EXCERPT

 Craig crinkled up his nose and sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

“It’s called fresh air, Craig.” He rolled down the limousine window and let the wind flirt with his hair. He breathed deeply the scents of his youth. “It’s called air without smog and pollution. We’re almost to the lake, and I can smell the water and…” Unexpectedly his stomach clenched. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the buttery calfskin upholstery.

“And what?”

This was ridiculous. It had been years. It shouldn’t still have such a stranglehold on him. He had to take control, and not allow his memories to consume him, and ruin his trip home. He pressed a hand to his gut. “And hay. Somebody’s done a cutting of hay already. That’s what that sweet, fresh-cut grass smell is from.”

“Hey, man, you’re pale as a ghost. You car-sick or something?”

“I think it was that trout I had on the plane.” He wasn’t about to tell Craig that the scent of hay had hung thick and heavy in the fall air the day he found his father’s body. In fact, he hoped to keep reminiscing to a minimum for the duration of the trip.

“So, are we close to your old house?” asked Craig eagerly.

So much for idle wishes. “No. We won’t be going by it. It’s on the other side of Bay’s Haven.”

“Well, you’ll have to take me out there later.” Craig stuck his hand out the window and played with the breeze. “They did say they’d have a rental car available for our use, right? I like a limo ride as well as the next guy, but they’re buggers to park at the mini-mall.”

A smile tugged at Sloan’s lips in spite of himself. “Yeah. This Mrs. Middleton I’ve been e-mailing assured me she’d try and have something nice and sporty available.”

“Like a Porsche or a Beemer?” Craig sounded like a toddler asking for a lollipop.

“Hardly. I think we’ll be lucky to get a Neon or Geo.”

“Ugh. You sure know how to spoil a guy’s fantasies.”

“Hey man, I resent that. I make my living off of fantasies.”

“True. But we’re not in Tinsel Town anymore, Toto. In fact I’ve never seen so much empty space. Hard to believe this is one of the most populated regions of Canada.”

“Yeah.” Sloan gazed out across the endless fields dotted with quaint farmhouses, lone maple trees and strands of birches. He could just make out a hint of blue beyond the dense line of evergreens to the north. “It feels kind of empty after the sardine-land of LA and Burbank.”

“I don’t know. I think I could get used to it. At least for a while.” Craig riveted an intense stare on his friend. “What the hell did you do for fun around here, anyway? Catch frogs, put them on rocks and watch them dry out in the sun?”

Sloan laughed for the first time since they’d disembarked the plane in Toronto. “You’d be surprised how much fun that can be. But we did manage to get a little more…innovative when the need arose.”

“Oh? Care to elaborate?”

“Not particularly.”

“Okay.” And Craig left it at that. For now.

Fifteen minutes later the stretch turned down Killdeer Drive and rolled to a stop in front of Bay’s Haven’s finest guest house—The Wee Inn.

* * * * *

Across the street at the Eventide Café, a lone figure sat and sipped from a glass of imported beer. His eyes remained riveted on the long, black car as it vomited its passengers onto the street. The half-eaten club sandwich on his plate was suddenly forgotten.

He had requested a sidewalk table, and lingered over his lunch for the sole purpose of catching a first glimpse of the return of Bay’s Haven’s prodigal son.

The sight of Sloan hit him like a fist to the gut. When Bree had informed him of her plans he had sighed and smiled, and bent over backwards to play his role as the congenial family friend. He had honored her requests, but all the time he had secretly hoped it would all fall through. Sloan’s exodus had been a dream, his return a nightmare.

“What does he know?” he whispered into the breeze.

He gripped his glass a little harder for fear it would slip through his sweaty fingers. He hated this—the waiting and the wondering. The not knowing was the worst. He liked to know all the variables, calculate all the angles. And he liked to make a decision and act on it swiftly. But Sloan was a wild card in an otherwise, well-ordered deck.

Sloan might be completely ignorant of the secrets that haunted Bay’s Haven like restless ghosts in a ruined castle. He might be. And then again, he might not.

Had Sloan’s mother followed through on her threats to tell him everything? Perhaps she had only hinted at things that could damage her as much as any of them. Perhaps she had only shared enough to ease her own tortured conscience. But if that was the case, how much, exactly, had she revealed? Or had it all been a grand bluff? The Carvers always were adept at lying. All of them.

But if he didn’t know, then why had he left? And why had he come back?

The questions were so thick that they clogged the airways and restricted the lungs. Questions and uncertainty could paralyze as surely as exposure. Something had to be done.

He picked up his sandwich and tore off an enormous chunk. He chewed methodically.

Sloan was still standing there, taking in the sights of his old hometown, his black-clad silhouette as trim and lithe as when he was eighteen. Resentment mingled with the uncertainty, coiling inside his stomach like a pair of hissing snakes. He pressed a hand to his gut, as if to still the writhing reptiles. But they would not be appeased.

But what to do? How to proceed without undue risk to himself or the business?

He drained the last of his beer and considered…

For now, uncertainty was the enemy. He had to establish the extent of the threat. There had to be a way to discern exactly how much Sloan Carver knew, and from there the course would become clear.

He would wait and watch. He would bide his time until an opportunity presented itself. And then he would decide. And then, if necessary, he would act.

If all went well, perhaps Sloan wouldn’t have to die.

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