Still Lake (15 page)

“That's going to make research a little tough,” Doc said wryly. “We've got a lot of Smiths in town.”

Griffin shrugged. “It's not important. Just something I thought I'd look into while I'm here.” He glanced back at the grave. “What happened to her? She was awfully young to have died. Car accident?”

“She was murdered,” Doc said, not hiding the pain in his voice. “She and two of her friends. I'm surprised you haven't heard of the Colby murders since you've been here. People still talk about them.”

“I haven't been socializing much.”

“Just Sophie,” Doc said.

Griffin hid his reaction with admirable control. He shrugged. “Can you blame me? She's available, she's pretty, and I'm bored. A little fling will do us both good. She's too straight-laced. She needs to loosen up a little.”

“I don't think she needs a stranger coming into
her life, disrupting it, and then leaving,” Doc said. “I'm assuming your intentions aren't particularly honorable?”

Griffin laughed. “Hardly. What are you, her guardian?”

“Just a friend,” Doc said, his disapproval tempered with understanding. “She's a wonderful young woman, hardworking, decent, responsible. I don't want her to throw it all away.”

“Sleeping with me doesn't constitute throwing a responsible life down the drain. Life hurts,” Griffin said. “At least she's doing better than that poor soul.” He nodded at Alice's grave.

“Is that where Sophie was last night? With you?”

For a moment Griffin wondered whether Doc, with his stately, old-fashioned manners, was going to challenge him to a duel, or at the very least horsewhip him. “What makes you think she spent the night with anyone?” he hedged.

“Marty was worried about her. She said Sophie called her from your place, and then didn't come home for hours.” Doc hesitated. “I don't want to see her hurt.”

“I think if you want to know about who Sophie's having sex with, you better ask her yourself,” Griffin said.

Doc looked at him. “I don't need to do that, do I?”

Griffin shrugged. He never considered himself a
particularly decent man, but Doc was making him uncomfortable with his questions. He changed the subject. “Those yellow flowers are pretty. Ever seen them before?”

Doc didn't bother trying to pursue the subject of Sophie. “They're not very common around here,” he said dismissively. “You don't strike me as someone who's interested in gardening, Mr. Smith. Any more than you seem the type to care about genealogy. Why don't you tell me why you're really here.”

“Why does everyone think I have an ulterior motive?” Griffin said. “I'm here on vacation, nothing else.”

“Then leave Sophie alone,” Doc said.

There was something in his voice that made Griffin jerk his head away from his contemplation of Alice's grave. “Is that a warning?” he asked in a calm voice.

For a moment Doc's eyes met his. And then he simply shook his head. “Only a request. She's got a tough row to hoe, with her mother and sister and trying to make a go of the inn. She doesn't need complications. I'm sure you don't, either.”

“You're right about that,” Griffin said easily. “At heart I'm a simple man.”

“Oh, I don't think so, Mr. Smith. I don't think so at all.”

They walked down the hill to the road in a com
panionable-enough silence. Doc had issued his warning like a protective father, and Griffin had received the message. Whether or not he had any intention of listening was another matter entirely.

He'd have to come back. Doc was already getting too suspicious, and if he figured out who Griffin was it might very well put an end to any answers he might find. Hell, he might even end up at the wrong end of that lynch mob he'd avoided twenty years ago, if the good citizens of Colby were really convinced he'd gotten away with murder.

So he walked back to his car with Doc by his side. Keeping his secrets.

 

“I think my sister had sex last night.”

Patrick looked up from the chain saw he was sharpening. “And I care because…?”

“I don't know if she's ever had sex before,” Marty said, swinging her long legs. She had nice legs, she knew, and she wanted to make sure Patrick knew it, too.

So far he'd seemed remarkably unimpressed, but then, she was trying to get used to his laconic Vermont ways. She couldn't figure out whether he was interested or not. Her instincts told her yes, his behavior made it more murky.

Patrick said nothing, concentrating on the chain saw. “Even if she has,” Marty went on, “I doubt she's as experienced as I am.”

He didn't bother to look up. “That's something to brag about?”

“Sure,” she said, nonplussed. “I've had lots of boyfriends. I don't even remember how many lovers I've had.” Which wasn't strictly true. There had only been Jeff, who'd been fast and messy and rough, and Nate, who really didn't care who he stuck it into. Sooner or later she'd find the kind of lover she deserved. Looking at the care Patrick was giving to the stupid chain saw, she suspected he was a good candidate.

He was certainly gorgeous enough. All lean muscle, tanned skin, big, strong hands. So gorgeous, in fact, that he probably already had a girlfriend. Not necessarily a problem—she'd stolen Jeff from her best friend, Sally, only to find it wasn't worth it. This time she wouldn't be betraying anyone she knew.

Patrick grunted, unimpressed. “Don't you like sex?” she persisted, swinging her long legs. She was sitting on the stone fence beside the chain saw, but he seemed more interested in filing the damned thing than in talking to her.

He looked up. “I like sex well enough,” he said evenly. “If I care about someone. If I don't, I can do without it.”

“So how many lovers have you had?” she persisted. For a second she thought he wasn't going to answer, but eventually he spoke.

“Just my girlfriend, Abby,” he said.

Damn. “What is she? A childhood sweetheart? You going to marry her when you graduate from college?”

“She died.”

That shut her up, at least for a moment. It was hard to compete with a dead girl. On the other hand, she was here and the girlfriend was gone. Advantage, Marty.

First, though, she'd better figure out how strong her dead competition was. “How'd she die? Unless you'd rather not talk about it.”

“I don't mind talking about it,” he said evenly. “She died in a car accident three years ago.”

“Were you driving?”

He shot her a sharp glance. “No. She was with someone else.”

“Another boy?”

“Yes.” He shrugged. “We were breaking up. She was going to California to college, I was going to UVM. She wanted to get away from here, I wanted to stay. She got away for good.”

A stray shiver crossed Marty's exposed spine. There were too many dead girls in Colby, that was for sure. And she didn't want to talk about death anymore—sex was a lot more interesting.

“How old are you?” she asked lazily.

“Twenty.”

“I'm nineteen.”

“You're seventeen,” he corrected her. “Too young to be having sex.”

“Eighteen in three weeks,” she shot back. “How old were you when you started having sex with your lost true love?”

He looked at her, and she was suddenly ashamed of her flippancy. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn't mean it the way it sounded.”

He nodded, accepting her apology. It might have been a full five minutes before he spoke. “We were in love. I'm not interested in sleeping with someone I don't care about.”

“Then I guess I'm wasting my time here,” she said, sliding off the fence.

He set the file down on the fence by the chain saw. “Is that what you're looking for?” he asked in his grave, calm voice.

“Isn't everyone? Oh, except you with your high standards,” she mocked. “I just want someone to…” The words trailed away.

“Want someone to what? Treat you like a whore? Screw you silly and then dump you? I don't think so, Marthe.”

“Then what do I want?”

“Someone to love you.”

For some crazy reason she wanted to cry. “So?” she said, defiant. “I told you I was wasting my time here.”

“Not necessarily.” He said it so quietly she wasn't sure she heard right.

She stood there, feeling oddly vulnerable, not sure what to say. “I'd better go find Sophie. See if she needs anything,” she said finally.

“Yeah, maybe you'd better,” he said, picking up the chain saw with a practiced grace. It was heavy, and he handled it as if it weighed no more than a few pounds.

He couldn't touch her if he was holding the chain saw, and she wasn't sure anymore she was ready to have him touch her. Wasn't sure if she was ready to have anyone love her, particularly a somber, beautiful creature like Patrick.

“I'd better go,” she said again, not moving.

A slow smile spread across his face. “If I'd known that would scare you away I would have tried it a lot sooner.”

“I'm not scared.”

“Yup, you are,” he said confidently. “You think about it, Marthe Davis. I'm not someone you can come and play with when you're bored. I make commitments, and I stick to them. If you want casual sex you'll have to look somewhere else.” And he walked off before she could come up with a suitable answer.

The best she could manage was to stick her tongue out at him, but since he was walking away he didn't get the benefit of the gesture. She had no
choice but to head back to the house and her strangely unsettled sister. Maybe she could get rid of some of her restlessness by baiting Sophie. But for some reason she wasn't really in the mood.

Maybe she'd find something to do. There were three bedrooms left to be painted, and while she hated to seem compliant, activity was better than boredom. And then maybe she'd find out exactly what her straight-laced sister had been doing in the middle of the night with that mysterious stranger.

 

Sophie was not in a good mood. They were all watching her, and it was driving her absolutely crazy. By the time they'd finished dinner she was ready to bite everyone's head off. She resisted the impulse. Grace would dissolve into tears, Marty would jump into the fray with an energetic belligerence, and things would go from awful to god-awful in seconds.

She finally couldn't take it anymore, and once dinner was finished she walked out of the house into the warm night air. They'd either do the dishes or not—she wasn't going to worry about it. As a matter of fact, Marty had been surprisingly industrious today, putting a primer coat on the three back bedrooms. Her black-and-fuchsia hair now had a streak or two of white from the paint, but the effect was impish rather than bizarre. And for all Doc's worries, Grace seemed uncharacteristically peaceful,
even calling out after Sophie as she stomped from the kitchen.

“Have fun, love. Make him use a condom.”

It wasn't enough to make her turn back. She repressed the urge to snarl, continuing out into the gathering dusk. She wasn't going anywhere near the Whitten place, anywhere near John Smith. She was going to get in the car and drive, maybe even as far as Montpelier and find a movie. Hell, she could even go to a bar and see if she could pick up some sexy young bureaucrat. Maybe it would turn out that she just liked sex, and John Smith happened to be the first to demonstrate it. Maybe he was only adequate.

And maybe pigs could fly. It didn't matter—she was getting out of here, all by herself, for a few hours. She'd play the stereo in her car very loud, something upbeat and cheerful like the Beach Boys, and she wouldn't think about Grace, or Marty, or murdered women, or sex, or how strangers were going to come and take over her house. She wouldn't think about going upstairs to that big rumpled bed in the Whitten house and just hiding there. With him.

And most of all, she wouldn't think about the damned tingle in her body that had haunted her the whole goddamned day.

Shit.

H
e followed her. The rain had begun again, no more than a fine misting that coated his windshield. The roads were wet, even a bit slick. It would be simple enough. She was an out-of-stater, not used to the peculiarities of Vermont roads. It wouldn't surprise anyone if she had an accident. After all, she'd been working too hard, worrying about her mother and sister. She'd been distracted. Could happen to anyone.

He hated to do it. He was starting to repeat himself, and he knew that was dangerous. As long as he used a different method each time the police were helpless. Most of the time they didn't even realize there was anything suspicious about it. Just another tragic accident.

But he'd already done a car accident, just three years ago, in the same area. The victim had been a teenage wanton, and she'd died with her lover. This time it would be a presumably virtuous newcomer, old enough to know better. There'd be nothing to connect the two. Only the fact that he knew them both. But then, everyone in Colby knew everyone
else—there was nothing suspicious about that. God spoke to him, told him what he must do. And if he was directed toward a stranger, he had no choice but to listen to the Word and act accordingly. Faith was a lost virtue. He took the Word on faith, and dispensed justice and God's wrath without compunction.

As he would tonight, with Sophie Davis.

He kept his distance in the rain, a set of anonymous headlights in the murky darkness. She was driving a little faster than usual—he couldn't blame her. She was running from her wickedness, from her lost soul. She was a good girl—he'd known that when he'd first seen her from a distance. But even virtuous women could fall.

She was heading out toward Route 16, and he nodded to himself. It was a sign. Route 16 between Colby and Hampstead was usually deserted, and there were sharp curves, a steep drop-off, and a deep pond near the road. There was even Dutchman's Falls. He could choose any of those places.

He reached over and pushed the tape into the player mounted in the dashboard of the old truck. He'd put different labels on the tapes, and no one would ever search through his belongings, play one of his tapes. None of them would ever know that he listened to whores, singing their siren songs in his ear as he sought to do justice.

It was Madonna tonight, particularly fitting since
he'd thought Sophie Davis was a good woman. The bitch was singing about prayer, and his hands clenched the steering wheel tightly.

He didn't want to run her off the road. His distress and disillusionment was so deep he wanted to use his hands, so that she'd know why she was dying. He didn't want it fast and anonymous. She needed to know why, so she could repent.

The curve by Dutchman's Falls would be the spot. The road fell away sharply there, and her Subaru would tumble end over end, crushing her. It was steep enough that nothing would slow the car's descent, and he could drive back to Colby, secure that he had done his duty.

He passed her on the flat stretch, driving fast so she wouldn't recognize the truck. Not that she knew his truck, of course. But he hadn't survived for so long doing God's work without paying attention to details. He'd considered borrowing a vehicle, even stealing one to keep attention away from his old Ford, but decided that was even more dangerous. No, he was safer using his own truck, taking only a slight chance someone had seen him.

He pulled into the picnic spot that overlooked Dutchman's Falls and flicked off the lights. When she approached the turn he'd pull out, fast, bright lights on full, and she'd jerk the wheel out of the way and go over that cliff with a crash of shrieking metal. And he'd pray for her immortal soul.

It was possible she was a good enough driver to miss him, to keep control of the car, to drive around him. He hoped it wouldn't come to that. He didn't want to chase her through the darkness. Didn't want to terrify her—she'd been a good woman most of her life. Surely God wouldn't want him to frighten her too badly.

But her sin was all the greater, because she knew right from wrong. She'd kept herself pure, and then given herself away to a stranger. A stranger who wanted to hurt him.

Over the years many men had sought him, trying to stop the Lord's work, but none of them had ever guessed the truth until it was too late.

She'd surrendered her purity to such a creature. He knew it without anyone telling him. He watched, he observed, he knew things. He knew how to add two and two. And he knew how to subtract. Take one Davis woman out of the picture. Then the others would follow.

The lights of the Subaru appeared on the horizon. She was still driving fast, though not as fast as he would have liked. The teenagers had been easy—they were speeding, enmeshed in each other, barely paying attention to the road. The autopsy showed they'd both been drinking.

But even upset, Sophie drove with relative care. Making his job all the harder.

He hadn't asked for the easy way. He'd been cho
sen for this holy work, and he wouldn't flinch from his responsibility.

The car rounded the sharp corner by the falls, and he flicked his lights on high beam and stomped on the gas pedal, heading straight at her.

He was coming down the road in her lane. The only way for her to avoid him was to move to the left lane, and then he'd simply move farther over, so that she found herself flying over the edge of the cliff. The engine of the old Ford roared, like a charging beast, and she swerved to the left, exactly as he'd planned.

He moved closer to her, blocking her escape. She had no choice but try to ditch it on the side of the road that overlooked Dutchman's Falls, and he knew how soft the shoulder was. It wouldn't take much to crumble beneath the weight of the car. It would take a miracle to save her, and there were no miracles for sinners like her.

The bright lights illuminated the interior of the Subaru, blinding her. He watched her, fascinated, as he bore down on her. The confusion and terror in her eyes. The tears that stained her face.

Tears? Remorse? Was it possible that this time he'd been wrong? That she'd repented of her sin? It was too late, though. The front fender of his truck clipped the side of her Subaru, and she went spinning toward the cliff, the lighter car completely out of control on the rain-slick highway.

He didn't hesitate, didn't slow down. He simply sped off into the darkness, Madonna singing about getting down on her knees in prayer, and he knew he'd done what he had to do.

 

It happened so fast Sophie didn't have time to think. Blinded by the headlights, she could only sense the huge vehicle coming straight at her. The crunch of metal, and she was spinning crazily, desperately trying to control the steering wheel as the car bounced off the road.

She slammed on the brakes, and the car kept skidding in the darkness, over rough ground, until it came to an abrupt stop.

She didn't know how long she sat there, numb with shock. She'd had her seat belt on, of course, but she'd still managed to hit her head on something, and she thought she was bleeding. With numb fingers she unfastened the seat belt. The car had stalled out, but the lights were spearing out into the darkness, into nothingness, and the rain was coming down in a steady mist.

Whoever had nearly run her off the road was long gone. It had to have been a drunk driver—the Northeast Kingdom seemed to have more than its share of DUIs. He probably didn't know he'd almost killed her.

She fumbled with the door and pushed it open. She swung her foot out, and felt nothing.

She scrambled back into the car in a panic, and it rocked beneath her. She was an organized woman—she kept a flashlight in the glove box. She found it and shone it out the door. And then dropped it into the cavern below.

It was a long time before she heard it hit. She could now identify that rushing sound. She had had the sheer, incredible bad luck to have come across the drunk driver right near Dutchman's Falls. Another inch or so and she would have gone over the precipice.

She leaned back in the seat, clutching the seat belt, taking deep, steadying breaths. She wasn't safe yet. At least one tire was hanging over the edge, and the car rocked beneath her movements, but it still felt basically secure. She climbed over the gear shift, careful to keep her moves smooth and minimal, and pushed at the passenger door. It wouldn't open more than a crack—the right side of the car was pushed up against a tree.

She got back into the driver's seat, cursing. The rain was still coming down, heavier now. Clearly she wasn't getting out of the car where it was. The only option was to move the car.

She turned it on again, and it started so smoothly she almost cried with relief. She put the gear into Reverse and stepped on the gas.

Nothing of course. Just the hopeless spin of wheels, as the car rocked with dangerous enthusi
asm. She let off on the gas, nervously running a hand through her hair. She didn't bother carrying a cell phone—coverage was too sporadic up in the hills of northern Vermont to make it useful. One of the concessions she'd had to make when she moved up here, that and buy a four-wheel-drive vehicle…

She stared down at the gear shift. She'd never tried the four-wheel-drive except when she'd bought the used car, but it was fairly simple to shift. She pushed the button on the gear shift, watching the letters light up—4 WD. Lovely letters.

She put the car in Reverse again, putting just the slightest pressure on the gas pedal. For a moment it edged backward, then the tires began to spin and the car slid forward again.

Sophie squeezed her eyes closed, prepared to go over the cliff, but the car shuddered to a stop, and she opened them, letting her breath out. Then she shoved the gear shift into Low and stomped her foot on the gas pedal.

To her astonishment it moved backward, in a spray of mud and dirt and gravel, so fast that she barely had time to slam on the brakes before ending up against another tree.

The car stalled out again, but at that point Sophie didn't care. She was sitting in the middle of Route 16, just outside of Hampstead, and she'd managed to do a 180, facing back home. It was the right di
rection—she wanted to go straight back to Colby as fast as she dared to drive.

She turned the key and for a moment the engine spluttered and died. “No!” Sophie whimpered. Route 16 was habitually deserted at this hour, but that didn't mean someone couldn't come out of nowhere and slam into her stalled car. The drunk driver had done just that.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, please, please!” The engine caught, and she shoved the gear into First, skidding as she raced down the empty road.

Her face was wet, and she couldn't figure out why when she hadn't been able to get out of the car into the rain. She put her hand to her head, then glanced at it. She was dripping blood, down her face, into her lap.

As a matter of fact, her head hurt like hell, she realized belatedly. She wasn't quite sure how she'd managed to hit it while wearing her seat belt, but the fact was, blood was trickling down the side of her face.

She couldn't show up back at the house looking like something out of a horror movie, but she wasn't about to drive to St. Johnsbury or Newport to go to an emergency room. Maybe Doc would still be awake when she drove through town—he could be counted on to patch her up so that Grace wouldn't
have a heart attack if she happened to be up and wandering.

She should probably go to the police to report the incident, but what good would it do? She hadn't been able to see the other car—her main impression was that it was huge. It might have been a van or a truck.

And it wasn't the kind of publicity she was looking for. Stonegate Farm was a brand-new business—the wrong kind of newspaper coverage and people would start canceling their reservations.

She drove with particular care, back down the long, empty stretch of highway that led to Colby. She was usually organized enough to keep tissues in the car, but Marty had been having allergy problems recently and she'd snitched them. Sophie tried to dab at the flowing blood with the hem of her skirt, but it didn't seem to be making much of a difference. At least it wasn't going into her eyes.

It was after ten when she drove back through the tiny town of Colby, past the quiet town green and up the street to the lake road. Doc's house was dark and closed up, only a faint light coming from one of the upstairs windows. He'd get up and help her, she knew, but at that moment it seemed too much to ask. She kept the Subaru pointed straight, her hands gripped tightly to the steering wheel.

She almost made it home. The aftermath of her near miss began to take effect just as she was turning
toward the north-end road, and she realized she was trembling all over. Too much in twenty-four hours, she thought with a trace of hysteria. It was bad enough having sex with a stranger. Almost getting killed was carrying things a little too far.

The rain was coming down at a steady pace, and the road around the lake was more mud than dirt, slick and deceptive. She was driving too fast in her need to get home. She misjudged the turn, missed the corner, and ended up sliding off the road, tilted sideways in a ditch that no four-wheel-drive would get her out of.

Sophie considered herself a tough, unsentimental person. But she burst into tears, loud, noisy sobs, and put her bloody head down on the steering wheel, indulging herself.