“When’s the last time you had somebody who cared about you?”

She asked gently, even as she was painfully afraid she knew the answer.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need anybody.”

“I don’t believe you. And it’s too bad, because you have me.”

His eyes tracked over her face, lingering at her mouth, his own working slightly. She knew what was about to happen. And this time she didn’t step away.

Stranger in a Small Town
Kerry Connor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my grandfather

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A lifelong mystery reader, Kerry Connor first discovered romantic suspense by reading Harlequin Intrigue books and is thrilled to be writing for the line. Kerry lives and writes in New York.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Maggie Harper —Her determination to restore an infamous old house puts her at odds with an entire town—and a killer who would do anything to stop her.

John Samuels —The stranger in town offers Maggie his help—but not the truth about his identity or his motives.

Greg and Emily Ross —Their murders continue to cast a long shadow over the town where they lived—and died.

Annie Madsen —Maggie’s closest friend in town. Even she disapproves of Maggie’s plans for the house.

Irene Graham —Annie’s mother is full of answers. Are they the ones Maggie is looking for?

Dalton Sterling —The builder wants Maggie’s house. How far will he go to get it?

Clay Howell —He doesn’t like people who ask questions about the Rosses.

Janet Howell —A woman who seems to be keeping secrets. Her own or someone else’s?

Paul Winslow —A man whose temper hasn’t calmed in thirty years.

Teri Winslow —The babysitter was close to the Rosses. Does she possess information that could lead Maggie to the truth?

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Prologue

In the dark of night, the house appeared no different from the others on the street. The lack of lights masked its details, making it nothing more than another shapeless silhouette on the block. The trees bracketing the property provided concealing shadows that hid the rest of the lot from view.

It was only when the clouds briefly parted, allowing the pale moonlight to shine down upon it, that it became clear just how different this house was. Several of its windows had cardboard covering jagged, gaping holes in the glass. The roof sagged in more than one place, as did the railing on the wide front porch. Its front lawn was patchy and choked with weeds. Without the sheltering darkness, it was obvious that unlike every other house on this quiet residential street, this one hadn’t been occupied for some time.

Nearly thirty years now. Ever since the murders.

No one wanted to live in a place where two people had been brutally killed. Few even wanted to look at it, preferring to ignore its existence entirely, as though it would be so easy to forget what had happened within its walls.

For others, such blissful ignorance wasn’t possible.

Standing in the shadows on the other side of the street, a lone figure stared at the structure and imagined what it would be like to watch the house burn to the ground.

It wouldn’t take much. Perhaps only a single match. A flick of the wrist to create the flame and another to toss it into the building. Then it would be done. A house that old, that decaying, would likely go up in an instant and burn just as quickly. It would happen so fast no one would be able to stop it. Not the neighbors who did their best to ignore the house’s existence and had no interest in seeing it remain standing. Not the volunteer firefighters who would take their time coming to a vacant house no one cared about. Not even the woman currently sleeping inside, the woman whose stubborn, ridiculous insistence on trying to restore the house had brought back so many painful memories.

It should have been done years ago. Only the fear of being caught, of returning to the scene of the crime, had prevented it.

But now, no matter how fierce the need to avoid it, it was impossible not to return. Night after night. A compulsion that would remain as long as the house stood, as long as there was somewhere to return to.

No. Determination surged, hard and desperate and unrelenting. It had to end.

The woman had proven difficult to scare off so far. That would change. No matter what it took.

The woman had to be stopped. The house had to be destroyed.

Only then would it be possible to forget exactly what had happened here.

And why.

Chapter One

2:00 a.m.

Maggie didn’t have to check her watch to know what time it was. She’d felt every minute ticking away from the moment she’d crawled into the sleeping bag and settled in for the night.

Staring into the darkness, she waited. Not for sleep.

For trouble.

She didn’t know what form it would arrive in. The shattering of glass. A beam of light piercing the dark. A floorboard creaking from the weight of a foot that shouldn’t be there.

So she waited. For one of them. For all of them. For the trouble she knew deep in her bones would be coming eventually. It was the entire reason she was here, on the living-room floor of this decrepit old house, when she could be in an actual bed in more comfortable surroundings. To catch the vandal responsible for the damage the house had suffered the past two weeks.

The silence echoed around her. The wind knocked at the windows, rattling the glass or whistling through holes in the tape holding the cardboard in place over the broken ones.

Another minute ticked by. Then another.

The moments that passed without incident provided no relief. Her tension grew the longer she waited, her certainty rising.

It was possible that her presence had scared off whoever was responsible for the damage. The broken windows. The cut electrical line. Anyone who saw her truck parked out front would know she was here right now, waiting for them, ready to catch them. Could driving them away really be that simple?

She’d like to think so. But she didn’t. The town’s obsession with the house and what had happened here was even creepier than the event itself. She’d endured too many comments, too many pointed glances, over the past few weeks to think they’d be so easily dissuaded. They wanted her to give up, they wanted her out of the house. If anything, they might like the idea of acting when she was here, causing havoc under her very nose.

Not tonight. Not on my watch.

Maggie clenched her fists tightly and listened even closer, determined not to miss the telltale noise when it came.

She heard nothing. Only the whistle of the wind and the empty, endless silence echoing around her.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t someone out there. But if there was, the person was managing to move with the utmost stealth, not making a single revealing sound.

Like a killer had once done, stalking the halls in the middle of the night to claim two victims.

And like them, she wouldn’t even know anybody was here until it was too late.

A burst of emotion made her lurch upright, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest. She threw the top of the sleeping bag aside and climbed to her feet, eyes scanning every inch of the darkness, unable to sit still any longer as the feeling hammered through her veins.

She wanted to believe it was annoyance. It felt too much like fear.

“Damn it,” she muttered, quickly sucking in a breath. She was letting the townspeople’s comments get to her, and that was the last thing she could do. Someone had to be sane in this town.

The Murder House. Nobody wants it to stay standing. Ought to just tear it down.

“The hell I will,” Maggie grumbled.

Her breathing continued to come in rapid, shallow gasps. Trying to calm her racing heart, she moved to the front window and peered out.

Not that she could see much. It was a cloudy September night, with the moon barely making an appearance. There was no house directly opposite, though there was a streetlamp, one which should be illuminating both this stretch of road and the house. When she first arrived in town, she’d discovered the bulb had been broken, the only one on the street that was. Despite her best efforts to have the town replace it, nothing had been done. As much as it irritated her, she suspected they were right not to waste their time. She would bet anything the light had been broken deliberately, much like the front porch light she’d replaced herself last week had been busted. Twice.

Nobody in Fremont, Pennsylvania, wanted to look at the Murder House, any more than they wanted to see it restored.

Well, that’s just too bad, she thought.

She was about to move away from the window when something grabbed her attention out of the corner of her vision. Something barely visible. Something that most definitely should not be there.

Or someone.

She froze, her gaze pinned in the darkness across the street. Her tension returned in a burst as she tried to absorb the sudden certainty of what she’d seen.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Someone was out there.

As soon as she thought it, she felt a flicker of doubt, as the figure she thought she’d seen disappeared from view. It may have been the shifting light, the clouds moving to cover the moon and blocking its glow. She narrowed her gaze and peered closer into the darkness on the other side of the street, trying to convince herself it hadn’t simply been a trick of the light.

Gradually, she thought she spotted the faint silhouette. The figure was so hazy and indistinct it barely seemed to be there. Almost like a—

A chill rolled slowly down her spine, like a cold finger being dragged along her bare skin.

Almost like a ghost.

She immediately shook off the idea, annoyed by the thought. She was letting the townspeople’s ghoulish obsession with the house get to her.

The house might have many problems. No one ever claimed being haunted was one of them.

No, the person out there was real. Which raised the question of why someone would be standing outside in the middle of the night, staring at the house.

Several explanations came to mind, none of them good. Was he planning something, the trouble she’d been expecting all night? Or did he know she was watching, and this was some new intimidation tactic to drive her out of here and convince her to sell so they could tear down the house, the way they wanted to?

Her annoyance exploded into full-blown anger, shock waves of fury surging from the pit of her belly to every inch of her body. She’d had enough. Whatever they were planning, she wasn’t going to wait for them to start to put an end to it.

Before she could even think about it, she grabbed the wooden baseball bat she’d found abandoned in one of the upstairs rooms and threw the door open.

She’d barely set one foot outside when she yelled out. “Hey!”

She almost expected her sudden appearance to be enough to scare him off, sending him running off into the night. Instead, the person didn’t move at all as she pounded down the steps and stalked across the lawn toward the street. As she came closer, she spotted the outline of a vehicle behind him. A pickup truck. The figure was standing in front of the driver’s side door.

She was halfway to him before it hit her just how foolish she was being. She might have a baseball bat, but he could have a gun for all she knew. He might not even be alone. It could be an ambush.

She felt a flicker of relief when he didn’t reach for a weapon. He didn’t react at all, simply watching her approach, as if she wasn’t waving a bat and yelling at him.

And then they were mere feet apart. She had to force herself to slow to avoid slamming right into him, skidding to a halt far less gracefully than she would have liked. He was at least a half foot taller than she was, and she had to crane her head to look into his face. Or at least where she assumed his face must be. It was so dark she couldn’t make out his features. She only knew he was big, his silhouette that of a large, muscular man.

She wasn’t exactly tiny, but she also knew enough to be wary of a man—a stranger—his size. She braced her hands on the bat, ready to swing at the slightest indication of an attack.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

He took his time answering. From the tilt of his head, he was staring down at her in the dark. She wondered if he could make out her features any more clearly than she could his. In case he could, she hardened her expression, not about to let him think she was the least bit scared or intimidated. She tried to ignore the way her heart was jackhammering in her chest.

“Nothing,” he said, his voice low and deep and annoyingly unconcerned. “Is that a crime?”

“It is if that nothing turns into something. Like breaking a few windows?”

Again he said nothing for a long moment. “I’m guessing you’ve had some trouble around here.”

“And I bet you don’t know anything about that.”

“Only what you just told me.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

After a beat, this time he did reach into his jacket. She automatically tightened her grip on the bat, ready to strike if she saw even a hint of a weapon. Would she even be able to in the dark? Or would she only see when it was too late?

It was the sound—paper crinkling—that told her what he was pulling out rather than the sight of it in his hand. “I came about this ad.”

She didn’t have to ask what ad he meant. There was only one he could mean, especially given the size of the paper she could barely make out. It was the flyer she’d placed around town, advertising for someone to help her work on the house. When she hadn’t received any responses, she’d gone farther out, posting it at the gas stations on the roads into town and the truck stop even farther. It hadn’t helped. Despite the lack of jobs in the area that should have left her with plenty of takers, she’d had none. The house’s reputation was too well-known. As she’d learned from her first day in town, no one wanted this house restored but her.

She gaped at him in disbelief. “You came here in the middle of the night to apply for a job?”

“I came here in the middle of the night because that’s when I got into town,” he said as though it were the most logical thing in the world. “It didn’t seem worth trying to get a motel room for what’s left of the night, so I figured I’d camp out in the truck until morning. It’s not the first time.”

It was the kind of thing some people might have judged him for, the idea that he’d slept in his truck in the past. Some might wonder if he were homeless. Maggie had worked in the restoration business too long, worked with too many guys who were just passing through, to find it unusual.

“Where’d you get the flyer?”

“The truck stop,” he said. “I wasn’t planning on stopping, but I could use the work and it seemed like as good an opportunity as any. Thought I might as well check it out.”

On the surface, his words made sense. Given the circumstances, not to mention everything she’d put up with the past several weeks, she couldn’t entirely brush away her wariness. “What exactly is your background? Have you worked construction before?”

“Yep. Done a little bit of everything. Whatever paid the bills.”

The words were plain-spoken, his tone even. If he was a liar, he was a good one. She just couldn’t figure out why he would be lying, why he would be there with that flyer at this time of night for any reason but the one he’d stated.

She wished again that she could see his face. Just a glimpse. The moon offered no help, remaining stubbornly hidden behind the clouds. He was little more than a dark shadow looming over her.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“John,” he said. “John…Samuels.”

He’d answered slowly again, taking his time before providing his first name. If she hadn’t been listening closely, she might have missed the slight beat before he offered his last, as well.

That slight hesitation, so brief she might have imagined it, made her hold on to the last bit of wariness she’d been about to relinquish. Why the pause? Because that wasn’t really his name? Or was she simply imagining what she thought she’d heard, her instincts so on edge because of everything that had happened lately she was reading things that weren’t there?

Whatever the case, she wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to be interviewing a job applicant. It was two in the morning and she was standing in the dark in nothing but a T-shirt and sweatpants, talking to a complete stranger whose face she couldn’t even see.

The man might be trouble, but not the immediate kind. She could wait to deal with him in the morning.

“Well, John Samuels,” she said. “As you can imagine I wasn’t expecting any job applicants right now. We can talk about it in the morning. That is, if I haven’t scared you off the idea of working for me.”

“I don’t scare that easily.”

That was reassuring. Given the number of people who’d probably try to warn him off if he took the job, it was a good quality to have.

“Okay, then,” she said. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

There was a flash of motion that might have been him nodding. “Sounds good.”

Maggie slowly backed away, not quite ready to let down her guard. Only when she was on the other side of the street did she finally turn. She marched back to the house, glancing over her shoulder at him every few steps. He never moved her entire way there. She could feel his eyes on her, hot and unrelenting.

Finally reaching the house, she hurried up the steps and rushed inside. She closed the door behind herself and locked it, then sagged against it. She drew in a breath, once again trying to slow her suddenly racing heart.

That had certainly been odd.

Considering the circumstances, she wouldn’t blame the man if he was nowhere to be found when morning came. Despite his words, she had to believe anyone would have second thoughts about working for someone who introduced herself by coming at him with a baseball bat. A reluctant chuckle worked its way from her lungs. And after all the trouble he’d gone to to find the place at this time of night—

The laugh died in her throat. Only then did it occur to her that the address hadn’t been listed on the flyer. At this time of night, nothing would have been open in town, so no one would have been around to give him directions.

So how had he known how to find the house?

The thought drove her back to the window.

He was nowhere in sight. There was nothing there.

It was like he’d never been there at all.

She scanned the darkness frantically, her heart in her throat, the notion that she’d somehow imagined the encounter leaping to mind.

Then she spotted it. The silhouette of his truck, barely visible but unmistakably there.

She slowly relaxed, her shoulders slumping, even if the emotion coursing through her couldn’t quite be described as relief. Instead, her wariness was back, tugging insistently deep within her.

She stared at the truck’s faint outline, almost tempted to go out there and confront him. Embarrassment held her in place. She’d already made a fool of herself once tonight by asking a question he’d had a reasonable enough answer for. She didn’t really feel like risking having the same thing happen again.

Whatever the answer was, it could wait until morning. She could find out then.

And she would, she thought resolutely, turning away from the window to scan the darkness of the house. She’d dealt with enough nonsense when it came to this house.

Whether it came from the man outside or any number of vandals, she wasn’t going to put up with any more.

SAM watched the woman make her way back to the house. Every few steps she’d stop and he sensed her glancing back at him, but he couldn’t see her face any more than he suspected she could see his. A minute later, she finally reached the house and slipped inside.

For what seemed like the first time since she’d come tearing out of the building, yelling and brandishing a bat, he took a breath.

It hadn’t exactly been how he’d wanted his first meeting with his intended boss to go. He’d have to work hard to make a better impression in the morning. He needed this job. It was too perfect for his purposes. In a town this small, there was little reason for a stranger to show up for no reason and stick around.

And he wasn’t going anywhere.

Pulling open the door of the truck, he climbed back into the driver’s seat. He probably should have stayed there in the first place rather than getting out and standing in the open. No wonder he’d caught her attention. Naturally, she’d be suspicious of a stranger standing in the dark in the middle of the night staring at her house.

But after the long drive, he’d needed to stretch his legs. Not to mention, he’d wanted to try to get a better look at the house. It was so dark he hadn’t been able to see much from the truck. He’d thought he might have a better chance of seeing the house from outside.

To see if it matched what he saw in his nightmares.

Even as he thought it, the image rose in his mind, not the building shadowed in darkness, but the one he remembered. A shudder rolled through him, causing his limbs to jerk, the motion completely involuntary.

A ragged breath worked its way from his lungs. He’d never thought he’d be here again, never wanted to return to this town, let alone this house. But here he was.

And this was only the beginning.

Tomorrow he’d have to gain the woman’s trust, get her to hire him. Then he’d have to walk into that house.

The thought of it damn near sent another jolt through him. He somehow managed to keep his reaction in check.

In the next few days he was going to have to do more than walk into that house. He was going to have to face every aspect of the past head-on. No matter how much the idea terrified him. No matter how much pain it threatened to cause. No matter how many people in this little town wanted to forget the past, just as much as he did.

Until he finally had the truth.

No matter what it cost him.

Chapter Two

After a nearly sleepless night spent waiting for trouble that never arrived, Maggie really would have liked to see a friendly face first thing in the morning.

The man climbing out of the car he’d parked behind her truck most certainly did not qualify.

Gritting her teeth, Maggie fought the urge to turn around, walk back up the steps she’d just come down and go back inside. She knew better than to think Dalton Sterling would be so easily put off. In his early seventies, the builder had the demeanor of someone who’d spent his life getting his own way, and he’d been a pain from virtually the first moment she arrived in town. Even if she were the kind of woman to run and hide, she figured he’d just follow. He wasn’t going to give up until he got what he wanted.

Too bad there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to give it to him.

Spotting her, he raised a hand, a phony smile stretching across his face. “Morning, Maggie. I was surprised to hear you’d checked out of the motel.”

Folding her arms over her chest, she raised a brow. “Checking up on me, Dalton?”

He walked up to her. “It’s a small town. People look out for each other around here.”

“Are you really looking out for me, or for your own interests?”

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re one and the same,” he said smoothly. “I was hoping you’d given some thought to my offer.”

“And I was hoping you’d taken me at my word when I told you I’m not selling and never will. It looks like we both have reason to be disappointed.”

“The way I figure it, eventually you’re going to realize you’re wasting your time. No matter how many coats of paint you slap on the place, nobody’s going to want to live here.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I plan to do a lot more than paint the place.”

“All by yourself? It’s an awful big job for one woman. I hear you’ve had some trouble finding anyone to help you work on the place.”

Maggie pinned him with a glare. “Did you hear about my trouble, or did you cause it?”

He made a baleful face. “Now that’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“And keeping people from working for me isn’t a very nice thing to do.”

Dalton held up his hands in a helpless gesture. “You can’t lay that at my door, Maggie. The house did that all by itself.”

She barked out a laugh. “I know this town has a weird thing about this house, but it’s not a living thing.”

“It doesn’t need to be. You might have spent summers here with your grandparents, but everyone else lived here, and they all know about this house. Nobody wants anything to do with it. It would be best for everybody if you figured that out now.”

“My grandfather didn’t keep the house all these years just to have it torn down as soon as he was gone. He believed it was worth saving and someday people would live here again.”

“You’ll have to excuse me for saying so, but your granddad was a fool.”

“Now why would I excuse you for saying that?”

His smile couldn’t have been more patronizing. “It would be the neighborly thing to do.”

“I’m not sure that matters, considering you’re not interested in being my neighbor.”

“Now, Maggie—”

Whatever response he’d been about to offer was cut off by the sound of footsteps slowly crunching toward them. Maggie immediately lifted her head toward the noise. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy for an interruption.

Then she spotted the man walking toward them and her apprehension returned. This was a small town, and she knew most of the residents, at least in passing. She’d never seen this man before.

He was big, with broad shoulders and long limbs, but also leaner than she might have expected for a man of his size. Beneath a faint dusting of light stubble, his cheeks were lean to the point of gauntness. But it was still a nice face, she noticed almost in spite of herself. He wasn’t bad looking by any means, his features blunt and masculine, his skin fair with just a touch of the sun. His dark blond hair was thick and shaggy, more, she suspected, because he didn’t bother cutting it that often than for style reasons. She could easily imagine it being tucked beneath a cap, which would certainly fit the regular button-down work shirt, jeans and scuffed work boots he was wearing.

As he approached, his eyes met hers. They were blue, a bright, deep blue, the color rich enough that she had no trouble recognizing it even from several feet away. Nor the emotion swimming in them.

Sad, she thought, the strange thought floating through her mind. He had sad eyes.

It took her a moment to realize who he was. She didn’t recognize his face. In fact, she was certain she’d never seen him before. Then the shape of his body sank in, and it hit her that she had seen him before. Last night.

It was John Samuels.

The realization sent another jolt of surprise through her. He wasn’t anything like she’d imagined. And she had imagined, during the long stretches of the night when enough time had passed that she’d let down her guard slightly and her thoughts had wandered. She’d pictured someone dark, no doubt influenced by the way she’d first met him, when he’d been nothing more than a shadow. This man wasn’t dark, but despite the fairness of his hair and skin, she couldn’t quite describe him as light, either. She wasn’t sure how to describe him at all.

“Morning,” he said, the low rumble of his voice offering additional confirmation.

“Morning,” she echoed faintly.

“Everything okay?”

She nodded tersely. “Fine.”

He’d come to a stop just behind Dalton, who scowled up at him. She half wondered whether the newcomer’s presence alone or the fact that he was significantly taller than the older man was the cause of his irritation. “Who are you?”

The demand in Dalton’s tone brought her annoyance back with a vengeance. She could tell John didn’t much care for it, either. Eyes narrowing, he hesitated a beat before opening his mouth to answer. That split second was all it took for the impulse to take hold within her. Without even thinking about it, she answered before he could.

“This is my new employee.”

Two sets of eyes shot to her, one startled, one appraising. She stared back at the latter, ignoring Dalton. There was no hint of what he thought of her statement, no surprise or relief or happiness. Whatever he was feeling, he was keeping it to himself.

Uncertain how she felt about that, she turned to Dalton. The older man was glaring at John, his face bright red. She didn’t know if it was from anger or frustration at being foiled. She didn’t really care. Either way, she liked it and had to do her best not to smirk.

“Dalton,” she said, clearly startling him. He jerked his head toward her. She fought a smile. “You’ll have to excuse us. We have a lot of work to get to. Thanks for stopping by, though. It’s nice to know you’re looking out for me.”

She couldn’t entirely keep the sarcasm from her sickly-sweet tone. From the look he shot her, he hadn’t missed it. With a sharp nod, he turned from her, ignoring John, and stomped his way back to his car. She and John watched in silence as he backed out of the driveway and pulled into the street.

Once there, his car paused briefly just behind John’s truck. No doubt Dalton was taking note of the license plate. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was planning on checking up on her new employee at the first opportunity.

“Does that mean I’ve got the job?”

The sound of his voice pulled her attention back to his face—and the decision she’d made so rashly. She had to admit that it had largely been spurred by the desire to stick it to Dalton. So much for his claim that she wouldn’t be able to find anyone to work on the house. The impotent rage on his face had made it worth it.

Of course, now that he was gone and the moment had passed, she had to face the consequences. She knew nothing about this man beyond the vague suspicion he wasn’t being entirely truthful with her. He could be dangerous. He could be a killer. And she would be alone with him for hours on end if she gave him the job. Most days passed without her seeing a single soul.

But rescinding the offer would only make her look like a fool, and give Dalton a satisfaction she in no way wanted to grant him.

“On a trial basis,” she said quickly, watching his expression. “That okay with you?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t have a problem with proving myself.”

It was the right answer. She liked people who were willing to let their work speak for itself.

Besides, she’d bet anything Dalton was planning on running a background check on her new employee, saving her the trouble of doing it herself. He had enough connections to get it done, certainly more than she had at her disposal. If he found anything shady in the man’s past, she had no doubt he’d be back to rub her nose in it as soon as he could.

Of course that wouldn’t do her much good if the truck was stolen, or she was already murdered and her new employee ran off to parts unknown by the time the background check came back. But even as she thought it, she found herself dismissing the idea. She had the feeling she was the last person who should be judging anyone’s character, but there was just something about him that made her think he wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t seem dangerous or creepy or dishonest. He seemed—

Sad, she thought again. He seemed sad.

She felt an uncomfortable pang of recognition in her chest. She watched him tilt his head back and scan the house, those deep blue eyes sweeping over the exterior. The emotion wasn’t just in those eyes. It seemed to cling to him like an aura, something weighing heavily on him. And as someone who still had her share of sad days, she could relate.

She did her best to shake off the wave of empathy, definitely not wanting to go there. Whatever was haunting this man wasn’t her concern. All that mattered was that he was the right man for the job.

She watched him scrutinize the house. If he wondered why it was in such bad shape, he didn’t show it. Suddenly it occurred to her that he probably didn’t know the house’s history. She didn’t doubt that the first person he met in town would waste no time enlightening him. It would be better if she told him herself up front. Despite his claim that he didn’t scare easily, she might as well find out for herself. Her big show in front of Dalton would ring awfully hollow if her new employee changed his mind in short order.

“Come on,” she said with a jerk of her head. “Let me show you the house. Then you can let me know if you still want the job.”

THIS was it.

His insides clenching, Sam watched his new boss head up the steps and took a deep breath before doing the same. Her words and the ominous note in her voice might have given another man pause, making him wonder exactly what it was she was about to reveal that might make him second-guess working for her. Not him. He already knew everything he suspected she was about to tell him. Despite her words, he already knew he wanted the job.

No, it was the very act of setting foot in this house again that made him hesitate. This was all happening too fast, before he was ready. He didn’t normally act so quickly and without thinking things through first, having long ago learned the cost of impulsive choices. But it felt like he’d jumped on board a moving train and was being carried away much faster than he’d anticipated or was comfortable with. He’d made the decision to come here on the spur of the moment, getting into the truck and just driving. Then he’d seen that flyer, then he’d come here, then he’d been hired, and now he was about to walk into a house he’d never wanted to see again. It was too fast. He’d barely had time to absorb what was happening.

“You coming?”

He jerked his head to see the woman standing just inside the doorway, a curious and none-too-reassuring expression on her face. The corners of her mouth were turned down as she stared at him. He had the feeling he was blowing this. She looked distinctly wary.

She. That’s how fast this was happening. He’d been hired by this woman and he didn’t even know her name.

“Sure,” he said. “I was just wondering what the polite way was to ask for your name.”

She blinked at him, her caution fading into embarrassment. “Oh,” she said, “I guess that would be a good place to start, wouldn’t it?”

“I could just go with ‘Hey, you.’”

A faint smile flickered across her lips. “That won’t be necessary. It’s Maggie. Maggie Harper.”

It was a nice smile—and a fleeting one. Within seconds, it had faded, her mouth forming a thin line.

For the first time, he looked at her, really looked at her. She was an attractive woman, probably in her early to mid-thirties. Her dark blond hair was pulled up in a no-nonsense knot at the back of her head, a few loose wisps hanging around her face. Like him, she was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, the clothes fairly worn, the wardrobe of somebody ready to work. Her body had a kind of ropy leanness, the kind earned from activity and labor, and he knew without question that this was a woman who knew how to work and get a job done.

He only hoped she didn’t get in the way of the job he had to do.

“Good to meet you, Maggie.”

She nodded tightly and turned her back to him, stepping inside. Drawing in one last breath, Sam forced his legs to climb the steps and follow her into the house.

The first thing that struck him was the stillness. Other than the motion and sounds caused by Maggie herself, nothing moved, and the silence was absolute. The entryway opened into a room on either side, both of them almost completely unfurnished. There was a sleeping bag rolled up in the room on the right. Otherwise it was empty. He could see a basic attempt had been made to clean up a little, but it was very much a house where work was in progress. Sunlight poured through the windows, revealing a multitude of dust particles hanging in the air.

In front of him was a steep staircase leading up to the second level. And beside it, a hallway leading back to where the kitchen was. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see that room from where he stood. He knew it was there, as a sudden tension gripped him, holding him in place just inside the doorway, unable to do anything but stare in that direction.

His heart began to pound, slamming against his chest wall like it was demanding to get out. The noise rattled through him, filling his ears with the heavy beat. Except he thought he heard something else over it, something distant emerging from the echoing silence of the house to fill his head.

Screaming. Someone was screaming.

Frantic cries. Desperate pleading. Sounds of raw, gut-wrenching agony.

It wasn’t just anyone, either.

It was a little kid.

A child was screaming. Crying. Pleading.

Endlessly screaming.

“Are you okay?”

The sound of her voice jolted him into awareness. He glanced over at where Maggie stood in the room to the right. She was frowning again, that same appraising look in her eye.

He didn’t let his expression shift in the slightest, even as he swallowed hard and tried to slowly pull in a breath. “Fine,” he said shortly. “I guess I didn’t figure just how much work this place would need.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not for me. I could use the work. It just seems like most people would save themselves the trouble and tear it down to build something new.”

Her face hardened. “Yeah, well, people tend to throw things away too easily.”

There was an angry note in her voice, something almost like bitterness. “I take it you like old houses.”

“I love them.”

“Have you restored one before?”

“More than one. I used to own a restoration business back in California. With my husband,” she added after a noticeable pause.

A husband. She wasn’t wearing a ring, not that that necessarily meant anything. Someone who worked with her hands as much as this woman had to probably wouldn’t bother with one. But something about the way she said it made it clear she no longer had a husband, and the subject wasn’t a happy one.

There was a story there. And it was none of his business. He had too many secrets of his own to go poking around in anybody else’s. It had nothing to do with why he was here, and that was all that mattered.

“This is a long way from California,” he noted, just to fill the silence.

“My grandfather owned this house,” she said. “He died last year and left it to me. I decided to come back and fix it up.”

“I guess he had a hard time keeping up with the place.”

“The last few years he didn’t get around as well as he used to,” she said with a trace of regret. “And he actually didn’t live here, but the place meant a lot to him. He designed it himself and had it built for him and my grandmother. It was their dream home. They’d lived here only a few years when she was injured in a car accident and had to use a wheelchair the rest of her life. This house was no longer suitable for their needs, with all of its stairs, both inside and out. They moved into another house, but my grandfather couldn’t bring himself to sell this one. He rented it out for a while.”

An image emerged from the recesses of his mind, the face of a man. His first thought was that it was an old man. No, he’d thought the man was old when he’d seen him, but he’d probably only been in his fifties. Ancient to a child, but only a decade or two older than Sam was now.

Maggie sighed. “I might as well tell you now. If you decide to stay, you’ll hear it soon enough from just about anyone in town.” She drew a breath. “Two people were murdered here. The people my grandfather rented the house to, they were a young family. Two parents, something like three or four kids. One night the parents were murdered here in this house.”

Five, he silently corrected. There’d been five kids, though not all of them had been home that night.

He saw she was waiting for his reaction. He simply nodded. “I know.”

She started. “You know?”

“A guy at the truck stop told me when I picked up the flyer.” It was the truth, not that he’d needed the story.

She sighed deeply, shaking her head. “Of course. I forgot to ask how you knew where to come. I should have known someone had told you, though I would have thought he’d warn you off. I’m a little surprised he gave you directions.”

He hadn’t. Not that she needed to know that. “Maybe he thought I needed to see the place myself to be scared off.”

She eyed him closely. “And the history of the place didn’t make you think twice about asking for the job?”

“A lot of places have had bad things happen in them. Doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the place itself.”

He had the feeling he’d said exactly the right thing. Both her expression and her posture eased, leaving her looking far more relaxed toward him than he’d seen her in the brief time he’d known her.

“That’s what I think, too,” she said. “Unfortunately, it’s very much the minority opinion around here. Most people just want to see it torn down. That’s what that guy was doing here. He’s a local builder, Dalton Sterling. He’s been offering to buy the property from the moment I came back to town. He wants to tear down the house and build a new one in its place.”

Dalton Sterling. The name was familiar, though he hadn’t immediately recognized the face. “You didn’t like the price he offered?”

“I wouldn’t like any price he offered. There’s nothing wrong with this house. It doesn’t deserve to be thrown away for no reason.”

Interesting choice of words. Thrown away. The fierceness, the anger in her words made him eye her closely again.

She’d turned away from him, not looking directly at him. Her jaw was clenched, her face tight with that same anger in her voice.

There’s a story there.

None of your business, he reminded himself. Stick to the reason you came here.

She glanced up at him. “I guess it’s not even worth asking if you already knew all of this before you even came, but do you still want the job?”

“I do.”

She nodded. “Then it’s settled. Let me show you the rest of the house.”

He braced himself for her to move toward the kitchen, somewhere he still wasn’t entirely prepared to go. Instead, she moved back to the entryway, to the stairs. His tension eased slightly, allowing a hint of relief to creep in, along with determination.

It was done. He was in. The first step in his hastily formed plan was complete.

Now it was time to get started on the rest.

Chapter Three

“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.

Chapter Four

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.

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