didn’t let his expression shift in the slightest, even as he swallowed hard and tried to slowly pull in a breath. “Fine,” he said shortly. “I guess I didn’t figure just how much work this place would need.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not for me. I could use the work. It just seems like most people would save themselves the trouble and tear it down to build something new.”
Her face hardened. “Yeah, well, people tend to throw things away too easily.”
There was an angry note in her voice, something almost like bitterness. “I take it you like old houses.”
“I love them.”
“Have you restored one before?”
“More than one. I used to own a restoration business back in California. With my husband,” she added after a noticeable pause.
A husband. She wasn’t wearing a ring, not that that necessarily meant anything. Someone who worked with her hands as much as this woman had to probably wouldn’t bother with one. But something about the way she said it made it clear she no longer had a husband, and the subject wasn’t a happy one.
There was a story there. And it was none of his business. He had too many secrets of his own to go poking around in anybody else’s. It had nothing to do with why he was here, and that was all that mattered.
“This is a long way from California,” he noted, just to fill the silence.
“My grandfather owned this house,” she said. “He died last year and left it to me. I decided to come back and fix it up.”
“I guess he had a hard time keeping up with the place.”
“The last few years he didn’t get around as well as he used to,” she said with a trace of regret. “And he actually didn’t live here, but the place meant a lot to him. He designed it himself and had it built for him and my grandmother. It was their dream home. They’d lived here only a few years when she was injured in a car accident and had to use a wheelchair the rest of her life. This house was no longer suitable for their needs, with all of its stairs, both inside and out. They moved into another house, but my grandfather couldn’t bring himself to sell this one. He rented it out for a while.”
An image emerged from the recesses of his mind, the face of a man. His first thought was that it was an old man. No, he’d thought the man was old when he’d seen him, but he’d probably only been in his fifties. Ancient to a child, but only a decade or two older than Sam was now.
Maggie sighed. “I might as well tell you now. If you decide to stay, you’ll hear it soon enough from just about anyone in town.” She drew a breath. “Two people were murdered here. The people my grandfather rented the house to, they were a young family. Two parents, something like three or four kids. One night the parents were murdered here in this house.”
Five, he silently corrected. There’d been five kids, though not all of them had been home that night.
He saw she was waiting for his reaction. He simply nodded. “I know.”
She started. “You know?”
“A guy at the truck stop told me when I picked up the flyer.” It was the truth, not that he’d needed the story.
She sighed deeply, shaking her head. “Of course. I forgot to ask how you knew where to come. I should have known someone had told you, though I would have thought he’d warn you off. I’m a little surprised he gave you directions.”
He hadn’t. Not that she needed to know that. “Maybe he thought I needed to see the place myself to be scared off.”
She eyed him closely. “And the history of the place didn’t make you think twice about asking for the job?”
“A lot of places have had bad things happen in them. Doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the place itself.”
He had the feeling he’d said exactly the right thing. Both her expression and her posture eased, leaving her looking far more relaxed toward him than he’d seen her in the brief time he’d known her.
“That’s what I think, too,” she said. “Unfortunately, it’s very much the minority opinion around here. Most people just want to see it torn down. That’s what that guy was doing here. He’s a local builder, Dalton Sterling. He’s been offering to buy the property from the moment I came back to town. He wants to tear down the house and build a new one in its place.”
Dalton Sterling. The name was familiar, though he hadn’t immediately recognized the face. “You didn’t like the price he offered?”
“I wouldn’t like any price he offered. There’s nothing wrong with this house. It doesn’t deserve to be thrown away for no reason.”
Interesting choice of words. Thrown away. The fierceness, the anger in her words made him eye her closely again.
She’d turned away from him, not looking directly at him. Her jaw was clenched, her face tight with that same anger in her voice.
There’s a story there.
None of your business, he reminded himself. Stick to the reason you came here.
She glanced up at him. “I guess it’s not even worth asking if you already knew all of this before you even came, but do you still want the job?”
“I do.”
She nodded. “Then it’s settled. Let me show you the rest of the house.”
He braced himself for her to move toward the kitchen, somewhere he still wasn’t entirely prepared to go. Instead, she moved back to the entryway, to the stairs. His tension eased slightly, allowing a hint of relief to creep in, along with determination.
It was done. He was in. The first step in his hastily formed plan was complete.
Now it was time to get started on the rest.
Chapter Three
“I hear you hired someone to help you with the house.”
A few weeks ago, Maggie might have been surprised that her friend Annie had already heard about something that had happened only hours earlier. After several weeks in town, she’d gotten used to just how fast news traveled around here, especially since so much of that news seemed to have involved her.
The someone in question had left for lunch ten minutes earlier. She’d given him twenty bucks to pay for both his lunch and get something for her, as well. Comfortable there was no chance of the conversation being overheard, Maggie put her cell phone on speaker and set it on the kitchen counter so she could focus on scrubbing thirty years’ worth of grime from between the counter tiles.
“Dalton didn’t waste any time getting the word out.”
“From what I hear, he came storming into the diner and threw a fit.”
And from there, the news had spread like a virus. At the very least, she had no doubt it had made some people sick.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see it. I think I would have enjoyed that.” Just remembering how red the man’s face had gotten when she’d announced John was her new employee made her lips twitch.
“So who is this guy?” Annie asked.
“He’s new in town. Was just passing through when he saw my flyer at the truck stop and decided to check it out.”
“You hired a complete stranger? What else do you even know about him?”
“I know that after two weeks he was the only applicant for the job.”
“He could be dangerous. He could be a killer, for all you know.”
“He gave me a reference. And we worked together all morning and he managed to avoid chopping me