it hers, in a sense.
She went quickly into the galley kitchen, finding everything close at hand, and measured coffee into the maker that sat on the counter. The familiar, homey movements steadied her. She was safe here. She could take as much time as she needed to plan. There was no hurry.
A loaf of Emma’s fruit-and-nut bread rested on the cutting board. She sliced off a couple of thick pieces and popped them in the toaster. She had family. Maybe she’d needed this reminder. She had people who cared what happened to her.
She could forget that sense of being watched that had dogged her since Tony’s death. She shivered a little, pulling her robe more tightly around her while she waited for the toast and coffee. She’d confided that in only one person, telling Francine about her urge to give up the apartment, get rid of Tony’s things, try to go back to the way she’d been before she met him.
Her boss had been comforting and sympathetic, probably the more so because it hadn’t been that many months since she’d lost her own husband.
“I know what I was like after Garner’s death,” she’d said, flicking a strand of ash-blond hair back with a perfectly manicured nail. “I could hardly stand to stay in that big house at night by myself. Jumping at every sound.” She’d nodded wisely. “But what you need is stability. All the grief counselors say that. Don’t make any big changes in your life, just give yourself time to heal. And remember, I’m always here for you.”
Caro smiled faintly as the toast popped up and busied herself buttering it and pouring coffee into a thick, white mug. Dear Francine. She probably didn’t think of herself as the nurturing type, but she’d certainly tried her best to help Caro through a difficult time.
The smile wavered. Except that their situations weren’t quite the same. Garner had died peacefully in his bed of a heart attack that was not unexpected. Tony had plunged off a mountain road after a furious quarrel with his wife, leaving behind more unanswered questions than she could begin to count.
And it hadn’t been grief or an overactive imagination. Someone had been watching her. She shivered at the thought of that encounter in the plaza. Someone who claimed Tony owed him an impossible amount of money. Someone who claimed Tony was alive.
She hadn’t told Francine about that incident. She would the next time they talked. Francine had known Tony longer than she had. She might have some insight that eluded her.
Something tapped on the living room window. She jerked around so abruptly that coffee sloshed out of the mug onto the granite countertop. She pressed her hand down on the cool counter, staring.
Nothing but blackness beyond the window. The security lights that illuminated the back of the inn didn’t extend around the corner of the barn.
A branch, probably, from the forsythia bush she’d noticed budding near the building. The wind had blown it against the glass.
Except that there was no wind. Her senses, seeming preternaturally alert, strained to identify any unusual sound. Useless. To her, all the sounds here were unfamiliar.
Something tapped again, jolting her heartbeat up a notch. The building could make dozens of noises for all she knew. And everything was locked up. Rachel had shown her, when she’d helped bring her things in, still worried at the idea of her staying alone. But even Rachel hadn’t anticipated fear, just loneliness.
How do you know that’s not what it is? You’re hearing things, imagining things, out of stress, grief, even guilt. Especially guilt. Tony might be alive today if that quarrel hadn’t sent him raging out onto the mountain road.
She shoved that thought away with something like panic. She would not think that, could not believe that.
Setting the mug on the countertop, she turned to the window. The only reasonable thing to do was to check and see if something was there. And she was going to be reasonable, remember? No more impulsive actions. Just look where that had gotten her.
She walked steadily across to the window and peered out. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, or maybe that was the first light of dawn. She could see the outline of the forsythia branches, delicate gray against black, like a Chinese pen-and-ink drawing.
Her fingers longed for a drawing pencil. Or a charcoal, that would be better. She leaned forward, trying to fix the image in her mind.
Something, some sound or brush of movement alerted her. She stumbled back a step. Something man-sized moved beyond the window. For an instant, she saw a hand, fingers widespread, dark and blurry as if it were enclosed in a glove, press against the pane.
Then it was gone, and she was alone, heart pounding in deep, sickening thuds.
She ran back across the room, fingers fumbling in her handbag for her cell phone. Call—
Who would she call? Grams or Rachel? She could hardly ask them to come save her from whatever lurked outside.
The police? Her finger hovered over the numbers. If she dialed 911, would Zachary Burkhalter answer the phone?
The man was already suspicious of her. That wouldn’t keep him from doing his job, she supposed. It wasn’t his fault that she feared the police nearly as much as she feared the something that had pressed against the window.
She took a breath. Think. The apartment was locked, and already the first light of dawn stained the sky. She had the cell phone in her hand. He…it…couldn’t possibly get in, at least not without making so much noise that she’d have time to call for help.
The panic was fading, the image with it. It had been so fast—was she even sure that’s what she’d seen? And if she wasn’t sure, how did she explain that to a skeptical cop?
Clutching the phone in one hand, she snapped off the light. Safer in the dark. If someone were outside, now he couldn’t look in and see her. She crept quickly toward the stairs, listening for any sound.
Upstairs, she pulled the quilt from the bed and huddled in the chair at the window, peering out like a sentinel. She stayed there until sunrise flooded the countryside with light, until she could see black-clad figures moving around the barn of the Zook farm in the distance.
THREE
In the light of day, sitting in the sunny breakfast room at the inn across from her sister, Caroline decided that her fears had been ridiculous. Already the images that had frightened her were blurring in her mind.
The figure—maybe a branch moving, casting shadows. What she’d thought was a gloved hand could well have been a leaf, blown to stick against the windowpane for a moment and then flutter to the ground. There were plenty of last year’s maple leaves left in the hedgerow to be the culprit. Her overactive, middle-of-the-night imagination had done the rest.
“Thanks.” She lifted the coffee mug her sister had just refilled. “I need an extra tank of coffee this morning, I think.”
“Did you sleep straight through?” Rachel looked up from her cheese omelet, face concerned. “You looked as if you could barely stay on your feet. Grams wanted to wake you for supper, but I thought you’d be better for the sleep.”
“You were right.” If not for what happened when she woke up, but that wasn’t Rachel’s doing. Besides, she’d just decided it was imagination, hadn’t
