“I see you buy natural, not sugar-added. That’s the only kind I’ll eat.”
She whirled around so fast she slid on the peanut butter and nearly careened into the soup. The man caught her arm and pulled her upright.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Let me get you another jar. Here comes a young fellow with a mop. Better let him wipe off the bottom of your sneaker.”
“Yes, of course.” The man not two feet from her was a stranger, which didn’t mean all that much since she hadn’t met everyone in town. He was wearing a black windbreaker, dark jeans, and Nike running shoes. He was careful not to step into the peanut butter. Her first impression was that he was big and he looked really hard and his hair was on the long side, and as dark as his eyes.
“The only thing,” he continued after a moment, “it’s a real pain to have to stir the peanut butter before you put it in the refrigerator. The oil always spills over the sides and on your hands.” He smiled, but his eyes still looked hard, as if he looked at people and saw all the bad things they were trying to hide, and was used to it, maybe even philosophical about it. She didn’t want him looking at her that way, seeing deep into her. She didn’t want to talk to him. She just wanted to get out of there.
“Yes, I know,” she said, and took a step back.
“Once I got used to it, though, I found I couldn’t eat the other peanut butter, too much sugar.”
“That’s true.” She took another step away from him. Who was he? Why was he trying to be so nice?
“Miss Powell, I’m Young Jeff. Ah, Old Jeff is my pop, he’s the assistant manager. Just hold still and I’ll clean off your sneaker.” He picked up her foot, nearly sending her over backward. The man held her up while Young Jeff wiped a wet paper towel over the bottom of her sneaker. He was very strong, she could feel it since his hands were in her armpits. “I’m sure glad you’re here, ma’am. I wanted to know if that poor dead skeleton was Mrs. McBride. Everyone is talking about how it can’t be anybody else, what with Mrs. McBride just up and disappearing like she did not all that long ago. Everyone says you know it’s Mrs. McBride, too, that you were sure, but how could you be? Did you meet Mrs. McBride?”
He finally released her foot. She pulled away from Young Jeff and the man, a good two feet. She felt cold, very cold. She rubbed her hands over her crossed arms. “No, Jeff, I never met Ann McBride. I didn’t know anything about her. No one said a single word to me about her. Also, everybody is being premature. Now, I’ll just bet that we’ll be hearing very soon that the poor woman I found can’t be Ann McBride. You tell everyone I said that.”
“I will, Miss Powell, but that’s not what Mrs. Ella says. She thinks it’s Ann McBride, too.”
“Believe me, Jeff, I was there, and I saw the skeleton; Mrs. Ella didn’t. Hey, I’m sorry about the mess. Thanks for cleaning off my shoe.”
The man stuck out his arm and helped her over the shards of glass. “Young Jeff is a teenage boy with raging hormones,” he said, very aware that she had pulled away from him again. “I’m afraid you’re now the object of his affection.”
She shuddered. “No, I’m the object of everyone’s curiosity, nothing more, including poor Young Jeff.” She stopped. The man couldn’t help it that she was spooked. She drew a deep breath, gave him a nice big smile, and said, “I’ve got a few more things to buy, Mr.-?”
“Carruthers. Adam Carruthers.” He stuck out his hand and she automatically shook it. Big hand, hard, just like the rest of him. She’d bet the last dime in the bottom of her purse that even the soles of his feet were hard. She knew without being told that he was very disciplined, very focused, like soldiers or bad guys were focused, and that made her so afraid she nearly ran out right that minute. Which was silly. Only one thing she really knew for sure-she didn’t ever want to have to tangle with him. Actually, if she never saw him again, it would be just fine by her. “I haven’t seen you around town before, Mr. Carruthers.”
“No, I just got here yesterday. The first thing I heard about was your finding that skeleton. The second thing I heard was it was the missing wife of your neighbor, Tyler McBride, and that you were seeing him and now wasn’t that interesting?”
A reporter, she thought. Oh God, maybe he was a reporter or a paparazzo, and they’d found her. Her brave new world in the boondocks was going to be over just as it was beginning. It wasn’t fair. She began backing away from him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. I’m very busy. It was a pleasure to meet you. Goodbye.” And she was nearly running down the aisle lined with different kinds of breads, hamburger buns, and English muffins.
He stared after her. She was taller than he’d expected, and too thin. Well, he’d be skinny, too, if he’d been under as much pressure as she was. What mattered was that he had found her. Amateurs, he thought, even very smart ones, couldn’t easily disappear. He thought about how he had managed to misdirect the FBI, and grinned at the jars of low-fat jams and jellies. They had more procedures, more requirements, more delays built into the system, a system that could have been designed by a criminal to give himself the best shot at escaping. Another thing they didn’t have was
He went back to his second-floor corner room at Errol Flynn’s Hammock, booted up his laptop, and wrote a quick e-mail:
He sat back in his chair and smelled the coffee perking in the Mr. Coffee machine he’d bought at Goose’s Hardware when he’d gotten into town.
She was wary of him, maybe even afraid. Well, he couldn’t blame her, a big guy trying to pick her up in Food Fort after she’d found a skeleton in her basement, while already on the run from the FBI, the NYPD, and a murderous madman. He didn’t think she’d been amused by his peanut butter wit, which meant she wasn’t a dolt.
He poured a cup of coffee, sipped it, and sighed with bone-deep satisfaction. He leaned back in the dark-brown nubby chair, which was surprisingly comfortable. The TV played quietly on its stand against a far wall, providing background noise. He closed his eyes, seeing Becca Matlock again.
No, now she was Becca Powell. Under that name she’d quickly rented the Jacob Marley place and promptly had a skeleton fall out of her basement wall after that incredible storm that had battered the Maine coast.
The woman had pretty sucky luck.
Now all he had to do was make her come to trust him.
Then, just maybe, he would have a very big surprise for her.
But first he had some reconnaissance to do. It never paid to rush into things.
So Adam kept his distance the next day, watched her house during the morning and saw Tyler McBride and his little boy, Sam, pay her a visit around eleven o’clock. The kid was really cute, but he didn’t yell and jump around like other kids his age. Was everyone right? Had the son witnessed McBride killing his mother, or was it just talk?
Adam wondered what was going on between Tyler McBride and Becca Matlock/Powell. He watched Sheriff Gaffney pay her a visit, even overheard the sheriff speaking to her outside the front door, on the big wraparound porch. He heard them clearly.
“Nothing yet from the medical examiner’s office, Sheriff?”
“They say hopefully tomorrow. I just wanted to go over the basement again, see what I could sniff out. My boys didn’t find any fingerprints, but just maybe there’s something there that we all missed. Oh, and another thing, Rachel Ryan asked me to tell you that some boys would be arriving to remove the tree and fix the window for you.”
The sheriff left after an hour, a chocolate chip cookie in his hand. Adam knew it was chocolate chip. He could smell the chocolate from twenty yards and was salivating.
He sent an e-mail after lunch and within an hour knew all about how Becca Matlock had met Tyler McBride at Dartmouth College. Had the two of them been college sweethearts? Lovers? Perhaps. It was interesting. And now everyone believed the skeleton was Tyler McBride’s missing wife, Ann. He’d find out everything he could about Tyler McBride. He supposed there was a certain possible irony at play here. What if she’d managed to get away from one stalker only to stumble upon a man who’d done away with his wife?
