scandal, I guess, and I don’t blame the boy. Of course, everyone here knows what happened to poor Patrick. Went crazy in that house, turned hermit. Eccentric as they come. It’s a shame to die that young, but really, I see it as a mercy. A life like that, cooped up in that home, with those awful memories … you ask me, it’s no life at all. God was right to take him when he did. Just a shame about that burial, insisting it be closed off. Not a soul to attend to his grave. Tragic.”
“It’ll be interesting to see what comes of the house,” Orson remarked. “I’ve been curious as to what he kept in there. Who do you suppose he’s given it away to?”
There was a sudden weight in Claire’s stomach, pinning her to the booth. She felt as though all eyes in the diner had turned to her.
“Can tell you one thing,” said Cathy, hand on hip. “It wasn’t me.”
She stopped at the sisters’ table with the coffee pot, but Claire’s cup was unrefillable. It had gone cold, full and untouched. Cathy raised a brow at it, shrugged, and headed back to the counter.
“Maybe,” said the vocal old woman, “he gave it to charity.”
Cathy snorted. “Hardly likely. Even if he did, that’d mean the house would have to be auctioned off, huh? And who can afford to buy it? No one I know. And no fool is going to move here from out of town. Mark my words, it’ll go unsold. Some pyro delinquent will burn it down.”
“Well, what about Mark?” asked Orson.
“What about him?” Cathy grunted. “Patrick testified against him. In a murder trial! You think he’d leave it behind to him?”
Claire didn’t like this. Any of it.
“Cathy,” she called, raising a finger. “Could we have our check, please?”
“Certainly, hon,” said Cathy, before carrying on. “No, I don’t think there’s a mention of Mark in Patrick Enright’s will. But I’ll tell you my theory: We’re due a visit from Mark, all the same. If anything would bring him back to this town, it’d be his brother’s death. And though that house may not be his, I’m sure he’d want to claim it.”
Claire formed her hands into fists beneath the table. She squeezed and relaxed them, squeezed and relaxed. She was a freshman at OSU. A journalism major. She was not Claire Sullivan, inheritor of the house in question.
Having finished her work at the register, Cathy walked to the sisters’ table, setting down the check. Claire was ready with cash. She placed the bills down and told Cathy, “Keep the change.”
Cathy studied the money for a moment, counting it up. Then, it seemed, she decided that Claire had been generous. And she had: 40 percent. It only felt right, given Cathy’s performance.
“Didn’t you like the food?” Cathy asked, eyes flitting to Claire’s parfait.
“Uh.” Claire looked to Murphy’s empty plate and Eileen’s half-finished pancakes. “Guess I got too excited by the story. You know, journalist’s stomach. That’s what we call it.”
Her lying was getting worse. Claire scooted from the booth, and Murphy and Eileen followed suit.
“Thank you again!” she called to Cathy.
She felt she should be thanking everyone in the diner: Wyatt, Orson, Kerry, and the two old ladies. It was as though they had been in it together, this shared experience of the Enright murders.
Cathy nodded amiably at Claire. “You girls take care.”
“We will. Thanks.”
It was all Claire could manage. She wanted to be out of this diner, out of Rockport, out of the story unspooling around her.
They had almost reached the door when Claire felt the lightest touch on her elbow. She turned to see Kerry, the sheriff, standing there.
She knows, a frantic voice looped in Claire’s mind. She knows, she knows.
“You girls okay?” The sheriff’s words were kind, not accusatory. But maybe that was the ploy she used on people she knew to be trespassers. Made them feel comfortable, to draw out damning information.
With effort, Claire put on a smile. “Oh. Yes! We’re good.”
Kerry nodded, looking thoughtful. Thoughtful about what, though? Whether or not she meant to arrest them?
“I know you’re college girls,” Kerry said, “and I’m sure your parents have already given you the rundown. But as young women traveling alone on the holidays, out of familiar territory … just remember to be aware of your surroundings.”
Claire stared at Kerry, and as she did, realization touched the young sheriff’s face.
“Oh! Not that I’m trying to scare you.” She lowered her voice, confidentially. “I don’t