Still Lake. Anne Stuart

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СКАЧАТЬ Whitten place—there was no reason a stranger would know its name. “I wondered if you happened to have a spare cup of coffee?”

      The girl shrugged her thin shoulders. “Sophie usually makes a pot—go on in and help yourself. I’m Marthe. With an e. Like the French.”

      “You sure your sister wouldn’t mind?”

      The girl’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “How do you know she’s my sister?”

      “Logic,” he said, climbing up onto the porch. The decking had been painted a fresh gray, while the porch ceiling was sky blue with fleecy white clouds stenciled on it. “She told me she was living here with her mother and her sister, and I’m assuming if you were hired help to run the bed-and-breakfast you wouldn’t be sitting on your butt.”

      “Maybe I’m taking a break. You don’t happen to have a cigarette, do you?”

      “I gave them up. How old are you?”

      “Twenty-one.”

      “Yeah, sure.”

      “Eighteen,” she said.

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Next January.”

      “Sorry, I’m not about to contribute to your bad habits.”

      She leaned back, surveying him slowly. “Oh, I can think of much better ways for you to lead me astray.”

      He laughed, without humor. “Honey, I’m much too old for you.”

      “I’m willing to overlook a few drawbacks,” she said in a sultry voice. “How’d you meet my sister?”

      “She brought me some muffins to welcome me to the neighborhood.”

      The girl’s laugh was mirthless. “Watch your back. She wants the Whitten place, and she doesn’t care how she gets it. You don’t want to end up floating facedown in the lake.”

      The macabre suggestion was like a blow to the stomach, but Sophie’s sister seemed blissfully unaware of the effect she’d had on him. Or the imperfect memories she’d resurrected, of another body floating facedown in Still Lake.

      “She doesn’t strike me as the murderous type,” he said carefully, leaning against the porch railing.

      “Things aren’t always what they seem,” the girl said cheerfully. “For instance, does this place look like the scene of a savage murder? Not likely. You’d be more likely to die of boredom than having your throat cut. Perfect peace and quiet.”

      “That’s what I’m looking for.”

      “You wouldn’t have found it twenty years ago,” she said with ghoulish enthusiasm. “There was a serial killer around here, and he murdered three teenage girls. Raped them and cut apart their bodies. It was really gruesome.”

      “It sounds it,” he said in a bored voice. His memory wasn’t that bad—there’d been no rape, and only Alice had been mutilated, though the autopsy had revealed that all three girls had had sexual relations within twenty-four hours prior to their deaths. “Did they ever find the guy who did it?”

      “How’d you know it was a guy?” Marthe said suspiciously.

      “Most serial killers are men. Besides, you said they were raped.”

      Marthe shrugged her thin shoulders. “Gracey would know the details—there’s nothing she loves more than true-crime thrillers. Of course, she’s gotten so addled she doesn’t even remember her own name, but if you’re curious maybe she might come up with some details.”

      “Not particularly,” he said, lying. “I was more interested in coffee.”

      The girl hopped up from her perch on the railing, twitching her flat little rump in what she obviously hoped was a provocative fashion. “I’ll show you,” she offered. “We’ll just have to hope we can avoid Sophie.”

      The kitchen of the old place had been completely redone. The painted cabinets had been stripped back to bare oak, the floor was a rough-hewn tile, the stove was one of those huge restaurant-style-things, and the countertops were butcher block and granite. A far cry from Peggy Niles’s fanatically clean surroundings—he always thought her kitchen was like an operating room. Spotless and scrubbed, even the homey smells of cooking hadn’t dared linger in its pristine environs. Only the door to the old hospital wing remained the same. Locked, probably nailed shut as it had been back then, albeit it was covered with a fresh coat of paint.

      This room was far more welcoming than its original incarnation. Or maybe it was just the smell of fresh coffee and muffins that gave him a deceptive sense of peace. Smells were one thing that could always betray you, make you vulnerable to old emotions. He’d fought against them all his life.

      There was no sign of Sophie Davis, and he didn’t know whether that was a consolation or a regret. She wouldn’t like her nubile little sister twitching her underclad butt around him, and he wasn’t any too fond of it, either. He was as healthy as the next man, but Miss Marthe Davis left him completely cold. Maybe because he’d never been particularly interested in teenagers.

      “So what are you doing today, John?” she asked in an artless voice.

      Like a fool, it took him a moment to remember that was the name he’d given her. “Cleaning up the house I rented. I didn’t give them any warning when I was coming, and the place is a mess.”

      “I could help. If there’s one thing I know how to do nowadays, it’s clean houses,” she said with a moue. “I’m sure you could do with a little company.”

      “Actually I’m fine….” he began, but she’d already twitched her way out of the kitchen.

      “I’ll just go put something on,” she called back to him. “I know Sophie wouldn’t miss me.”

      “Hell,” he muttered. There were hand-thrown pottery mugs on the counter, and he took one, filling it with coffee. He drank it black, and he almost snarled when he took his first sip. He should have known that Sophie Davis would make the kind of coffee most men would die for.

      He should have poured the rest out, left the deserted kitchen and headed straight for Audley’s General Store and the instant coffee section. He didn’t usually succumb to temptation, but for some reason being back in the place where he’d let his appetites run wild seemed to be doing a number on his iron self-control. The least he could do was drain the mug and get the hell out of there, before Martha Stewart found him.

      Too late. Just outside the kitchen, he heard footsteps coming from the old hallway, and he froze.

      

      The last thing Sophie Davis expected to see when she walked into her kitchen was the enigmatic Mr. Smith. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, his long, elegant fingers wrapped around a huge mug of coffee, and the dark eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses were cool and assessing.

      “What are you doing here?” she demanded, too startled to remember her manners.

      “Your sister offered me a cup of coffee,” СКАЧАТЬ