Читать книгу Stranger in a Small Town - Kerry Connor - Страница 11

“I hear you hired someone to help you with the house.”

A few weeks ago, Maggie might have been surprised that her friend Annie had already heard about something that had happened only hours earlier. After several weeks in town, she’d gotten used to just how fast news traveled around here, especially since so much of that news seemed to have involved her.

The someone in question had left for lunch ten minutes earlier. She’d given him twenty bucks to pay for both his lunch and get something for her, as well. Comfortable there was no chance of the conversation being overheard, Maggie put her cell phone on speaker and set it on the kitchen counter so she could focus on scrubbing thirty years’ worth of grime from between the counter tiles.

“Dalton didn’t waste any time getting the word out.”

“From what I hear, he came storming into the diner and threw a fit.”

And from there, the news had spread like a virus. At the very least, she had no doubt it had made some people sick.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see it. I think I would have enjoyed that.” Just remembering how red the man’s face had gotten when she’d announced John was her new employee made her lips twitch.

“So who is this guy?” Annie asked.

“He’s new in town. Was just passing through when he saw my flyer at the truck stop and decided to check it out.”

“You hired a complete stranger? What else do you even know about him?”

“I know that after two weeks he was the only applicant for the job.”

“He could be dangerous. He could be a killer, for all you know.”

“He gave me a reference. And we worked together all morning and he managed to avoid chopping me up into little pieces so far. That seems like a good sign.”

“Talk to me when you get through the afternoon alive.”

“And then you’ll just worry about tomorrow.”

“You better believe it.”

Maggie smiled. She had to admit it felt nice to have someone care about her, no matter how unwarranted the concern. She’d been on guard most of the morning, but John had been nothing less than a model employee. He’d followed her instructions, done whatever she’d asked and proven he’d known exactly what he was doing. Whatever else she didn’t know about him, he hadn’t lied about his experience. She’d watched him closely for even the slightest hint of him looking at her funny. He never had. In fact, he’d barely given her a second glance. Under different circumstances, it would have been quite the blow to her ego. Hell, she wasn’t sure it still wasn’t.

In the background, she could hear one of Annie’s kids—most likely Casey, the youngest—babbling. “Annie, you already have three kids to mother. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I can’t help it. It would be easier if you’d give up this restoration idea so I didn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Look, I know you don’t approve, even if you are nicer about it than anyone else in this town—”

“It’s not that I don’t approve.” Annie sighed. “I just hate the idea of you wasting all that time and money for no reason.”

“It’s not for no reason. When I’m done, the house is going to look like a brand-new place.”

“Where no one will want to live.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Mags, I’ve lived here my entire life. It’s the Murder House. Believe me, nobody’s going to want to live there.”

“Don’t call it that,” Maggie said automatically, unable to keep the faint trace of offense out of her voice. Even as she heard it, she had to acknowledge how ridiculous it was, being offended on behalf of a house.

“It doesn’t really matter whether or not I call it that. Everyone else in this town is still going to.”

Maggie threw her head back and groaned loudly. “What is the deal with the town and this house?”

“What’s the deal with you and that house?”

“It’s a perfectly fine house. Well-designed. Solidly built.” By Dalton himself, she conceded, if only to herself. He’d been the contractor who’d built the house based on her grandfather’s designs all those years ago. For that reason, she was somewhat surprised he was so eager to tear it down.

“I think we both know it’s not really about the house,” Annie said, softly but pointedly.

“Yes, it is,” Maggie said immediately, not about to let the comment or the sympathy in Annie’s voice get to her. “This is about a perfectly decent house that has no business being torn down just because something bad happened in it a long time ago. It’s been almost thirty years. It’s time for people to get over it already.”

“It’s part of living in a town where not much happens. Yesterday’s headlines stay in people’s minds a lot longer when there’s nothing new to replace them. There have only ever been two murders in this town, and they both happened in that house on the same night. It’s hard to get past that.”

Maggie recognized the tone in Annie’s voice and could practically picture her friend shuddering. “I don’t remember you being as creeped out by the house or the murders when we were kids.”

“Maybe it’s because I have kids of my own now and it’s hard not to think about that part of it. Those people had four or five kids, little ones from what I remember. Little kids who were left to wake up and find their parents butchered in the morning. Just the thought of it…” Maggie could hear Annie’s voice hitch as her words trailed off.

Maggie suppressed a shudder of her own. She had to admit, it was a chilling thought. Those poor children. She couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like for them. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Almost in spite of herself, she cast an uneasy glance over her shoulder, feeling the echoing emptiness of the house a little too keenly.

“But it’s more than that,” Annie continued. “Whoever killed them was never caught, you know? No one was ever punished, and nobody even knows why it happened. There’s not exactly a lot of turnover in the population around here, which means that if whoever did it is still alive, there’s a good chance that person is still living here. Who wants to be reminded that their neighbor could be a murderer?”

No one, Maggie had to admit, even if she couldn’t quite say so to Annie.

Annie’s words stayed with her long after they ended the call. From the moment she’d decided to restore the house, she’d brushed off any reference to what had happened here, because she hadn’t thought it mattered, because it shouldn’t. It had been so long ago. People should have been able to get past it.

But maybe Annie was right. Maybe no one could get past it as long as there was no real resolution. No punishment. No explanation for why such a terrible thing had happened at all.

Ignoring it and hoping it would go away may have been the wrong approach. Perhaps what she needed to do was confront it head-on.

Because reasons did matter, she thought as an uncomfortable twinge struck her. They mattered a lot.

She knew that better than anybody.

AFTER leaving the house, Sam drove straight into the heart of Fremont, looking for a restaurant or a diner. It didn’t take him long to spot one. This was a small town, and the restaurant was one of only a handful of businesses on the main street, and the only eating establishment.

There were a couple of fast-food places on the outskirts of town, by the highway, that would have been both closer and cheaper, but they wouldn’t have suited his purposes. They were too bland, anonymous, places where people didn’t linger or make conversation with one another. And it wasn’t food he was interested in.

Parking in front of the restaurant, he scanned the rest of the businesses on the street before making his way inside. There was nothing particularly noteworthy that he could see. A police station. A lawyer’s office. A grocery store. Only the library grabbed his notice. It couldn’t hurt to make a visit there the first chance he got.

Stepping into the restaurant, he saw it was more of a typical small-town diner. A counter ran almost the entire length of one wall. Booths lined two other walls, with tables and chairs arranged in the middle of the room. The place was about half-full, less than he might have expected for a Sunday afternoon.

As soon as he set foot inside, he saw most of the patrons check to see who had entered. Most of the gazes lingered.

He did his best to ignore them. There was no formal host, which seemed fitting for a place like this. Instead, a waitress strode toward him from the other end of the counter as soon as she saw him, excusing herself from the customer she’d been talking to. She was a bottle blonde in her fifties, wearing the usual waitress uniform but no name tag. Probably didn’t need one in a place like this.

“Table or booth?” she asked, already reaching for a menu from the holder at the end of the counter.

“Can I get something to go?”

“Sure thing.” She placed the menu on the counter and gave it a little pat. “Just let me know what you want.”

Sam felt what seemed like every eye in the place on him as he opened the menu. The usual small-town curiosity about a stranger, or something more than that?

He did his best to act like he hadn’t noticed their interest as he scanned the menu. Maggie hadn’t told him what she wanted, saying anything was fine with her. He didn’t care much, either. Figuring he couldn’t go wrong with a couple burgers and two orders of fries, he closed the menu and raised his head to call the waitress back.

He didn’t have to bother. He looked up to find her standing halfway down the counter, watching him like everybody else. As soon as he glanced up, she was moving again, sauntering toward him. “What can I get you?”

He told her. She didn’t bother writing down the order, taking the menu and stepping to a window behind the counter, calling it out to the cook on the other side.

Sam might have liked to try striking up a conversation with the waitress, someone who most likely knew plenty of the people in this town. She didn’t come back toward him after putting in his order, even though the menu holder was at his end of the counter. Instead, she moved away to the other end, keeping the menu in her hands, as she went back to talking to the man she’d been speaking with when he entered. She leaned close. Sam didn’t miss the glances she sent in his direction.

His nominal business completed, he leaned against the counter and scanned the room with what he hoped looked like idle curiosity. Sure enough, damn near every eye in the place was fixed on him, some doing a better job of hiding it than others. He tried not to make eye contact, even as he scoped out every face for any that seemed familiar. None did at first glance. Then again, it had been a long time. There was no telling if he had a chance of truly recognizing anyone. Even if his memory could be trusted, everyone would look thirty years older.

One of the men seated alone at a booth suddenly tossed his napkin down on the table and rose. Pulling his wallet from his back pocket, he moved to the counter a couple of feet away from Sam, placing his check on the surface. “I’m ready to settle up, Gracie.”

“Sure thing, Clay.” The waitress took his check and the twenty-dollar bill he’d laid on top of it, then moved to the register a few feet away.

Sam waited. The man had gotten up and come over to stand near him for a reason.

A few seconds later, the man turned and looked at him, his eyes scanning Sam’s face with what would have been uncomfortable thoroughness if Sam was the type who was easily unnerved.

Sam stared back, keeping a neutral expression on his face. The man looked to be in his sixties, with thinning gray hair, a paunch and a pinched expression. Something in his face made Sam think he might have been a handsome man once, although his glory days were clearly far behind him.

The man nodded at Sam, the gesture not particularly friendly. “Afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” Sam returned.

“You new in town?”

“Just got in this morning.”

After a beat, the man extended his hand. “Clay Howell.”

“John Samuels,” he returned, the name coming easier this time than it had the first.

Sam could see the man turning the name over in his mind, trying to place it, and he saw when he’d failed to. “You been to Fremont before?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Passing through?”

“Actually I just got hired on a restoration project. An old house over on Maple.”

The man didn’t seem surprised, not that Sam expected him to be. He didn’t seem anything, simply nodding, his eyes never leaving Sam’s.

“You know two people were killed in that house.”

“So I hear.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

Sam tried to make it look like he was thinking about it. He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s sad, sure, but I hear it happened a long time ago.”

“Not long enough for some people.”

“Did you know them? The people who were killed?”

Clay Howell’s eyes narrowed, the first hint of outright anger appearing in the redness that darkened his cheeks. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

He’d certainly hit a nerve there. “No offense intended.”

“Best not ask questions like that if you don’t want to cause offense,” the man spat. “You won’t make too many friends around here as it is working on that house.”

“I’m not here to make friends. Just here to do a job.”

The waitress reappeared, setting the man’s change on the counter next to him. He took a single bill, leaving the rest there and motioning for her to take it. “See you later, Gracie.”

“Later, Clay,” the waitress echoed faintly.

Shooting Sam one last glare, the man moved past him toward the door.

“Your order will be right up,” the waitress told Sam be fore heading back to the other end of the counter. From the look on her face, that couldn’t happen soon enough for her.

Sam stayed where he was, leaning casually against the counter, and turned the encounter over in his mind. Interesting. Maggie was right. People around here certainly were weird when it came to that house.

If he wasn’t mistaken, asking a simple question had just earned him an enemy, his second that day if he counted the man Maggie had pissed off by hiring him.

If that was what asking one question was going to get him, then he was more than prepared for them to be just the first of many.