Still Lake. Anne Stuart

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СКАЧАТЬ to worry about unwanted neighbors and so will your little sister.”

      “I always manage to find time to worry.”

      “Well, stop it,” Marge ordered.

      “Yes, ma’am. Maybe I’ll bring Mr. Smith some muffins to welcome him to the neighborhood. That way I can see whether or not I can find out how long he really plans to stay.”

      “You bring him some of your muffins and he won’t want to leave,” Marge said blithely. “My cooking would drive him clear back to…to wherever it is he came from.”

      “I suppose I could poison him,” Sophie said thoughtfully. “That’s one way to get rid of him.”

      “Don’t joke about murder, Sophie. Not here.” There was no missing the seriousness in Marge’s voice. “People have long memories.”

      “Do they?” She glanced back over at the Whitten house, looking for her unwanted neighbor.

      He was nowhere to be seen.

      2

      The place hadn’t changed much in almost twenty years, Griffin thought. A few more tourists crowding into the general store, fewer parking spaces on the town common. There was a gift shop in the once-deserted mill, and a new Scottish woolens store was opening up in the center of town, catering to the wealthy summer folk. And there was a new owner out at Stonegate Farm, planning to open as an inn in September, just in time for the leaf peepers.

      No, it hadn’t changed. They were still the same overbred, overeducated scions of Harvard and Yale and Princeton, still the same locals who smiled and waited on them and despised them behind their backs. Except there were more of them.

      Why the hell had he come back here? He hated this place, with its bucolic charm and small-town nosiness. Twenty years ago it was the first place that had ever felt like home in his rootless life. He’d found out just how hospitable a place it was when he’d ended up railroaded for a murder he wouldn’t believe he’d committed.

      No, he didn’t give a damn about Colby, Vermont, or the people who lived there. He only cared about the truth.

      He wasn’t interested in running into any old acquaintances who might happen to remember him, but he’d managed to avoid almost everyone when he picked up a few necessities in town and headed out to the Whitten place. That was another change—two decades ago you couldn’t walk out of Audley’s General Store without being quizzed as to where you were renting, what brought you to Colby, how long you were planning to stay, and who you were related to. The summer people added where you went to college to their list of questions, and he’d had his answers primed. But they’d taken his money without even glancing at his face, and he’d left the old-fashioned country store with a six-pack of Coke and a block of Cabot cheese and no one paid the slightest bit of attention. He was almost disappointed.

      The woman at the real estate office had looked flustered when she handed him the key, and he got the feeling she wasn’t too happy about his renting the place. Tough shit. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he didn’t give a damn if the place had been cleaned, if the water was on, or if squirrels had taken up residence in the chimney. He just wanted to get there and lock the doors behind him, so he could feel safe once more.

      It was an annoying weakness, and he hated it, but all the will in the world couldn’t make it go away. He always felt that way when he came to a new place. Maybe someday he’d get over it, but for now he locked the doors and windows and kept the world at bay. It was better that way.

      It didn’t take him long to get settled. The road to the Whitten house was rutted and overgrown, discouraging the curious, and the house looked abandoned. He pried open the shutters, then opened the windows to the fresh mountain air. The water had been turned on, after all, and if the living room cushions showed recent evidence of mice he could live with it. He swept the place out, cleared off a dusty harvest table in the living room and carried in his laptop computer before he bothered with groceries and suitcases. At least he’d learned to keep his priorities straight in the last twenty years.

      He put the Coke and the cheese in the warm refrigerator, plugged it in and went out onto the front porch. The chairs were stored in a corner, so he sat on the railing, looking down the weedy lawn to the lake. His last sight of Colby, Vermont.

      He glanced up at Stonegate Farm across the stretch of water. It looked prosperous—the new owners must have put a great deal of money and energy into it. Now he had to figure out a way to get inside without arousing any suspicions.

      It would have been a hell of a lot easier if he had the faintest idea what he was looking for. He didn’t remember much about that night, and twenty years hadn’t improved his memory.

      But he’d been up at the house—he knew that much. Back in the closed-off wing that had once served as the town hospital. And he hadn’t been alone.

      Maybe that was the last time he’d seen Lorelei alive. Or maybe he’d been the one to kill her—cut her throat and carry her down to the water.

      If so, there’d still be traces of blood somewhere. Something, anything that could tell him what happened that night. Maybe just being there would jar his stubborn memory.

      Being back in Colby had done zip so far, except make him feel unsettled. If he couldn’t sneak his way into the old inn he’d try talking his way in. If worse came to worst, he’d break in.

      If that didn’t do any good, he’d start taking a look at the rest of the town. How many of the same people still lived there? How many remembered the murders?

      Sooner or later he’d find the answers he needed. The good people of Colby might think it was over and done with, the chapter closed.

      It wasn’t closed, and he knew it better than anyone. By the time he left there’d be answers. An ending. All the questions answered, the dead buried, the ghosts settled.

      By the time he left he’d know the truth. He’d know who killed Alice Calderwood, Lorelei Johnson and Valette King. He’d know whether or not it was him.

      It was early evening when he saw the woman coming across the stretch of rough lawn beside the house, and for a moment he thought he was imagining things. He’d spent the rest of the afternoon airing out the old place, tossing mouse-eaten cushions and ancient newspapers into the trash, making a stab at the cobwebs. He’d found two chairs that managed to survive the years of storage and pulled them onto the porch, and he was sitting there, a can of Coke in one hand, his feet propped up on the railing, when she appeared out of the woods.

      His emotions were mixed. On the one hand, he sure as hell didn’t want people walking in, unannounced, particularly women like this one. She was pretty in a pink-and-gold sort of way, dressed in a flowery thing that was too long and too loose on her body. All she needed was a huge hat and white gloves and she’d belong at a goddamn garden party.

      Except that, instead of a teacup, she carried a plate of what looked very much like muffins. And he, a man who needed nothing and nobody, decided not to scare her off. He had his priorities, and food was definitely one of them.

      Besides, she was coming from the old inn. Maybe he wouldn’t have to make much effort to gain access at all. Maybe the answers would be delivered, like a plate of muffins, right to his doorstep.

      Griffin knew well enough he should rise from СКАЧАТЬ