Читать онлайн «Still Lake»
Автор Stuart Anne
“I’m Sophie Davis,” she said, and her voice matched her dress. Light, musical, annoyingly charming. “My family and I are running the old inn. I brought you some muffins to welcome you to Colby. ”
He took them and set them on the railing in front of him. He needed to dredge up some semblance of charm, but something was stopping him. He didn’t want her thinking she could just drop in. He valued his privacy, especially when he wasn’t planning on being particularly public about who he was or why he was here.
“Thanks,” he said, then realized he sounded less than gracious. He glanced over at the old Niles place. “Seems like a strange time to open an inn. ”
“We’ve been working hard to get it ready. The place was abandoned for years, and it’s taken us a while to get it in any kind of shape. ”
Empty for years, he thought. He could have had a dozen chances to come back, find the answers he was looking for. He’d been too busy trying to forget.
“When did you say you opened?” he asked.
“Two weeks. ”
Two weeks. Two weeks to get inside the old place before it was overrun with tourists. Two weeks to see if there were any secrets left.
ANNE STUART
STILL LAKE
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Prologue
Summer, 1982
Colby, Vermont
When he awoke there was blood on his hands. The sheets were tangled around his sweating, naked body, his mouth tasted like copper, and there was blood on his hands.
He sat up, cursing, pushed his long dark hair away from his face and looked blearily out into the morning sunshine. It was early—he hated waking up before noon.
And he sure as hell hated waking up covered in blood.
He stumbled out of bed, heading toward the back door to take a leak. He looked down and saw he had streaks of blood on his body. He leaned against the door and closed his eyes, groaning.
He slept in one of the tumbledown cabins by the lake, but it didn’t have a shower, and there was no way in hell he was going up to the big house like this. No way in hell he was going to stand around with some animal’s blood on him. He must have hit a deer last night, driving home, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember a goddamned thing.
He pulled on a pair of paint-spattered cutoffs and headed down to the lake, as fast as his pounding head would let him. He’d smoked too much, drunk too much, the night before, and he needed it to wear off, fast. The cold lake water would clear his head, bring his memory back. When he got back to his room he’d finish packing and get the hell out of there. He’d had enough of small-town Vermont.
Even in August the lake was icy cold, shocking the hell out of him. He let out a shriek as he dived beneath the surface, but he kept going, letting the frigid water flow around him, washing the blood from his hands, from his long hair, from his thick beard.
