Читать книгу Stranger in a Small Town - Kerry Connor - Страница 12

The graves lay in a nearly forgotten section of the cemetery. Whoever had chosen their location had likely hoped for exactly that to happen, for the two people buried in the plots and what had happened to them to be forgotten. Most of the surrounding graves were much older, the stones indicating their inhabitants had died more than a century ago. But thirty years earlier, space had been made to fit two more plots into this location where they’d be easily overlooked.

Sam supposed he should be angry, but he hardly had any room to judge. This was the first time he’d been to the cemetery. He’d done as good a job of ignoring these graves as anybody, and he didn’t even have plot placement to blame for it.

Dawn had begun to break a short time ago, the thin light of morning illuminating the layer of fog that hung over the graveyard. Somehow, being able to see the fog made it more eerie than when it had been darker. He hadn’t expected to stay this long, coming just before dawn in hopes of getting in and out unspotted, not wanting to have to explain to anyone why he was here. But it had taken him a while to find the graves, searching the more recent section of the cemetery first. And once he finally located them, walking away didn’t seem so easy to do.

He wondered who’d paid for the plain stones. The flat slabs contained only the occupants’ names and the years they’d been born and died. Nothing about their lives. Nothing about their relationship to each other. Nothing about the people who’d loved them or the sadness left in the wake of their loss.

Grief, stark and heavy, welled up from the pit of his stomach, and the back of his eyes began to burn. Words he wanted to say more than anything pushed at the back of his throat, gagging him, begging to be released.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…

But whatever remained in these graves, he couldn’t fool himself that the people who’d been buried here would hear those words. Or that forgiveness would be so easily granted.

Lost in his thoughts, he heard the crunch of tires on the road behind him too late. Not that he could have done much about it. It wasn’t like he could run. Whoever it was had already seen him, seen his truck. There was no use trying to hide.

He turned and saw that a police cruiser had pulled up behind his truck. He bit back a curse. It would be hard enough trying to come up with a plausible explanation for why he was here at this time of day for a regular person. A cop would be twice as suspicious.

A single figure stepped from behind the driver’s seat and started through the fog toward him, slowly materializing in the haze. He was a big man, maybe in his early forties. As he’d done with nearly every face he’d encountered so far, Sam tried erasing thirty years from the man before him to see how he must have looked back then. Only people like Maggie Harper, whose age automatically meant they weren’t worth considering, had been exempt.

It took him a moment to make the connection. Then it hit him, recognition setting off a chain reaction of emotion inside him. Surprise. Wonder. Brief delight. Then crushing dread.

From the look on the man’s face, he had the most reason to feel the last one.

The man came close enough that Sam could really see his face clearly, a familiar face with thirty years of wear on it. “Hey, Sam,” he said, the tone and cadence the same despite coming from a voice several octaves lower.

For a second, Sam actually considered lying, before admitting there wasn’t much of a point. Doing so would only embarrass them both. “Hey, Nate.”

Nate nodded, as though he’d needed that final confirmation. “Been a long time.”

“Yes, it has.”

“Did you really think no one would recognize you?”

“So far, you’re the only one who has.”

“That you know of.”

It was a fair point. No one else had confronted him with his identity, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know. Which raised the question of why not if they had. He’d be interested to know the answer.

“I don’t think I look much like I used to, do you?”

“No, you don’t. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“So how did you?”

Nate shrugged a shoulder. “Can’t really explain it. You’re still you, that’s all.”

“I’ll just have to hope nobody else knew me as well.”

“As well as your best friend?”

“Yeah.”

Nate shook his head and sighed. “What’s going on, Sam? Or is it John? What’s with the name?”

“I figured it was better if nobody knew it was me.” The truth of his identity would lead to all kinds of uncomfortable questions he’d rather avoid. Or maybe it was the answers that were uncomfortable, each more so than the last.

“Why?” Nate demanded with the kind of insistence Sam would have expected from a cop.

Obviously nonanswers weren’t going to get him anywhere, which was why he was better off avoiding questions in the first place. “I thought people might be more willing to open up to me if they didn’t know my connection to what happened.”

Nate snorted. “You must not have been in too many small towns in the past thirty years if you thought anyone would be more willing to talk to a stranger than a native.”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“So where have you been?”

“All over the place.” And no place at all. No place that mattered.

Nate made an impatient noise. “It’s been thirty years. Why come back now? Why after all this time?”

There was one of those uncomfortable questions, with an uncomfortable answer. He swallowed hard. “I need to know the truth. It’s time.”

“Long past time, I’d say.”

“Can’t argue with you there.”

“So what took you so long?”

“I had my reasons.”

A trace of sympathy entered Nate’s eyes, the sentiment shining past the impatience, and Sam had to look away. Nate probably thought he knew what those reasons were, but even he didn’t know the true weight of the guilt Sam had carried all these years.

He buried his hands in his pockets. “Anybody else been here?” he said as casually as he could.

Nate didn’t need clarification as to whom he meant. “Nope. You’re the first.”

It wasn’t the answer he’d expected—or wanted. He’d figured most, if not all, of the others would have been back before now, at least once in thirty years. He’d hoped Nate might know something and he realized just how hungry he was for information. But none of them had come back. Because they had busy lives, or because they wanted to forget, like he had, even if they didn’t have nearly as much reason? Either way, he probably wasn’t entitled to that information, even if Nate did have it.

Sam glanced at the man’s uniform. “I don’t remember you wanting to be a cop.”

“I didn’t. Not until that night.”

Of course. He should have known. That night had affected a lot of people besides him.

“Did you ever tell anybody what happened that night?” Nate asked.

“No.”

“I looked at the file myself a few times. Not much there.”

Sam couldn’t keep his interest off his face. “Can I see it?”

“I’m pretty sure that kind of thing’s against regulations.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Nate stared at him for a long moment before lowering his gaze and nodding tersely. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” he said, meaning it more than those two words could begin to express.

“I’ll leave you alone, but you might not want to stay too long. No telling who else might show up next.”

“Thanks.”

“Good to see you, Sam.”

“You, too,” he said, swallowing hard against the sudden thickness in his throat. And it was, so much so that it surprised him. As he watched Nate move away into the fog, he tried to think of a single person he’d known in the past thirty years who’d been as close of a friend to him as this man had once been. There hadn’t been, of course. He hadn’t—couldn’t—let there be, not the same way, not when he had too many secrets to keep. They’d only been boys, but boys who went everywhere together, boys who talked about everything with each other. Nate had practically been another brother. Another brother he’d turned his back on.

And now he was a man, damn near middle-aged, the same as Sam. Nate was probably married. Probably had kids and a mortgage and a thousand other things in his life Sam knew nothing about. Strange to think how little he knew about someone he’d once known as well as himself.

“Nate.”

Almost to the car, the other man stopped, then slowly looked back.

“Are you going to tell anybody who I am? That I’m not a stranger?”

Nate didn’t answer for a moment. Sam couldn’t read his expression, but he felt Nate’s gaze wash over his face, as though searching for something.

“It’s been thirty years, Sam. I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you are.”

MAGGIE glanced at the clock on the truck’s dashboard, hop ing she’d left herself enough time to accomplish what she needed to at the library before it closed. She and John had been busy enough that she hadn’t had a chance to make the library run she’d been wanting to since her conversation with Annie yesterday. Not about to let another day pass without getting the information she wanted, she’d left John alone at the house, trusting him enough to leave him on his own for a few hours.

She’d called ahead to find out what time the library closed. From the tone of the woman on the phone, it had been a stupid question. No doubt the hours were common knowledge to the locals. The woman’s voice had seemed to convey the message that anyone who didn’t already know when the library was open wasn’t welcome to visit at any time.

After the last few weeks in Fremont, she was used to feeling unwelcome, Maggie thought. By now, the idea barely fazed her.

As she passed through the quiet streets, she took in her surroundings. Fremont wasn’t a very big town, and much of it was familiar to her. At the same time, it was odd how different the place seemed from what she remembered. She’d never felt unwelcome when she’d been here as a child. But then, she’d never really gone anywhere without one or both of her grandparents back then. Even though the townspeople may have disapproved of her grandfather’s stubborn insistence on keeping the house, he was still one of them. And as his granddaughter, she had been one of them, too.

And now she wasn’t.

It really was as simple as that. From the moment she’d made her intentions clear, people she remembered, people who clearly remembered her, had treated her far differently than they had before. Arms that had once been open were now folded shut. Backs were turned resolutely against her.

A hard lump formed in her throat. She did her best to swallow it. After everything that had happened in the past year, she’d hoped to retreat into the sheltering comfort of a place she remembered so fondly. But it appeared a person really couldn’t re-create the past.

The library was a squat one-story building toward the end of Main Street. Spotting it up ahead, Maggie pulled into a parking space in front and climbed out of her truck.

She was about to turn and head into the library when a sudden chill slid through her, raising the hair at the back of her neck. She hesitated, instantly recognizing the sensation.

She was being watched.

Without moving her head, she slowly scanned Fremont’s small downtown area. There was no one obviously in view. That just left all of the windows on the buildings lining the street. The late-afternoon sunlight shone down upon the glass, turning them into mirrors and making it impossible to see who was on the other side.

Any one of the windows could be hiding an unseen watcher.

Or all of them might be.

The sensation was so overwhelming that it was entirely too easy to believe. That every impenetrable window hid a watcher, like the entire town was staring at her, waiting for the slightest sign of weakness, wanting her to fail.

And they did. The eyes watching her weren’t just observing emotionlessly. They were angry. Hateful. She tried to convince herself she was imagining things, but couldn’t manage it. The feeling was too strong.

Pure malevolence.

Doing her best not to let her unease show, she raised her chin and squared her shoulders before slowly turning and entering the library.

Her tension didn’t ease once she was inside. A woman stood at a counter in front of the entrance. As soon as she looked up and caught sight of Maggie, her expression hardened, her frown tightening so firmly into place that it was almost impossible to believe her lips were capable of doing anything else.

It took Maggie a few seconds to recognize her. It wasn’t just the many years since Maggie had last seen her, though they were evident enough in every line and wrinkle on the woman’s face. No, it was her expression. Shelley Markham had been the librarian here when Maggie had been a child, and Maggie had never seen her look at her—or anyone else—with anything but a smile. Just another indication of Maggie’s changed status around here.

Maggie tried to force a smile of her own, something that proved a challenge to maintain the longer she met Shelley Markham’s unsmiling visage.

“Hi, Mrs. Markham. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Maggie Harper. I used to come here—”

“I remember you,” the woman cut her off, her tone making it sound as if it wasn’t a good thing.

Maggie kept her smile as unmoving as Mrs. Markham’s heavy frown. “I’m sure you’ve heard I’m renovating my grandfather’s old house on Maple. I was hoping to look up some old newspaper articles about the Ross murders.” There was no point in trying to put it more delicately.

She never would have thought it possible, but the woman’s frown actually deepened. “Didn’t that man who works for you find what you were looking for?”

Confusion made Maggie lose her grip on her smile. “I’m sorry?”

“That man working for you. He was here a few hours ago looking up stories about the murders and printing them out.”

Maggie stared at the woman blankly. A few hours ago…This had to be where John had come during his lunch break. She hadn’t asked him to bring her anything, but she’d assumed he’d gone back to the diner, or maybe one of the fast-food places on the outskirts of town.

Instead he’d been here, looking up stories about the murders.

Why?

The woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You did know he was here, didn’t you?” Her tone seemed to indicate she suspected the answer was no, and added an unspoken “you idiot” to the question.

She didn’t have to say it. Maggie felt it as keenly as if she had. The information the woman provided had ensured that. She was the one who’d hired the man. She was the reason he was in town, and now he was running around doing things she knew nothing about, giving the impression they were under her orders, or at least with her knowledge.

And she had no idea what he was up to—or why.

Another man doing God knows what behind her back.

You idiot, she heard in her head, and it definitely wasn’t Shelley Markham’s voice doing the talking.

Anger surged from her gut, and every instinct screamed for her to race to her truck and storm back to the house to ask John what the hell he was doing.

Which was exactly what she couldn’t do, of course. She wouldn’t give Shelley Markham and all the people she’d be on the phone with the moment Maggie stepped out the door the satisfaction of knowing what a fool she was.

She had enough people who knew that. Once was enough for one lifetime.

She slowly drew in a deep, silent breath. With some effort, she regained her smile. “Of course I did. As a matter of fact, he didn’t find what I was looking for, so I came to search for myself.” She chuckled, the noise sounding forced to her ears. “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, right?”

The woman simply pursed her mouth and turned away without a word, leaving Maggie to follow her to the files of microfilm and the viewing machine.

And for the next hour, Maggie forced herself to sit there under the force of Shelley Markham’s unrelenting stare, printing every single story on the murder that came up on the screen without really reading them.

When all she could think about was the man she’d invited into her life, and wonder what other secrets he was keeping from her.

MAGGIE bolted from the truck, flinging the driver’s side door behind her and stalking toward the house. Her anger hadn’t subsided in the least on the drive back. If anything, it had only grown the more time she’d had to stew over the situation.

Stomping up the front steps, she threw the door open. “John?” she called.

No response.

The front rooms were empty. Only the echo of her voice interrupted the stillness.

She heard nothing to indicate he was upstairs. Moving through the kitchen to the back door, she spotted motion in the backyard. Pushing through the door, she started to call his name again.

Then she saw him.

The word died on her tongue, every thought in her head vanishing in an instant.

He was standing in the backyard, which had been tall with grass and choked with weeds when she’d left. The lawn was freshly mown now, the scent of cut grass heavy in the air. He must have found the old lawnmower in the back shed her grandfather had used in the days he was trying to keep up with the place, tending to the yards to keep the house presentable for occupants who would never come.

But that wasn’t what grabbed her interest—and held it so tightly her eyes seemed locked into place.

John was raking the lawn clippings into a bag.

He was also bare to the waist.

Perspiration left a fine sheen over his face and torso, so he practically seemed to glisten in the late-day sunlight. The golden rays fell upon his body, illuminating every hard ridge and defined muscle, and there were certainly plenty of both. She watched helplessly, knowing her mouth had fallen open slightly and unable to do a thing about it, as he moved, the muscles shifting, tensing, with every motion.

As she’d seen even when he was fully clothed, he was lean, perhaps too much so for a man with his large build. Somehow it worked on him. The lack of bulk simply left a physique that was perfectly formed, his pecs packed and tight, his belly flat, both dusted with a thin layer of dark blond hair. There was a tattoo on his right bicep, some kind of military insignia that made her think he must have served in a branch of the armed forces. The faint line of hair trailed down from his belly button into the waistline of his pants, the worn jeans hanging dangerously, impossibly low, yet not nearly low enough, the view tempting, tantalizing her with the possibility of what remained stubbornly out of sight.

Her tongue, moving on an instinct all its own, flicked out to moisten her lips, and she suddenly realized her mouth had gone completely dry. She had no trouble understanding the cause, finally recognizing the way her heart was pounding in her chest and an ache had begun to throb low in her belly. It was something she hadn’t thought she’d feel so soon again, if ever, and hadn’t really wanted to.

Awareness. Desire.

Pure want.

Surprise jolted through her, nearly overpowering the rest. It wasn’t like she’d never seen a man’s bare chest before, or a man working without a shirt on, sweat drenching his body.

But she’d never seen this man. And somehow, in a way she couldn’t explain and wasn’t sure she wanted to, that seemed to make all the difference in the world.

Then he turned, putting his back to her.

The flash of libido was instantly forgotten, replaced by shock.

Scars, deep and thick, crisscrossed the whole of his back. These ridges were no less hard than the ones she’d admired on his front, although the heat of desire in her belly had died at the sight of them. She could barely see the muscles in his back shifting through the web of them. There was no way scars like that could have been caused by a single incident. No, they would have been inflicted over time. And the pain they must have caused… She could only recoil in horror at the idea of what must have been done to this man.

Before she could control the response, she sucked in a breath, the gasp coming out entirely too loud and painfully clear.

She clamped her mouth shut, but it was too late. The sound seemed to hang in the air, echoing endlessly in her ears.

John froze, his spine stiffening, then slowly glanced back at her. Almost immediately, he lowered his gaze. Not a flicker of emotion passed over his face, and she had no idea what he was thinking. He turned, facing her again. Embarrassment heating her cheeks, she didn’t so much as peek at that incredible view again, keeping her eyes on his face. He stepped over toward the lawn mower she now saw resting a few feet away and reached for the shirt hanging off the handle, quickly shoving his arms into it.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was rude.”

“My fault,” he replied roughly, not sounding the slightest bit as embarrassed as she was. “I kind of forget they’re even there anymore. Should have kept my shirt on anyway.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged a shoulder, not looking at her. “It was a long time ago.”

“While you were in the military?” He glanced at her. “Your tattoo,” she said.

He grunted. “Something like that.”

It wasn’t exactly an answer. The curious—okay, nosy—part of her wanted to press the point, but it really wasn’t any of her business. She’d already been rude enough as it was.

“Sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

The reminder of her early return brought back the cause of it, along with her irritation. The source of the scars wasn’t the only secret he was keeping from her, and the others certainly were her business. “I didn’t think I would, either. I was going to spend the afternoon at the library doing some research.”

She saw him pause in the act of tugging his shirt over his belly. “Find anything interesting?”

“Besides the fact that you were there over your lunch break doing the exact same thing?”

He finally looked at her, his expression still unreadable. “Is that a problem?” he asked simply, without the slightest bit of chagrin or challenge in his voice.

Hell, yes, she wanted to say. “It’s a mystery, and I have enough of those as it is.”

“Since I’ve gotten to town, I’ve gotten the cold shoulder from everybody I’ve met except for you. Either this is the most unfriendly town in the country, or everybody has a problem with me working for you on this house. I wanted to know why.”

“I told you why. People were murdered here.”

“Yeah, thirty years ago. That’s a long time for people to be bothered by it, isn’t it?”

“It’s a small town. People have long memories, especially when not much new happens to replace the past in their minds.”

He started toward her, stopping a few feet from the bottom of the steps. “Then maybe I ought to know a little bit more about it. I’m guessing that’s why you were there, too.”

She ignored the comment, not about to admit he was right. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Honestly, it didn’t seem like something you wanted to talk about.”

Okay, he had her there. “You still should have told me you were interested,” she said stubbornly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would bother you. Is there a reason you don’t want me reading up on what happened here?”

“It’s not that.” She sighed. “But as I told you—and you’ve already seen for yourself—people aren’t too happy with me and my plans for this house. The fact that you’re running around town doing things I don’t know anything about won’t exactly make me look any better in anyone’s eyes. You should have seen the way the librarian looked at me when she thought I didn’t know you’d been there.”

“If it was anything like the way she looked at me, she probably looked like she’d spent the day sucking on lemons.”

In spite of herself, Maggie had to chuckle at the accuracy of the image. “You’ve got that right.”

“Then I am sorry,” he said. “I never meant to cause you any trouble.”

The sincerity in his voice was unmistakable. Staring into his serious expression, she believed him. Regardless of the end result, he really hadn’t meant to cause her trouble. And considering how few people could say the same at the moment, she couldn’t help but be affected by the words.

Uncomfortable with the sudden, pathetic wave of gratitude that washed over her, Maggie cleared her throat. “So what did you find out?”

“Not much. I didn’t really have any time to read any of the news stories. I just printed out as many as I could and thought I’d read them tonight.”

“Is that really what you want to do with your free time?”

“What else am I going to do? It’s a small town. I don’t really know anybody else and nobody seems interested in getting to know me. What about you? Find what you were looking for?”

She fought the urge to fidget. “I, uh, made some copies of my own. I didn’t really get a chance to look at them at the library.”

The gleam that entered his eyes told her he recognized she’d planned to do the same thing she’d just tried to talk him out of. To his credit, he didn’t bring up her hypocrisy. “Okay, so why don’t we go over those stories?”

Her eyes flared in surprise. “Together?”

“Sure,” he said, as if it was the most logical thing in the world. “It’ll be getting dark soon and I figure we’ll be calling it quits for the day, right? No point in doing it separately if we’re going to be doing the same thing. Besides, maybe one of us found something the other didn’t.”

He was right, of course. If they planned to spend the evening doing the same thing, there was no reason not to do it together.