Still Lake - Anne Stuart [14]
Without that, no one would be likely to connect the reclusive, bespectacled Mr. Smith with the murdering teenage vagrant. He wore khakis and cotton now, without rips. His beard, something he’d cultivated quite assiduously to hide his too-pretty face, was long gone, and the face that was now exposed was too full of character to be called angelic. His hair was shorter, with streaks of premature gray, and if anyone could still remember the troubled kid they’d locked up, they’d see only a passing resemblance in the face of Mr. Smith. If they bothered to look at all.
He was counting on them to not look. And to not remember. Over the years he’d discovered that people pretty much saw what they wanted to see, and no one would be looking for the lost soul of a once-convicted murderer in a well-heeled tourist.
Stonegate Farm had improved in the last twenty years, though he found that hard to believe. The peeling white clapboard had been painted a cheerful yellow, and baskets of flowering plants, not too many, not too few, hung from the porch. The windows were spotless, shining in the sunlight, the once-wild lawn was tamed into obedience, and even the old barn looked like it was being worked on. The old wing stretched out back, spruced up with a fresh coat of paint, but he couldn’t see past the smoky windows. It looked boarded up, impregnable, a mixed blessing. At least the new owner hadn’t gotten around to messing with that part of the place, thank God. There was still a chance he might find something that could lead him to the answers he needed to find.
Someone was sitting on the porch, watching him, and he saw a pair of long, bare legs swinging back and forth.
“Who are you?” It was a teenage girl, probably not much older than Lorelei when she died. She had fuchsia-streaked black hair, a ring through her eyebrow, a skimpy bathing suit showing off a too-thin body, and a belligerent expression on her face. Presumably this was Sophie Davis’s sister. No wonder the older sister looked worn out.
“John Smith. I’m renting the house in the woods.” He deliberately didn’t call it the old 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