The Sinner - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,6

kid” and “he was married.” And contemplated my revenge.

A letter to their parents, perhaps? Regarding some obscenely overdue books of a high monetary value? Good, but not quite enough.

“You watching the love triangle?” whispered Janice, my assistant and Keeper of All Things Even Slightly Gossip-y.

“Love triangle?” I whispered, keeping my eyes on Owen, Garrett and Owen’s girlfriend.

“Owen’s girlfriend,” Janice whispered in juicy tones, “I don’t know her name, but I’ve been calling her The Cheerleader.”

It was true, the redhead seemed incomplete without pom-poms.

“But The Cheerleader has been watching Garrett when Owen isn’t looking.”

“Really?” I asked.

“And Garrett is not looking away.”

Now that had the makings of revenge.

The phone rang and Janice walked away to answer it while I contemplated warm thoughts of love triangles blowing up.

“Hey!” Fingers snapped in front of my face and I jerked out of my fantasy to find my good friend Juliette Tremblant, looking stormy and all too police-chiefy across the counter.

“Hey, Juliette. What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Juliette repeated, incredulously. Her black eyebrows practically hit her hairline. “You just hired some stranger to work at the Manor?”

“Word travels fast,” I said. It always did when it was about us.

“One of my guys heard it from Wayne Smith who heard it from his wife who was taking her morning walk down your road and saw Margot and some stranger on the front porch shaking hands.”

“Shh!” Owen and Garrett said, over-loud, over-annoying in mockery of my librarian battle cry.

“Excuse me?” Juliette turned to the boys, the badge clipped to the belt of her pants gleaming in the milky morning sunlight.

The boys went white and I tried hard not to smile.

“Sorry, Chief Tremblant,” they chorused and quickly returned to their work and summer school teacher.

“I need a badge,” I whispered.

“What you need is to have your head checked,” Juliette said, her voice lower. “I called Margot this morning, to see if it was true and she said you’d hired a drifter.”

“He’s hardly a drifter. He was wearing an expensive suit,” I said. “And it’s not like he’s not staying at the house. He’s going to get a room at the Bonne Terre Inn.”

“He’s still a stranger,” Juliette said.

“I have vacation starting tomorrow—”

“And you’re going to spend it babysitting this guy and your courtyard?”

“No, actually, I’m going to spend most of it doing research on extreme religious rituals around the world for the Discovery Channel, but I’ll be home.”

“What do you know about this guy?” Juliette asked, brushing her suit jacket off her lean hips, revealing her gun and her whipcord build.

“I checked his references,” I said. “And they were great.”

“References lie,” Juliette said. Lord, she was more suspicious than me. Juliette pulled her notebook from her pocket and hit the end of her ballpoint pen. “Matt Howe?”

“With an e.”

Juliette’s pen scribbling across the lined paper added to the music of my library.

Juliette jabbed the notebook into her pocket. “What do you think of this guy, really?” Her eyes narrowed and I shrugged.

“I don’t like him. I don’t want him in my house. But, I think he’s safe. I think he’s a good man.”

“You’ve thought that before,” Juliette whispered and I jerked at the reminder. “Sorry honey, but it’s true,” she said.

“And I learned my lesson about handsome strangers, Juliette.” I even managed to smile. “The O’Neills don’t do love.”

It was nearly imperceptible, but Juliette’s right eyelid flinched. And it was my turn to apologize. Ten years ago, my brother Tyler had taught her the same lesson. As painfully as possible.

“Juliette, I’m so sorr—”

“You guys have that island thing down pat. No one gets on and no one gets off,” Juliette said. “At least not permanently.”

I shrugged. It was easier being alone. Safer. I wasn’t going to apologize for it; it was a matter of survival.

MATT

I didn’t sleep much anymore. The lure of the soft pillows and thick mattress of Bonne Terre Inn’s room 3 no longer had much appeal for me. Instead I sat in the upright chair, watching the empty highway through the curtains.

And I thought about revenge.

In front of me was my sketch pad. Empty. I rotated it in quarter turns.

A blank page used to be a call to work, a spark to my imagination.

Now?

I was blank.

I remembered the vines. The destruction of the greenhouse. The tool shed in the back nearly obliterated by vines. The endless possibility of the space.

And I felt… nothing. Just that cold breeze blowing through me that was growing increasingly familiar.

Thinking I could force it, the way I used to in college when I