LITMIR.BIZ

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answered, his tone affable. “We’re almost home.”

      “IT’S JUST PLAIN SILLY to get all bent out of shape just because Dylan Creed showed up at story hour with absolutely the most gorgeous child in the universe,” Kristy told Winston, long about sundown as, standing on the top rung of a folding ladder, she swabbed sunshine-yellow paint around the framework of the archway between the kitchen and dining room.

      Winston, having just devoured his usual feast, groomed one of his forepaws meticulously and offered no comment.

      “I mean, it isn’t as if he’s ever had any trouble attracting women,” Kristy went on, wiping a splotch of paint from her nose with the sleeve of the oversize men’s shirt she’d bought at Goodwill for messy jobs.

      “Meow,” Winston said, halfheartedly.

      “It’s just that it was sort of a shock, that’s all.”

      Bored, Winston turned, fluffed out his bushy tail and hied himself to the living room. He liked to curl up on the antique bureau in front of the bay windows and watch the world go by. Slow going, in Stillwater Springs. Hours could pass before a car putted past.

      “Typical,” Kristy said to the empty kitchen. “Nobody listens to me.”

      In the next instant, somebody rapped at her back door, and Kristy nearly fell off the ladder, she was so startled. What was the matter with her, anyway?

      “Come in!” she called, because that was what you did in Stillwater Springs.

      When Sheriff Book opened the door and stepped across the threshold, she was surprised, though not enough to take a header to the linoleum.

      “You shouldn’t just call out ‘come in’ like that,” Floyd said, taking off his sheriff hat and setting it aside on the counter. “I could have been some drifter, bent on murder and mayhem.” A little grin twitched at the corner of his mouth, softening his otherwise stern expression. “This isn’t the old days, Kristy.”

      Kristy set her wet paintbrush in the aluminum tray of sunshine-yellow and climbed down the ladder, smiling. “Coffee?” she asked.

      Floyd shook his head, sighed. “Trying to cut down,” he said. “Keeps me awake at night.”

      Kristy stood there, waiting for him to get to the reason for his visit.

      “You mind sitting down?” the sheriff asked, sounding tired.

      Uh-oh, Kristy thought. Here comes the whammy.

      Once she was seated at the table, Floyd took a chair across from her. “I guess you know the bank finally untangled that probate mess over the ranch,” he said quietly. “And Freida’s got that movie-star fella all set to buy it.”

      Kristy’s throat thickened. She nodded. “She told me it was going up for sale now that all the legal processes are complete.” She was curious as to why Floyd had dropped in to tell her something like that.

      “It’s an old ranch,” Floyd went on, his expression downright grim. “A lot happened out there, over the years.”

      Kristy felt an uneasy prickle in the pit of her stomach. “Floyd, what are you getting at?”

      “I think there might be a body buried on the place,” Floyd said.

      Kristy’s mouth dropped open, and her heart stopped, then raced. The monster-memory stirred in the depths of her brain. “A body?”

      Floyd sighed. “I could be wrong,” he said, but the expression on his face said he didn’t think so.

      “Good God,” Kristy said, too stunned to say anything else and, at the same time, strangely not surprised.

      The sheriff looked pained. “There was a man—worked for your daddy one summer when you were just a little thing. Some drifter—I never knew his name for certain. Men like him came and went all the time, stopping to earn a few dollars on some ranch. But one night, late, Tim woke me up with a phone call and said there was bad trouble, and I ought to get out there quick. He didn’t sound like himself—for a moment or two, I thought I was talking to a prowler. Turned out he’d caught this drifter fella sneaking out of the house with some of your mother’s jewelry and what cash they had on hand, which was plenty, because they’d sold some cattle at auction that day. There was a fight, that was all Tim would tell me. That there’d been a fight. I dressed and headed for the ranch, soon as I could. And when I got there, your dad changed his story. Said the drifter had moved on and good riddance to him.”

      Dread welled up inside Kristy, but she said, “That must have been the truth, then.” She’d never known her father to lie about anything, however expedient it might be.

      But Sheriff Book shook his head again. His eyes seemed to sink deeper into his head, and there were shadows under them. “I took his word for it, because he was my best friend, but there was more to the story, and I knew it. Tim looked worse than he’d sounded on the phone. It was a cold night, but he was sweating, and he had dirt under his nails, and on his clothes, too. You know he always cleaned up before supper, Kristy, and this was well after midnight.”

      Kristy couldn’t speak, couldn’t bring herself to ask the obvious question: Did Sheriff Book think her father had killed a man?

      “Few days later,” the sheriff went on, clearly forcing out the words, “on a Sunday morning, I came by the ranch for a look around, when I knew you and your folks were at church. And I found what I figured was a freshly dug grave in that copse of trees over near where Tim’s property and the Creed place butt up.”

      Kristy felt a surge of relief—he’d seen Sugarfoot’s grave that morning, not that of a human being—but it was gone in a moment. Back then, Sugarfoot had been alive and well.

      Floyd reached across the table, squeezed her ice-cold hand. “I asked Tim what was there. He said an old dog had strayed into his barn and died there, and he’d buried the poor critter in the midst of those trees.” He thrust out another sigh. “I was the sheriff. I should have done some digging, both literal and figurative, but I didn’t. I wanted to believe your dad, so I did, but I’ve always wondered, and now that I’m about to retire, I’ve got to know for sure. It isn’t just the coffee that keeps me up at night, it’s certain loose ends.”

      Kristy thought she was going to be sick. “You’re going to—to exhume—”

      Floyd nodded. “I know Sugarfoot’s buried there, Kristy,” he said gruffly, hardly able to meet her gaze, “and I’ll do my best not to disturb his remains too much. But I’ve got to see, once and for all, if there’s a dog in that grave with him—or a man.”

      “You seriously think my father—your best friend—would murder someone and then go to such lengths to hide the body?” Now, Kristy was light-headed. Her heart pounded, and the smell of paint, unnoticed before, brought bile scalding up into the back of her throat.

      Don’t remember, whispered a voice in the shadowy recesses of her mind, where migraines and nightmares lurked. Don’t remember.

      “I think,” Sheriff Book said quietly, “that there was a fight, and things got out of hand. If Tim did kill that drifter, it was an accident, and nobody will ever convince me otherwise. He’d have been real upset, Tim, I mean, with you and your mother in the house—that would have made the fight one he couldn’t afford to lose. In Tim’s place, I’d have been scared as hell of what that fella might do if I wasn’t up to stopping him.”

      Kristy got up, meaning to bolt for the bathroom, then sat down again with a plunk. “But Dad called you,” she muttered. “Would he have done that if he’d killed somebody?”

      “He was in a panic, Kristy. He probably called first and thought later.”

      “Dad’s gone, and so is Mom. You’re about to retire. Can’t we just let this whole thing … lie?”

      “If

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