe of Olivia, recognizing even then that she was always beautifully dressed. Later he realized that at that time she had still been working as a salesgirl at B. Altman’s, the famous Fifth Avenue department store, and that her style was achieved by buying her clothes at giveaway end-of-the-season sales. Never married, she had retired as an executive and board member of Altman’s years ago.

  He had met her older cousin Catherine only a few times, and by then she was already a legend, the nun who had started seven hospitals for handicapped children—research hospitals dedicated to finding ways to cure or alleviate the suffering of their damaged bodies or minds.

  “Do you know that many people are calling the healing of a child with brain cancer a miracle and attributing it to Catherine’s intercession?” Olivia asked. “She’s being considered as a candidate for beatification.”

  Clay Hadley felt his mouth go dry. “No, I hadn’t heard.” Not a Catholic, he vaguely understood that that would mean the Church might eventually declare Sister Catherine a saint and worthy of veneration by the faithful.

  “Of course that will mean that the subject of her having given birth will be explored, and those vicious rumors will resurface and almost certainly finish her chance of being found worthy,” Olivia added, her tone angry.

  “Olivia, there was a reason neither Sister Catherine nor your mother ever named the father of her child.”

  “Catherine didn’t. But my mother did.”

  Olivia leaned her hands on the arms of the chair, a signal to Clay that she was about to stand up. He rose and walked around his desk, with quick steps for such a bulky man. He knew that some of his patients referred to him as “Chunky Clay the Cardiologist.” His voice humorous, his eyes twinkling, he counseled all of them, “Forget about me and make sure you lose weight. I look at the picture of an ice cream cone and put on five pounds. It’s my cross to bear.” It was a performance he had perfected. Now he took Olivia’s hands in his and kissed her gently.

  Involuntarily she drew back from the sensation of his short, graying beard grazing her cheek, then to cover her reaction returned the kiss. “Clay, my own situation remains between us. I will tell the few remaining people who will care very soon.” She paused, then, her tone ironic, she added, “In fact I’d obviously better tell them very soon. Perhaps fortunately, I don’t have a single family member left.” Then she stopped, realizing that what she had just said wasn’t true.

  On her deathbed her mother had told her that after Catherine realized she was pregnant, she had spent a year in Ireland, where she had given birth to a son. He had been adopted by the Farrells, an American couple from Boston who were selected by the Mother Superior of the religious order Catherine entered. They had named him Edward, and he had grown up in Boston.

  I’ve followed their lives ever since, Olivia thought. Edward didn’t marry until he was forty-two. His wife has been dead a long time, and he passed away about five years ago. Their daughter, Monica, is thirty-one now, a pediatrician on the staff of Greenwich Village Hospital. Catherine was my first cousin. Her granddaughter is my cousin. She is my only family, and she doesn’t know I exist.

  Now, as she withdrew her hands from Clay’s grasp, she said, “Monica has turned out to be so like her grandmother, devoting her life to taking care of babies and little children. Do you realize what all that money would mean to her?”

  “Olivia, don’t you believe in redemption? Look at what the father of her child did with the rest of his life. Think of the lives he saved. And what about his brother’s family? They’re prominent philanthropists. Think what such disclosure will mean to them.”

  “I am thinking about it, and that’s what I have to weigh. Monica Farrell is the rightful heir to the income from those patents. Alexander Gannon was her grandfather, and in his will he left everything he had to his issue if any existed and only then to his brother. I’ll call you, Clay.”

  Dr. Clay Hadley waited until the door of his private office closed, then picked up the phone and dialed a number that was known to very few people. When a familiar voice answered he did not waste time in preliminaries. “It’s exactly what I was afraid of. I know Olivia . . . she’s going to talk.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” the person on the other end of the line said matter-of-factly. “You’ve got to make sure it doesn’t. Why didn’t you give her something? With her medical condition, no one would question her death.”

  “Believe it or not, it isn’t that simple to kill someone. And suppose she manages to leave the proof before I can stop her?”

  “In that case we take out double insurance. Sad to say, a fatal attack on an attractive young woman in Manhattan is hardly an extraordinary event these days. I’ll take care of it immediately.”

  2

  Dr. Monica Farrell shivered as she posed for a picture with Tony and Rosalie Garcia on the steps of Greenwich Village Hospital. Tony was holding Carlos, their two-year-old son, who had just been declared free of the leukemia that had almost claimed his life.

  Monica remembered the day when, as she was about to leave her office, Rosalie phoned in a panic. “Doctor, the baby has spots on his stomach.” Carlos was then six weeks old. Even before she saw him, Monica had the terrible hunch that what she was going to find was the onset of juvenile leukemia. Diagnostic tests confirmed that suspicion, and Carlos’s chances were calculated to be at best fifty-fifty. Monica had promised his weeping young parents that as far as she was concerned, those were good enough odds and Carlos was already too tough a little guy not to win the fight.

  “Now one with you holding Carlos, Dr. Monica,” Tony ordered as he took the camera from the passerby who had volunteered to become the acting photographer.

  Monica reached for the squirming two-year-old, who had by then decided he’d smiled long enough. This will be some picture, she thought as she waved at the camera, hoping that Carlos could follow her example. Instead he pulled the clip at the nape of her neck and her long dark-blond hair fell loose around her shoulders.

  After a flurry of good-byes and “God bless you, Dr. Monica, we wouldn’t have made it without you, and we’ll see you for his checkup,” the Garcias were gone with one final wave from the window of the taxi. As Monica stepped back inside the hospital and walked to the elevator bank, she reached up to gather the strands of her hair and refasten the clip.

  “Leave it like that. It looks good.” Dr. Ryan Jenner, a neurosurgeon who had been in Georgetown Medical School a few years ahead of Monica, had fallen in step with her. He had recently come on staff at Greenwich Village and had stopped for a moment to chat the few times they had run into each other. Jenner, wearing scrubs and a plastic bonnet, had obviously been in surgery or was on his way to it.

  Monica laughed as she pushed the button for an ascending elevator. “Oh, sure. And maybe I should drop into your operating room while it�
�s like this.”

  The door of a descending elevator was opening.

  “Maybe I wouldn’t mind,” Jenner said as he got into it.

  And maybe you would. In fact you’d have a heart attack, Monica thought as she stepped into an already crowded elevator. Ryan Jenner, despite his youthful face and ready smile, was already known to be a perfectionist and intolerant of any lapses in patient care. Being in his operating room with uncovered hair was unthinkable.

  When she got off on the pediatric floor, the wail of a screaming baby was the first sound Monica heard. She knew it was her patient, nineteen-month-old Sally Carter, and the lack of visits from her single mother was infuriating. Before she went in to try to comfort the baby, she stopped at the nurses’ desk. “Any sign of Mommy dearest?” she asked, then regretted she had been so outspoken.

  “Not since yesterday morning,” Rita Greenberg, the longtime head nurse on the floor, answered, her tone as annoyed as Monica’s. “But she did manage to squeeze in a phone call an hour ago to say she was tied up at work and ask if Sally had had a good night. Doctor, I’m telling you, there’s something odd about that whole situation. That woman acts no more like a mother than the stuffed animals in the play room do. Are you going to discharge Sally today?”

  “Not until I find out who will be taking care of her when the mother is so busy. Sally had asthma and pneumonia when she was brought to the emergency room. I can’t imagine what the mother or the babysitter was thinking, waiting so long to get medical attention for her.”

  Followed by the nurse, Monica went into the small room with the single crib, to which Sally had been moved because her crying was waking up the other babies. Sally was standing, holding on to the railings, her light brown hair curling around her tear-stained face.

  “She’ll work herself into another asthma attack,” Monica said angrily, as she reached in and plucked the baby from the crib. As Sally clung to her, the crying immediately lessened, then evolved into subdued sobs and finally began to ease off.