The Sinner - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,5

“With an e.”

“Is he a tall man? Broken nose. Green eyes. Probably wearing an expensive suit he looks far too good in.”

“Perhaps.” He was all of those things.

Erica laughed. “It’s very interesting to hear from you, Savannah. Particularly about Matt.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Not at all. He was hands down the best employee we ever had. The entire team was very sad to see him go. Please…” she paused. “Please tell him that would you? That we miss him and actually, let him know he should call, too. We have some paperwork we need to mail his way. And if you’re calling for a reference - hire him, you won’t find a better man to have around.”

I thanked Erica and hung up, feeling a little embarrassed by that recommendation. You won’t find a better man…

“She said I should hire you,” I told him and he smiled. A hint of white teeth, a dimple. It really was a good smile. “She wanted me to tell you that they miss you. The whole team. And that you should call about some paperwork.”

Matt Howe tucked his hands in his pockets and looked up at the roof line of the manor. Also in need of some repair.

“Do I have the job?” he asked, his voice was like sandpaper.

“Yes,” I said. “It sounds like Margot and I are lucky you were wandering through.” But then I stepped closer. Because this next part was the important part. The only part that really mattered. “But you stay out of our house. You stay out of our business. There’s a hotel in town. You can stay there. You arrive at eight and you leave at five. You can use the bathroom on the main floor and that’s it. No exceptions.”

He rocked back, stunned at the vehemence.

But I was done apologizing for taking care of myself. I was done being nice. These were my rules, he could follow them or leave.

“Got it?” I asked.

He nodded. “Got it.”

“Starting tomorrow, I’m taking a vacation week, so I’ll be here.”

Keeping an eye on you—I didn’t have to say it, and if that bothered Matt well too damn bad.

I reached up and gathered the long silky fall of my hair into a ponytail then I curled it around itself, tucking it and wrapping it until it was all but gone, vanished into a tight knot at the back of my head.

“And do not mess up my garden.”

3

Savannah

Everyone thought libraries were quiet.

I totally disagreed. In all the years I’d spent hiding, studying, teaching and working in libraries, I’d found each and every one of them loud. Filled with sound, actually. Like one of those seashells you pressed to your ear.

There was an endless ocean of sound in the Bonne Terre Public Library.

The click and whir of the big black ceiling fans. The silky brush of paper over the gleaming oak counters. The hum of computers. The scratch of pencils. The whisper of shoes across the old wood floors. On the second floor, a toddler shrieked and a mother quickly shushed him. There was the quiet beat of my heart and, of course, the not-so-quiet whispering of the high school students at the computer bank.

Owen Johns and his friends.

It was always Owen Johns and his friends.

Summer school had been moved from the high school to the library so they could finally fix the roof of the gymnasium. This meant I had been looking at the smirking faces of Owen Johns, Garrett Watson and their various hangers-on for a week.

And in the days since the Manor had been violated, their smirks were smirkier.

They did it.

I saw it in their eyes, the sour glee in their smiles, the dark triumph that wafted off them like stink from garbage. They’d torn apart my courtyard, my grandmother’s orchids. Those boys had taken black spray paint to our stone walls, forcing my hand, and now there was a man at the Manor.

Matt Howe was in my home, in my courtyard, and Matt Howe made my heart pound and my stomach tremble and it was nearly intolerable.

And it was all Owen’s and Garrett’s fault.

I knew it with an instinct I didn’t question. The O’Neill instinct—never wrong. The O’Neill impulses, on the other hand, too often lured by pounding hearts and trembling stomachs, were always disastrously wrong.

I stood at the counter and checked in the books from the overnight drop box. My hands didn’t shake. My face didn’t change, but I stood there, listening to their whispers, catching words like “she had a