LITMIR.BIZ

      As always, kids and dogs are welcome…

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter One

      The boat’s engine throbbed as Grayson Bennett kept the Hacker at a low speed and close to the lakeshore. The antique, thirty-foot craft was his pride and joy, a relic of the Great Gatsby era of lake life. Made of mahogany and varnished to a shine so bright it could hurt your eyes, the Bellitas was indeed a thing of beauty. And she was wickedly fast. The long, thin design provided three discreet seating areas, marked by contoured banquettes in dark green leather. The massive engine, capable of shooting the boat through the water at speeds of sixty miles an hour, took up a good six feet of space in the middle.

      He would miss her when he put her up on blocks for the winter, and the time for her yearly hibernation was coming fast. He could feel it in the air.

      Even though it was the middle of the day, September was cool in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. To take the edge off the chill, he was wearing a windbreaker and his only passenger, aside from a big, very happy golden retriever, had on a thick sweater.

      Naturally, the dog had plenty of insulation.

      Gray looked across the seat at the woman who stared at the cliffs they were passing. Cassandra Cutler’s thick red hair was secured at her neck and her green eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. The frames covered up the dark circles of her exhaustion, too.

      No doubt she saw little of the rocks and pine trees, he thought. Life had to be an inconsequential blur for someone who’d become a widow only six weeks ago.

      “How’re we doing?” he asked his old, dear friend.

      She smiled slightly, a tense expression he knew she worked at. “I’m glad you pestered me to get out of the city.”

      “Good.”

      “I can’t imagine I’m enjoyable company, though,” Cassandra said.

      “You’re not here to perform.”

      Gray focused on the lake ahead as the silence was filled with the sound of the boat’s deep-throated engine and the lapping of water against the wooden gunnels. Sunshine glinted off the mahogany, flashed over the tops of the gentle waves, brought out the vivid blue of the sky and the dense green of the mountains. The air was so clear and clean that when he breathed deep, the inside of his nose hummed.

      It was a perfect fall day. And he was about to shoot the hell out of his quiet enjoyment.

      When they’d left his estate’s boathouse, he could have taken them in any direction. To the south, where they could have danced around a thicket of small islands. Across to the west to see some of the other big stretches of property.

      But no, he’d chosen the north where sooner or later the old Moorehouse mansion would appear. White Caps was a big white birthday cake of a house, perched on a three-acre bluff. Once the family’s lavish private home, it had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast by them when their money had run out.

      But he wasn’t going to look at the property.

      When the bluff appeared in the distance, his eyes narrowed. The long rolling lawn, which drifted from White Caps’ porches to the shore, was a dazzling green. Oaks and maples framed the house,

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