here now, that’s what counts. How is your dear aunt today?” Anna leaned on the counter, seeming ready for a long chat.
“I don’t think there was much change from yesterday.” Her throat tightened. Aunt Rebecca’s hands had always been so busy—stitching or stirring or comforting a child. It had seemed wrong to see them lying lax on the white hospital sheet.
“It’s hard to see someone we love chust lying there.” Seeming to read her mind, Anna reached across the counter to pat Lainey’s hand. “But with a stroke, sometimes it takes time for the brain and body to heal. Don’t give up hope.”
“I won’t.” That was another thing that was easy to say but perhaps not so easy to do. What if this went on day after day, week after week? What would she do then?
“We are all praying for her,” Anna said softly. “She is in God’s hands.”
Lainey’s throat was too tight for her to do anything but nod.
“Ach, I’m talking away and not helping you with your shopping. You aren’t here for penny candy this time, ain’t so?” Anna’s eyes twinkled, and she gestured toward the glass-enclosed case at the end of the counter. The top part contained a variety of obviously homemade baked goods, while below there was the familiar array of bubble gum, Swedish fish, and lollipops.
“No, I think I’ll pass on that this time. We used to be awful pests at picking out what we wanted, it seems to me.”
“You and Meredith and Rachel,” Anna said. “You’ve talked to them since you came back?”
“Just briefly. They came over for a little while last night. It was nice to see them after such a long time.”
Nice, but odd. Maybe even a bit awkward. What did you say to people you hadn’t seen in twenty years?
“You were always together that summer, ain’t so? It’s quite a reunion, with first Rachel coming back to Deer Run and now you. Meredith never did leave, what with taking care of her mother and all.” Anna shook her head, a mournful look sitting oddly on her cheerful face. “I won’t say Margo King was a pleasant woman, but it was terrible, her being killed and Meredith coming that close to losing her own life as well.”
The words jolted, and Lainey could only stare at her. “I didn’t know. What happened to Meredith’s mother? An accident?” She envisioned a car smash-up, with Meredith barely surviving. But Meredith had seemed well enough last night.
Anna shook her head. “They didn’t tell you? Well, it would be a lot to take in, and you having plenty of worries on your plate as it is. No, Margo was murdered, and Meredith nearly so, and all because of poor Aaron Mast’s death that summer you were here. If Rachel hadn’t come back, maybe we’d never—”
Her words cut off abruptly as the bell on the door jangled. Two women came into the store—one tall, angular and businesslike, the other so fair and frail that she looked as if a breath would blow her away.
Lainey’s gaze crossed that of the taller woman and met a look so malevolent that she was reminded of Zeb Stoltzfus for an instant. Apparently this was yet another person who didn’t think she should be here. Lainey gripped the edge of the counter and managed a pleasant smile. She wouldn’t let herself be unnerved by a stranger’s hostility.
Anna, after standing motionless for a moment, came from around the counter and went quickly to take the blonde woman’s hand. “Laura, it is sehr gut to see you. I didn’t know that you were home from...home already.”
Lainey watched them, surprised by what seemed embarrassment underneath Anna’s hearty welcome. Laura, she repeated the name, memories coming back from the distant recesses of her mind. Laura had been a teenager that summer Lainey had spent here. Pretty, popular...what had happened to her? Her face was still beautiful, but thin and somehow empty-looking. She stood motionless next to the other woman like a doll.
“Yes, Laura is home.” The other woman’s tone was brisk. “She’s doing very well, aren’t you, Laura?”
Laura nodded, and the resemblance to a mechanical doll increased.
“We’re glad to hear it.” Anna’s hearty tone didn’t ring quite true, Lainey thought. “And look who else has come home to Deer Run?” She waved an ample arm at Lainey. “Here’s little Lainey Colton, all grown up. Lainey, you maybe wouldn’t remember Laura Hammond. And Jeannette Walker. She runs the bed-and-breakfast across the street from your aunt’s house.”
Lainey nodded. “The Willows, of course. It’s lovely.” The front yard and flower beds were manicured to within an inch of their lives, and the large Victorian house was immaculately kept up.
Just the same, she wouldn’t say she’d look forward to staying there. It was a bit on the formal side for her.
It was time for Jeannette to say that she was glad to see Lainey, or to ask about her aunt. She did neither. Instead she handed a list to Anna.
“Those are the things Laura would like. We won’t wait. You can have them delivered to Laura’s house.”
“She’s not staying with you, then?” Anna seemed to be trying to untangle something in her mind.
“No.” Jeannette snapped off the word. She gave Lainey a cool nod. “We’ll be going. Come along, Laura.” She touched the woman’s arm.
Laura turned obediently and moved toward the door. But before she left she glanced back. She gave Lainey a long look, her forehead creasing as if with an effort to remember.
When the door closed behind them, Anna let out her breath in a whoosh. “Ach, I am so clumsy. But there seems nothing to say around the woman that won’t bring up things that are better left unsaid. At least she didn’t recognize you.”
“Who? Laura?” Jeannette had certainly known who Lainey was, regardless of her actual words.
And Laura? Well, Lainey didn’t know what to make of Laura, but one thing struck her. Her fingers itched to draw that lovely, empty face, and she had a sense that she had drawn it before.
“You don’t remember?” Anna looked at her questioningly. “I shouldn’t say—” She let that trail off.
“I think you’d better,” Lainey said briskly. “I can’t go around Deer Run walking on eggshells, not knowing who I’m going to offend next.”
Anna shook her head. “I can’t tell you all of it. Not about the part that happened when you were here. You’ll have to hear that from Meredith and Rachel. But Laura...the reason I was surprised to see her is that she’s been in a mental hospital for more than a month. And she was there because it was her husband who killed Meredith’s mother.”
Lainey’s mind spun. Laura’s husband a killer? Meredith’s mother his victim? That didn’t make sense.
And the thing that made the least sense of all was Anna’s implication that the crime had its roots in something that had happened that long-ago summer.
Well, one thing was certain. She’d have to talk to Rachel and Meredith again, and soon.
* * *
JAKE SUSPECTED LAINEY wasn’t
