Still Lake. Anne Stuart
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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 his indolent position and greet her. He hadn’t had a stern mother to teach him any manners, there’d been just his father and him, moving from place to place until he was fifteen and his father died. After that he’d been on his own, but he knew what was proper, anyway. He stayed put, though, still wary, as she climbed the short flight of steps onto the front porch.
He didn’t like pretty women, he liked women with character. He liked them sleek and smart like his former fiancée, Annelise. No nonsense, no sentiment. This one had stepped out of a house-and-garden magazine, smelling of flowers and fresh-baked bread, sweet and soft and warm. He just looked at her, deliberately unwelcoming.
“I’m Sophie Davis,” she said, and her voice matched her dress. Light, musical, annoyingly charming. “My family and I are running the old inn—I’m afraid we’re your only neighbors for the time being until the place opens up this fall. I brought you some muffins to welcome you to Colby.”
He took them and set them on the railing in front of him. He needed to dredge up some semblance of charm, but something was stopping him. Maybe it was the complacent normalcy of the young woman standing there. She belonged in a different world from the rootless one he had always lived in—hers was a land of tidy homes and secure families. He was big, rough, sweaty from opening up the house. She was smaller and irritatingly perfect.
He also didn’t want her thinking she could just drop in. He valued his privacy, especially when he wasn’t planning on being particularly public about who he was and why he was here.
“Thanks,” he said, then realized he sounded less than gracious. He glanced over at the old Niles place. “Seems like a strange time to open an inn.”
“We’ve been working hard to get it ready. The place was abandoned for years, and it’s taken us a while to get it in any kind of shape.”
Empty for years, he thought. He could have had a dozen chances to come back, find the answers he was looking for. He’d been too busy trying to forget.
“Besides,” she added, “autumn is the busiest time around here. Even more than summer or skiing season. We’re already completely booked for September and half of October.”
“When did you say you opened?”
“Two weeks.”
Two weeks. Two weeks to get inside the old place before it was overrun with tourists. Two weeks to see if there were any secrets left.
She was staring at him oddly. No wonder. She was probably used to men fawning all over her. He roused himself. If he only had two weeks, then he’d better make the most of every opportunity, whether he was in the mood to or not, and it wouldn’t do to rouse her suspicions.
“Can I get you something to drink, Mrs. Davis?” he asked politely, rising from his chair. He towered over her. He didn’t like short women, but then, she wasn’t really that short. It was just the damned sense of femininity about her that bugged him. She probably wasn’t even thirty yet, but she had an old-fashioned air that annoyed him. He didn’t want her staying, he hadn’t had time to get acclimatized yet. But if she owned the inn then he’d be a fool to drive her away so quickly.
She didn’t look too happy to be here, either—she was looking for a chance to escape. “It’s Sophie,” she said. “I’m not married. And I really need to get back to the inn. I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. When we open you should come by for dinner.”
She looked as