Free Still Lake by Anne Stuart Page A

young drifter, maybe the air had an aphrodisiac quality. Because truth to tell, he’d been hard ever since he’d seen Sophie Davis look at his rumpled bed, and he knew better than that.
    Get in, do the job and get out. It had always been his mantra in life, and this situation was no different. He needed to concentrate on finding out what happened twenty years ago, not waste his time being distracted by animal instincts he’d long outgrown.
    He leaned back in the old chair, looking at the decrepit cottage with new eyes. So Sara Ann Whitten had disappeared some time while he’d been in prison? He tried to remember her but came up blank.The Whittens had been an older couple, and their daughter must have been too young to catch Griffin’s predatory eye at the time.
    He glanced around the room. In the wake of Colby’s burgeoning revival as an exclusive vacation spot, this place would be worth a fortune. Instead it sat by the lake, abandoned, for years on end. According to the real estate agent the title on the old house was murky. The parents were dead, and the daughter had been missing for years. There was no one around to care enough to have the girl declared dead, no one who cared enough to see to the old house. The town fathers had finally decided to rent it to cover some of the unpaid taxes, but sooner or later it would be sold at auction.
    What would make a young girl run away? Granted, northern Vermont was about as far off the beaten track as you could get, but to never return, never tell anyone where you were going, seemed unlikely. Particularly when a murderer had roamed that very area.
    Too bad for Sara Ann Whitten, but he really wanted to believe she was murdered, her body buried somewhere. Because that would prove without a doubt that he hadn’t killed anyone, that there’d been a serial killer loose who happened to prey on the young women of Colby’s year-round community. Or at least it would prove it enough to give him peace of mind.
    He reached for his notebook, shoved the list of names inside, then started writing. Number one, get into the hospital wing and see if anything jarred his memory. Number two, find out anything he could about Sara Ann Whitten. When she disappeared, who she was involved with at the time, what people thought happened. See if she had any friends still around who might have heard from her.
    Number three, search the Whitten house for anything that might suggest what happened to her.
    Number four, find out if any of the murdered girls’ families still lived in Colby, and figure out whether or not he could talk to them without them realizing who he was.
    Number five. Keep away from Sophie Davis and her randy sister and her gaga mother with the too-sharp eyes. And try to avoid Doc Henley, as well.
    And all that would only be a start. He figured he’d give it a couple of weeks if he was lucky, maybe less if the weather turned cold early. He couldn’t spend too much of his life looking for answers that he might not find. He’d already lost five years he wasn’t going to get back. Finding the truth would simply enable him to let go of it and get on with things. Maybe.
    No time like the present to get to work. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in numbers before he realized there was no signal. Nada.
    He flipped the paper over to Sophie’s side, andwrote beneath her list, Get the goddamned telephone turned on . Then he shoved his cell phone back in his pocket.
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    â€œHe’s a reporter.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?” Marge gave her a strange look. “Who is?”
    â€œJohn Smith. If that’s even his name. He’s doing research on serial killers, he’s got law books and medical books and case studies all over his bedroom.”
    â€œHis bedroom?” Marge said blankly. “How the hell did he get you in his bedroom so fast? I thought you were the Virgin Mary.”
    Sophie gave her an irritated look.