Still Lake - Anne Stuart [7]
Sophie smiled reluctantly. “Doc’s an old gossip and we both know it. If the man has any secrets, Doc will ferret them out.”
Marge cast a final, longing look toward the old cottage. “He’s a fine figure of a man, I’ll say that much,” she said, smacking her lips. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Short of evicting him, I don’t think so.”
“Just keep Marty away and everything should be fine,” Marge said. “In another few weeks you’ll be too busy 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