Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [10]
“How many houses are on this road?”
“Three. This is the last. And no, we’ve never considered paving it ourselves.”
She opened the freezer and poked around a bit.
“So, the question was, are you hungry?”
“Well, yes, actually, I am.”
“Frankly, I could use a little break right around now. I’m for eating while we finish discussing Ms. Tilden, then maybe you can put a call in to Mancini and see what he’s come up with on this most recent victim. We’ll see what condition the roads are in after that.”
“And if they’re impassable?”
“Then you’ll just have to sleep here and we’ll leave in the morning. You can sleep in the study, if you don’t mind spending the night on the sofa.” She added apologetically, “The two extra bedrooms upstairs still have Ian’s and my old single beds in them. I’m sure you wouldn’t be comfortable in either, since you’re so tall. My next project is going to have to be a real guest room.”
“Where I sleep isn’t much of an issue to me,” Adam brushed off her apology. He’d hoped to be sitting in the office of the lead investigator on the Garvey case when the sun came up the next day. He hadn’t planned on a sleepover and wasn’t sure how he felt about spending a night under the same roof with her. “We’ll have to leave really early to get an early start in Deal. We should be able to make good time if we leave before the morning rush hour.”
“There is no morning rush hour around here, at least not until you head toward Philly or Wilmington. And if you’re planning on driving that little number out there, no one would ever believe you’re a fed. Now, we could take my Subaru. . . .”
“That old blue thing in the driveway? You really think that will make it all the way to Pennsylvania? How many miles on it?”
“It made it all the way back from Seattle, thank you very much.” She ignored the last question.
“How many miles?” he repeated.
“Some.”
“Over a hundred thousand?”
“Over a hundred thousand,” she conceded.
“How many over a hundred?”
“Forty-seven something.”
“One hundred forty-seven something miles?” He grinned. “I’d say you got your money’s worth. What year is it, anyway?”
“1985.”
“Maybe it’s time for a new one.”
“It was my mother’s,” she said.
“Oh.”
“She only used it around town. She had a newer car that my stepfather bought for her as a present when she won her seat in the Senate.” Kendra paused, then added, “The Subaru was the first car she’d ever bought for herself. She was so pleased with it. She’d ordered it new from the dealer with all the options she wanted. So it may seem antiquated, and next to that smooth little rascal you’re driving it may not look like much, but as long as it runs, I’ll drive it.” Then, lest she sound too sentimental, she forced a smile. “Besides, down here where I live, my old car fits in just fine. Anything too flashy, too new, folks think you’re showing off.”
“Maybe I should have parked in the barn.”
“Too late. It’s probably the topic of conversation down at MacNamara’s Diner as we speak.”
“How did you know I stopped there?”
“The only route in to Smith’s Forge is via Route 532 through Worth. And once you’ve passed through Worth, there is no other place to stop. I’ll bet they told you to drive down the road here and look for the house with the purple door.”
“As a matter of fact, they did.”
“That must have made Oliver Webb one happy man,” she mused.
“Who’s Oliver Webb?”
“An old friend of my granddad’s who’s convinced that I’ve got all the ancestral Smiths resting uneasy since I had the house painted.”
“Oh, thinks white would have been better?”
“Well, down here, depending on who you speak with, one might prefer no paint at all. At one time, in some areas deeper into the Pines, it was thought that painting the house would only