Free Lethally Blond by Kate White Page A

the Jeep. I hadn’t wanted to be too nosy with the woman, but it sounded as if the deal for the house, the one Tom had told Chris about,
had
fallen through and the house was once again for sale. Maybe that was why Tom had come to Andes—to goose the sales process.
    It was no problem finding Dabbet. As Beverly had told me, it was only a short hike from the center of town, and I bet myself that as a boy Tom had probably walked it. Dabbet Road, a dirt one, was longer than I expected, maybe half a mile, and before long I was being jounced along the deep gouges under a dense canopy of maples and giant firs.
    The first thing I spotted was a barn, a low, long gray one at the very end of the road. Then suddenly the house appeared, off to the right, a big old clapboard. Beyond that on the road was a small white cottage, probably a guesthouse, its back to the road. And right in front of it was a black Audi.

CHAPTER 5
    I turned off the ignition and just sat in my Jeep for a minute, feeling my heart thump. I had found Tom. In the end, it hadn’t taken all that long or been a particularly wearisome quest, but as of yesterday it had seemed it might be impossible. With the only clue being a single phone call from along the thruway, I had felt as if I were searching for someone lost on a catamaran in the Atlantic. But now here he was, just yards away from me.
    I felt relief and an unexpected prickling of tears in my eyes. I also felt weird as hell. What was I supposed to do
now
? Wouldn’t Tom be pissed that I’d just shown up out of the blue? What if he was holed up with some new chick, working his way through the
Kama Sutra
? But I couldn’t turn around and just head back to Manhattan. Not without telling him that Chris and Harper were concerned about him. Not without making sure he was okay. Because there was still the chance that something wasn’t right.
    I slid out of the Jeep and slammed the door hard. Better, I thought, to make noise and not catch him totally unaware. Because his car was pulled up tight to the cottage, I figured he must have been staying there. I wondered if the main house seemed too big to him or if it was too full of memories. I took a breath and started down a slate path that ran along the side of the cottage, its blue gray slabs almost obscured by yellowed tufts of grass.
    Rounding the bend in the path, I saw that the front of the cottage faced the woods. It looked like something out of a storybook, with a narrow porch running along the width of the house and white curtains lining the windows on either side of a blue Dutch door. But as I stepped closer, I could see that the cottage was slightly worse for wear. The gray paint on the porch floorboards had mostly worn off, and the two wicker rockers were badly weathered and saggy in the seats. I glanced over toward the main house, whose front also faced the woods. It seemed even more forlorn than the cottage. The shutters had all been removed and lay stacked against the side of the house. Even from where I stood, I could see that it was in desperate need of a paint job.
    I turned back to the cottage and mounted the steps, which creaked with each footfall. I rapped on the blue door. Once, twice, three times. No answer. Off in the woods, a bird screeched—a hawk, I thought—but no sound came from within the cottage.
    “Tom,” I called out. “Hey, Tom.”
    Still no answer, just a screech from the hawk again. I glanced behind me. The sun had begun to set, and the woods were becoming a smudge. It would be dark before long. I wondered if Tom was over in the big house—playing Mr. Fix-It.
    Before heading over there, I gave the door one more rap, and then purely owing to my can’t-keep-my-damn-nose-out-of- anything instinct, I tried the handle. It was unlocked. I gently pushed the cottage door open and stepped inside.
    “Hey, Tom,” I called out again. “Tom, are you around?” Nothing. Just the hum of a refrigerator off in another room.
    The inside of the