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She already knew about the lack of acceptance a Hanrahan faced in this town. At the age of seven, she’d learned that a tough skin and casual indifference were her best defense. But was he hinting at something more—something like police protection?
Either way, she could handle herself just fine. She’d had years of experience in dealing with criminals that the people of Ryansville couldn’t even imagine. And her Beretta was more than enough to deal with any physical challenges she might face.
What could prove more challenging was the fact that just the weight of his hand on her shoulder sent a shimmer of warmth straight to her heart, calling to a part of her that she’d closed off ever since Tony had died.
Because even after this investigation was over, there could never be anything between her and a man like Nathan Roswell.
* * * *
EVER SINCE SHE’D RUN into him on Saturday, Nathan seemed to show up everywhere she went—except at her late-night sessions in the hills overlooking Sanderson. Now she left later and checked carefully before stepping outside. If he happened to be patrolling in the area, he would undoubtedly have stopped and insisted on walking with her to keep her safe.
She chuckled softly as she cleaned her Beretta at her tiny kitchen table on Tuesday morning, wondering what he’d think if he found out she wasn’t quite so defenseless after all.
Twenty minutes later she and Harold walked down Oak, past the front gates and parking lot of Sanderson, and turned east at Dry Creek Road on the pretext of taking a pleasant little jaunt on a crisp fall morning.
Nathan wasn’t the only one she’d been running into around town. Three times now, she’d spotted old Earl Stark watching her from a distance.
Yesterday evening, when she’d stopped, pivoted, and started back up Poplar toward her apartment, he’d been sitting in his old truck just half a block away. Watching her again.
The startled look on his face told her all she needed to know. He was following her.
A mile down Dry Creek Road, the road curved around a small pond, where morning mist rose like wisps of smoke from the still, dark surface of the water. Only an occasional car and the eerie cry of a loon broke the silence.
Another quarter mile down the road, Stark’s Salvage came into view. Sara stopped in the shade of a gnarled oak by the mailbox and looked past the locked, dented aluminum gate to the cluttered property beyond.
Two corrugated steel buildings and several Quonset huts rose from a graveyard of antiquated farm machinery and the rusted skeletons of old cars and trucks. In the middle of it all sat Stark’s ramshackle house.
A typical setting for a town’s most prolific packrat, except for the strains of “Für Elise” rising to a crescendo from a tinny piano in that little house, each note delivered with timing that made her hold her breath with anticipation. It seemed impossible. How could someone living in that house be capable of playing so well?
The tattered curtains at one of the windows fluttered, and Sara caught a brief glimpse of Earl’s face peering out. The music abruptly stopped.
Five minutes later the screen door of the house squealed open and then slammed shut as a huge, stooped figure in overalls, arms hanging limply at his sides, shambled out onto the porch.
A dim memory surfaced of Earl at the gas station in town, filling his old truck. She’d been about six or seven, with two precious quarters in one hand and Kyle’s chubby wrist in the other, on their usual Saturday morning quest for strawberry cream soda from the station’s pop machine.
When a pale, round expressionless face appeared at the window of Earl’s truck, she’d stared back in wonderment, and when that vacant gaze lowered to her bottle of bright red pop, she’d edged closer and held it out. Though the boy must have been in his twenties, he’d appeared as childlike as little Kyle.
But then Earl had rounded the truck and saw them, and told them to “git.”
Faced with his unshaven, frightening face and bellowing voice, she and Kyle had run most of the way home and collapsed in an exhausted heap beneath the lilac bushes in their backyard.
Rumors had surfaced now and then about Earl’s strange child roaming the woods, or about social workers who’d gone to the Stark’s place and returned without seeing any sign of the boy. A recluse, Earl wanted no interference in his life.
Could the giant on the porch be that boy from long ago?
“Hello!” she called out, lifting a hand in greeting.
The man lifted his head to look at her, and even from this distance, she was sure.
“Is Earl home? I’m...I’m looking to buy an old desk.”
He stared silently back at her. Then with slow, hydraulic movements he lumbered down the steps and crossed the cluttered yard toward her, his gaze never wavering.
Despite the gate between them and a dog at her side who would attack on command, a chill slid down Sara’s spine as he drew closer.
He’d appeared huge on the porch, but the perspective hadn’t done him justice. A good six foot six, he had to weigh at least 250 pounds—and that mass was in his upper body, not his belly.
When Harold whined, she reached down to calm him, then did a double take.
