The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson Page 0,65

assuming that Ted fought back against a burglar. I took a deep breath, wondered for a moment if my mother was still smoking, and if there were cigarettes in the house, then calmed myself down. Of course they wanted to know where Ted had gone that day. It was routine. But why had he gone to Winslow, and why hadn’t he told me about it? I hadn’t lied when I told the detective that, as far as I knew, Ted knew no one in Winslow. But the name of the town was ringing a bell with me, and I couldn’t remember exactly why. Someone I knew lived there now, or was I getting Winslow confused with Winchester. And why would Ted have gone to Winslow? Could he possibly have secrets, as well? Now I had another thing to worry about, along with worrying that Brad was going to come apart at the seams. Story of my life.

I stepped out into the cold Orono air. Dead leaves were scuttling across the driveway. I pulled my bag from the backseat of the Mini and made my way to the front door of my mother’s town house.

CHAPTER 18

LILY

On the drive from Winslow to Kennewick I kept thinking about what Miranda had done to Ted. He was an innocent. Even though he had been planning Miranda’s own demise, as well as Brad’s, I knew, down deep, he was not a natural murderer, not a true predator. And now I was realizing that he had been the prey all along. I wondered if he subconsciously sensed that Miranda was coming after him. Was that why he was willing to kill Miranda—because he felt her at his back, the way a mouse feels the presence of a cat, perched and still in the tall grass?

The day was cold and gray but I had the window cracked, and as I exited from I-95 onto the rotary just north of Portsmouth, I could smell the briny sea air. I didn’t know Maine well. Since living in Massachusetts I had visited Cape Cod several times, staying in Wellfleet at the house of a work colleague and friend, but had only gone north of my state line on a few occasions. I got onto Route 1 and passed through Kittery, land of the outlets, and spotted the Trading Post, where Ted had bought the binoculars he used to spy on Miranda. I could imagine him on this very road, just a few weeks ago; I could imagine how he must have felt, that terrible hollow feeling in your gut when you’ve been let down by someone you love.

Once I was past the outlets, the views from the road opened up, and I caught glimpses of sea marsh and, in the distance, the Atlantic, almost the same gray color as the low, placid sky.

It took me a while to find the Kennewick Inn. I got off Route 1 at Kennewick Beach, then had to backtrack southward toward Kennewick Harbor. I passed several small clusters of salt-faded rental cabins, and wondered which one belonged to Brad and his family. I also passed Cooley’s, its neon sign unlit on that early Sunday afternoon. A pickup truck idled in its parking lot and I wondered if Brad was already there. Past Kennewick Beach, Micmac Road wound through some expensive real estate. I kept my eye out for the house that Ted and Miranda had been building, spotting it almost immediately—a beige monstrosity perched far out on a bluff, the dark ocean laid out behind it. There were two large Dumpsters at the front of the house but no vehicles that I could see.

I kept driving till I reached the inn, pulling into its nearly empty gravel driveway. Below the wooden inn sign, carved in ornate script, hung a placard that said VACANCIES. I knew there would be. It was a Sunday in October, and at this time of the year the tourists head to the mountains to leaf-peep, leaving the shoreline to its year-round residents.

I studied the Kennewick Inn. It was a post-and-beam structure built right up against the road, with a large extension behind it, designed to look as old as the original building. All the exterior woodwork had been recently painted white, and even in the gray light of the day it seemed to shine with the promise of luxury and comfort. I wasn’t sure if it was smart to take a room; there was a slim possibility that Miranda was also

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