The One Safe Place

He had to fight hard against the bitter envy that welled up in him whenever he saw the blissful Tremaines. But damn it, Parker didn’t know what he was talking about here. Reed didn’t need a distraction. He didn’t need a Good Samaritan mission. He didn’t even need a housekeeper.

And he damn sure didn’t need Faith Constable and her troubled nephew, with a murderer nipping at their heels.

What he needed was Melissa. Or, failing that, someone to drill into his brain and surgically remove all memories of being in love.

CHAPTER TWO

FAITH CHECKED HER WATCH in the bright mountain sunlight. She had checked her watch about ten times in the past half hour. She didn’t really care what time it was. She just needed something to do, something to fidget away the anxiety that was threatening to overtake her.

At four-seventeen, just two minutes behind schedule, Detective Bentley stopped his car at a deserted mountain pass called Vanity Gap. It was time to turn them over.

His friend Parker Tremaine was waiting at the mouth of the gap, ready to receive them. It was a strange, complicated transaction, designed to make it difficult for anyone to follow them without being seen. Faith felt a little like a ransomed hostage. Or perhaps just a parcel of smuggled goods.

Parker looked very nice, and was in fact startlingly handsome. Still, as Faith watched Detective Bentley transferring their suitcases from the unmarked cop car into Parker’s expensive luxury sedan, she felt a clutch of fear.

At least she knew the detective. After the past intense weeks, he seemed to have become a real ally. A friend. Besides, he was her tie to the city, to her sister, to her real life, which for the past three hours had been rapidly receding in the rear window.

Getting into this new car with this stranger, however handsome, would be like sailing into darkness, and she was suddenly washed with uncertainty.

Somehow she had to hide it, though, for Spencer’s sake. The little boy stood beside her, still as a statue. The only movement came from his Sheltie puppy, Tigger.

Tigger, whose boundless energy had earned him his name, was struggling to reconcile his excitement about the trip with his innate urge to stay close to his little master. Consequently, though he whined and writhed in place, he never got more than two inches from Spencer’s left foot.

Faith patted the puppy, then took Spencer’s hand and smiled down at him reassuringly.

“Okay, sweetie, here we go,” she said with an attempt at brightness.

Spencer just stared at her, his brown eyes so like his mother’s that Faith almost couldn’t bear to look into them.

He didn’t speak, of course. Spencer hadn’t spoken a word since Grace’s death. “Conversion reaction,” the psychiatrists had called it. Or perhaps “selective mutism.” But she called it something simpler—and yet far more tragic. She called it unbearable pain.

He was only six years old, and already the world had hurt him so much he no longer had the power to express it.

No, she corrected herself. The world hadn’t done that. Doug Lambert had done it.

“We’re going with Mr. Tremaine now. He’s taking us to Autumn House. That’s where you and Tigger and I will be living for a little while, remember?”

“Please. Call me Parker.” The tall, blue-eyed man came over and squatted down to get at eye level with Spencer. “Autumn House belongs to a friend of mine. It’s very big and very pretty. And it has a huge yard that puppies like to run around in. I think Tigger will have a great time there.”

Faith noticed that Parker didn’t phrase anything as a question. So he must already know about Spencer. Detective Bentley had probably filled him in on all the pitiful details. Which was only natural, of course. Only fair. These people were doing her a huge favor, and they deserved to know exactly what they were getting into.

It was ungrateful of her to mind. And yet the idea of these strangers discussing her personal tragedies was oddly distressing. Intrusive, as if she really were just that troublesome parcel of handle-with-care cargo.

She felt a new stab of hatred toward Doug Lambert as she added this to his list. He had stolen their basic right to privacy. A small loss, compared to the loss of Grace, or the loss of Spencer’s emotional peace, but another black mark on the board nonetheless.

When the bags were all transferred, Detective Brantley came over to say goodbye. His kind eyes sent courage into hers as he wished her well, and assured her that he’d keep in touch frequently through Parker, making sure she was always updated on the search for Doug Lambert.

Faith allowed herself one long hug. She had to pull herself away, finally, for fear she might dissolve into tears, which would be embarrassing. Besides, it would frighten Spencer, who needed to believe that his aunt, at least, had a firm grip on the reins of their changing, unpredictable world.

“Thanks for everything, Detective,” she managed to say before her voice gave out. And then, without looking back, she took Spencer’s hand and led him into the soft, leather-upholstered interior of Parker Tremaine’s waiting car.

Parker and the detective must have said their goodbyes very quickly, because in less than a minute Parker joined them.

He slipped his key in the ignition, using the mirror to check Spencer and Tigger, who were huddled together in the back seat.

“Everybody buckled in?”

Spencer pretended he hadn’t heard him, but Faith could see that the seat belt was already carefully pulled over both boy and dog. Spencer was so cautious now, she realized with a pang. It was unnatural to see any little boy sitting so still. Like someone frozen in the middle of a minefield.

Once Spencer would have fussed and giggled and played stalling games, pretending he couldn’t find the dreaded lap restraint. But not now. Now he obviously clung to any illusion of safety he could find.

“We’re all ready,” she said, turning to Parker with her best attempt at a smile. He was an innocent bystander in this drama. No need to make him any more uncomfortable than was absolutely necessary.

But as they drove down the winding road that led to Firefly Glen, she gradually realized that Parker wasn’t the uncomfortable type. His conversation was easy, wry and interesting. He avoided anything personal, instead amusing them with stories of how Vanity Gap got its name, and the history of the four “season” houses of Firefly Glen.

They would be staying in one of those special mansions—the Autumn House. Parker spent a lot of time describing the place, somehow making it sound both cozy and grand. Out of the corner of her eye, Faith could see that Spencer had tilted forward slightly, so that he wouldn’t miss a word.

Parker was very smooth. By the time they reached the bottom of the mountain, Faith had relaxed considerably, and she could see that even Spencer’s knuckles were no longer clenched white and bloodless.

“This is Main Street,” Parker said as they turned into a shopping area so quaint it might have been in a picture book of charming European villages.

Faith’s first impression was of clean, sparkling color. It had rained earlier, and gleaming cobblestones wound their way through storefronts decorated with garlands of autumn leaves. Golden chrysanthemums frothed out of pots at every door and late-season daisies flowered in a hundred hanging planters.

“It’s very pretty,” she said inadequately. Actually, it was far more than that. It was like the schoolbook illustration for Our Happy Hometown.

Warm and welcoming, a little jeweled paradise where surely everyone was generous and good, and nothing ever went wrong.

But it was, of course, merely an illusion. No such Eden existed, she knew that. Even a town this beautiful had its secrets, its tears, its cruelties behind closed doors. In spite of the mountains that stood guard on every side, illness and evil and despair had undoubtedly found their way into Firefly Glen, just as they had into every other place on earth.

But none of that was visible on the surface. And a couple of months ago, before Doug Lambert had come into their lives, she might have believed it.

Parker seemed to believe it still. He clearly adored his little town. His voice was warm as he pointed out its special features.

“Main Street wraps around the Town Square. See that central area? It stretches from the church at the north end to the hotel at the south. That’s the heart of the town. All the fun stuff happens here. We’ll be having a Halloween party here next month.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror. “It’s the best party in the world. Great rides, great games and enough cotton candy to make you puke pink.”

Faith thought she heard a noise from the back seat. It might have been a muffled giggle. But when she turned around, Spencer was studying the tag on Tigger’s collar, and he didn’t even seem to have heard.

“Sounds delightful,” she said dryly, watching the long, open green square pass by. The streets were lined with maple trees that had already begun to hint at autumn color. It would undoubtedly be gorgeous at the height of the fall. “But we probably won’t be—”

She stopped herself before she could finish the thought. We won’t be here then, she had been about to say. Halloween was a whole month away, so surely…

But the truth was, she didn’t really know what the future held. She had no idea when—or if—the police would catch Doug Lambert. She had no idea when she and Spencer could go home.

And it was extremely important that she never, ever mislead the little boy. She mustn’t ever get his hopes up, only to dash them later. He had suffered so much shock, so much loss that he didn’t trust anything or anyone anymore.

She was going to have to work very hard to win back even a little of that sweet trust he used to give so freely.

“It sounds terrific,” she repeated, without the wryness. “Maybe we’ll go, if we’re still here at Halloween.”

And as soon as she said the words, a voice in the back of her head added another thought…the kind of sickening thought she’d never had before Grace’s death. The kind of ugly, shivering thought that seemed so out of place in Firefly Glen.

Maybe they’d go. If…

If Doug Lambert didn’t find them.

If they were still alive at Halloween.

REED’S LAST PATIENT of the day was a bunny that had hopped onto a nasty piece of broken glass. Flopsy, the beloved pet of a nine-year-old cutie named Becky, was going to be fine. Becky was another matter. She hadn’t stopped crying for the past twenty minutes.

Otherwise, though, it had been a light day. And it promised to be an easy night, too. They had only two boarders—a sleepy Persian cat recovering from a routine neutering and a spoiled lizard whose doting owners were out of town and didn’t trust anyone but Reed to shove lettuce into its terrarium properly.

He appreciated the easy workload, especially today, when Faith Constable and her nephew were set to arrive any minute. It had given him time to make sure the guest bedrooms were presentable—which took longer than he’d expected.

He had opened the windows to banish any mustiness. He’d been too long without a housekeeper, that was for damn sure. He hoped she was a good one.

At four-thirty, Tucker Brady, the teenager who helped him with the heavy work, poked his head in the door.

“Hey, Doc. Things are pretty quiet back here. Any chance I could dip out a little early?”

Reed ought to say no. He had promised Tucker’s older sister, Mary, that he’d keep Tucker so overworked and underpaid that he couldn’t acquire any more tattoos. Tucker already had a fire-breathing dragon trailing down one arm, and he was so proud of it he hadn’t worn a long-sleeved shirt since he got it, not even last week, when the temperature dropped below forty.

But tonight Tucker didn’t look like a boy hot for a tattoo. He had washed his face, slicked back his dark hair and waded into a vat of cologne. He looked—or more accurately smelled—like a boy with a hot date.

“Sure,” Reed said, handing the bandaged rabbit back to Becky, who clutched it to her chest tightly. Actually, Flopsy was in far more danger of dying of suffocation than a cut foot. “Just toss some food out for the ducks before you leave, okay?”

Tucker agreed eagerly and disappeared before Reed could change his mind. Becky’s mom dried the little girl’s tears, paid her bill and departed.

So far so good. And still twenty minutes left before Faith Constable was due to arrive.

But Reed should have known that, the minute he started congratulating himself on having things under control, something would go wrong.

He was washing his hands, waiting for Justine to finish running the computer backup discs so they both could call it a day, when suddenly the room came alive with a raucous honking.

Justine covered her ears and grimaced. But Reed knew that sound. Something was bothering the ducks out by the back pond. They were making such a violent ruckus that, though the clinic was a hundred yards away, the quiet office seemed full of quacking and honking and the flapping of frantic wings.

He met Justine’s bewildered gaze.

“Another fox?” she asked, worried. She picked up Gavin and held him protectively, as if she feared that the fox might decide that the plump, soft baby would make a tastier treat than an old stringy duck.

“It’s a little early for that—they usually show up at dusk. But I’ll see.” Reed went out the back door. God, that fox was a persistent devil, wasn’t he? He thought he’d scared the scavenger away for good last week.

Though he knew that ducks in the wild became dinner for foxes every day, he felt a certain responsibility toward these particular silly birds. Melissa had encouraged them to live on their pond—had named them and generally pampered them into lazy, domesticated guests.

And, as she had always said, laughing, it was very bad manners to let a predator come in and gnaw on your guests.

But, when Reed walked outside, he saw immediately that it wasn’t a fox.

Instead, it was a skinny little boy and a shaggy little dog.

And it was also a beautiful, dark-haired, well-dressed woman who had kicked off her shoes and dropped her purse at the edge of the grass and now seemed to be playing a peculiar game of tag with the other two.

As best Reed could tell, the dog had started it. Just a puppy, really, he was racing up and down the length of the pond, trailing a long, limp leash. He was having the time of his life, his pink tongue flying as he ran, barking incessantly, clearly intoxicated by the power of setting the ducks into a noisy flutter.

The little boy was chasing the dog, making periodic futile attempts to snag the leash. His pinched face was as serious as a judge, and he never took his eyes off the puppy, as if his life depended on catching him.

The woman was chasing the boy, stumbling over clumsy ducks who waddled into her path. “Spencer! Tigger! Stop! Please, sweetheart. Stop.”

At the same instant, Reed observed his friend Parker rounding the corner, his arms full of suitcases, which he promptly dropped when he spied the chaos before him.

“Spencer, don’t,” Parker called out, echoing the woman. Then he noticed Reed standing at the clinic door and gave him a sheepish grin. “This isn’t exactly how the introductions were supposed to go, but that great-looking lady down there is your new housekeeper.”

“So I gathered.”

Parker’s grin deepened. “Well? It’s your pond. Your ducks. And you’re the superhero in this story. You’re the gallant protector.”

“Damn it, Parker, I knew you had a hidden agenda here. I am nobody’s superhero, and you damn well know it.”

“Okay, okay.” Parker looked meek. “But you’re in your work clothes, while I, unfortunately, am wearing Sarah’s favorite overpriced suit. Maybe you should…um…do something?”

With a dark glance at Parker—a glance that reminded him whose idea all this had been in the first place—Reed moved toward the pond, which seemed to be churning with wings and webbed feet.

Suddenly, without warning, the dog took a flying leap into the pond and began to paddle furiously toward the nearest mallard.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the little boy barreled in after him, making a hell of a splash.

And, of course, the woman followed frantically.

She probably thought the boy was in danger. She couldn’t know, of course, that the pond was a mere two feet deep. The puppy was the only one who couldn’t touch the bottom quite easily.

Reed started to lope toward them, but Faith looked over, her lovely mouth pressed tight, her wide gaze embarrassed. She shook her head.

“No, please,” she said. “It’s okay.”

He stopped. Her voice was low and pleasant, a little husky—the kind of voice that drove men wild without even trying. But it was emphatic. She was already embarrassed, and she did not want to be “rescued.”

So he honored that, standing at the edge of the pond, watching in case anyone slipped on the way out.

Now that her clothes were drenched, he couldn’t help noticing that her body was spectacular. He glanced at Parker suspiciously, wondering if his friend had known that Faith Constable was a bona fide beauty when he decided she should hide out at Autumn House. It would be just like him to try a little matchmaking.

But Parker looked every bit as mesmerized as Reed felt. Parker might be happily married, but that didn’t mean he was blind. And, even soaking wet—maybe especially soaking wet—this woman was enough to drive an army to its knees.

“Please,” she called out again. “I don’t want you to get wet, too, Dr. Fairmont. We’re fine, really.”

She was holding out her hand to stop him, and Reed realized he must have unconsciously taken another step toward her. He reined himself in with effort.

She was right, of course. They were fine. Spencer had quickly caught the dog, who wriggled in his arms, ecstatically licking mud from his chin. Faith put her arm across the boy’s wet, bony shoulder and bent down, ignoring the water, to give him something that was a cross between a hug and a stern talking to.

It was quite a scene, the two drenched and muddy creatures standing knee deep in water, their clothes ruined, their hair streaming in their faces. And all around them, the ducks paddled peacefully, staring straight ahead with stately boredom, as if, sadly, nothing interesting ever happened on their little pond.

Just then, Justine appeared at Reed’s elbow, chewing on some spearmint-scented gum, her sleeping baby propped on her shoulder.

“Wow,” she said without much inflection, scanning the weird tableau before them. “That half-drowned thing in the pond is your ‘fox’?”

“No.” Reed shook his head slowly, and then, seeing that Faith’s minilecture was over, he began to move a little closer. Maybe he could just lend a hand, just make sure they could climb out without any further dunking.

He glanced back at Justine briefly with a small smile. “Actually,” he said, “that’s my new housekeeper.”

Justine stared a minute, and then she chuckled, stroking her baby’s cheek softly.

“Wow,” she said again as she turned to go back into the clinic. “And I thought you were nuts for hiring me!”

CHAPTER THREE

FAITH HAD NEVER BEEN so humiliated in her life. What a great first impression! She couldn’t imagine what Reed Fairmont must think.

She had to fight the urge to come staggering out of the pond, dripping mud all over everyone, and start compulsively overexplaining, overapologizing, overreacting.

She hadn’t realized that Tigger was essentially being theatrical and never had any intention of massacring Dr. Fairmont’s ducks. Tigger wasn’t a bird dog. He was just a puppy with too much energy, but for a minute she’d forgotten that.

And she hadn’t, of course, realized how shallow the pond was. She had been too focused on the fact that Spencer wasn’t a strong swimmer. He was just six years old, and if he’d slipped beneath the black-gold water, she might not have been able to find him in time.

But, though these were good reasons, they weren’t the real reasons, and she knew it. The real reason Spencer had overreacted to the fear of losing Tigger, and the real reason she had been so afraid of losing Spencer, was simply that they had lost too much already.

They weren’t like other people anymore. Their antennae were always subtly tuned to the disaster frequency. They had seen how swiftly tragedy could strike—even on a sunny summer morning, even in your own home, even while people were making peanut butter sandwiches—and that knowledge had changed them forever.

But that wasn’t the kind of thing you walked right up to a total stranger and began explaining. “Hello, nice to meet you, sorry about the ducks, but you see my nephew and I have developed this disaster mentality.”

Impossible. So instead she put her arm around Spencer’s shoulder and guided him toward the bank of the pond. She stroked his hair back from his forehead, and then did the same to her own. Her stitches hurt—she shouldn’t have let them get wet—but she ignored the pain.

She summoned up all her dignity and looked at Reed Fairmont with her best imitation of a normal smile.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “We seem to have made a terrible mess.”

The man in front of her smiled, too. It was such a warm, sympathetic smile that for a minute Faith thought maybe Reed Fairmont did understand everything. Maybe he knew about how fear seemed to follow them everywhere, even to Firefly Glen, how they heard its whisper in the song of the birds, in the rustle of the wind and the slither of the rain, and even in the kiss of the sunset.

But that was ridiculous, of course. Reed was a doctor. That smile was probably just part of his reassuring bedside manner.

“It’s no problem,” he said. “I’m just sorry you must be so uncomfortable.”

Her next thought was that he was a surprisingly young, attractive man. If anything, even more attractive than the elegant Parker Tremaine. She looked from one man to the other curiously.

Firefly Glen must have some kind of sex-appeal potion in its water.

Detective Bentley had never said how old Dr. Fairmont was—just that he was the widowed veterinarian of this small mountain town. Faith’s imagination had summoned up a gray-haired, weather-beaten image, kind of a countrified Gregory Peck in half glasses and a lab coat, his trusty hound trotting at his heels.

She couldn’t have been more wrong. No gray hair, no wrinkles, no reading glasses, no lab coat and no hound. Instead, the real Reed Fairmont was in his early thirties and good-looking enough to be an actor playing a country vet or a model posing for the cover of Adirondack Adventure.

Six-foot-something, with broad shoulders, trim hips and muscles in all the right places. Longish, wavy brown hair with a healthy dose of highlights. And green eyes smiling out from a forest of thick lashes.

He bent down and gave Tigger a pat. He smiled at Spencer. “Hi,” he said comfortably. “You’ve got a pretty great dog here.” Spencer just ducked his chin and stared down at Tigger.

Reed didn’t seem to notice. He stood without comment and gave Faith another smile. “It’s getting chilly,” he said. “I bet you’d like to get out of those wet clothes.”

She looked over at the house, which was gleaming now with lights in the encroaching dusk. Autumn House. It, too, had surprised her. Detective Bentley had reported that it was a large, wooden Adirondack cabin, but that simple description hadn’t begun to do it justice.

Autumn House was huge, and as beautiful as the forest itself. It sprawled with a natural grace as far as the eye could see—here following the contours of a small silver creek, there wrapping around an ancient oak. The house rose three stories at its center, then sloped to two, then one, then tapered off to a long wooden boardwalk that eventually disappeared into the woods.