The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

did not do for his own. He hadn't lost his touch, either. The yield from the
Zimmer portfolio was twenty-three percent. Another hundred thousand dollars had
been invested in a business – a Sub-Chapter-S corporation, she saw, whatever
that was – with Southland Corporation as – oh, she realized, a 7-Eleven. It was
a Maryland corporation, with the address given as . . .
That's only a few miles from here! It was, in fact, right off of Route 50, and
that meant that Jack passed it twice a day on his way to and from work.
How convenient!
So, who the hell was Carol Zimmer?
Medical bills? Obstetrics?
Dr Marsha Rosen! I know her! Had Cathy not been on the faculty at Hopkins, she
would have used Marsha Rosen for her own pregnancies; Rosen was a Yale graduate
with a very fine reputation.
A baby? Jacqueline Zimmer? Jacqueline? Cathy thought, her face flushed scarlet.
Then the tears began streaming down her cheeks.
You bastard! You can't give me a baby, but you gave one to her, didn't you!
She checked the date, then searched her memory, Jack hadn't been home that day
until very late. She remembered, because she'd had to cancel out on a dinner
party over at . . .
He was there! He was there for the delivery, wasn't he! What more proof do I
need? The triumph of the discovery changed at once into black despair.
The world could end so easily, Cathy thought. Just a slip of paper could do it,
and that was it. It was over.
Is it over?
How could it not be? Even if he still wanted – did she want him?
What about the kids? Cathy asked herself. She closed the file and replaced it
without rising. 'You're a doctor,' she said to herself. 'You're supposed to
think before you act.'
The kids needed a father. But what sort of father was he? Gone thirteen or
fourteen hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. He managed to take his son to
one – just one! – baseball game, despite constant pleas. He was lucky to make
half of Little Jack's T-Ball games. He missed every school affair, the Christmas
plays, all the other things. Cathy had been half surprised that he'd been home
Christmas morning. The night before, assembling the toys, he'd gotten drunk
again, and she hadn't even bothered trying to attract him. What was the point?
His present to her . . . well, it was nice enough, but the sort of thing a man
could get in a few minutes of shopping, no big deal
Shopping.
Cathy rose and checked through the mail on Jack's desk. His credit card bills
were sitting in the pile. She opened one and found a bunch of entries from
Hamley's in London. Six hundred dollars? But he'd only gotten one thing for
Little Jack, and two small items for Sally. Six hundred dollars!
Christmas shopping for two families, Jack?
'Just how much more evidence do you need, Cathy girl?' she asked herself aloud
again. 'Oh God oh God oh God – '
She didn't move for a very long time, nor did she see or hear anything outside
of her own misery. Only the mother in her kept subconscious track of the sound