Sarah dragged off the ski cap. She threaded her fingers through her hair and braced her elbows on the window. Randall Enfinger, the bicoastal developer who’d purchased the Young estate, was clean. As clean as a guy that rich and with that many connections could be. He’d bought the extensive property for the purpose of building a resort. He didn’t care that the village’s founding father, Thomas Young, had been born there. The greedy heirs didn’t appear to care, either, since they had sold to the highest bidder with no thought as to what happened after the sale.
As soon as the deconstruction had started, so had the village’s trouble. At first there were protests from the residents. Local media aired the controversy. Then Mother Nature stepped in. Hurricane-force winds had struck in the middle of the night. No lives had been lost, but the property damage had been significant. Sarah had seen the trees along Calderwood Lane and Chapel Trail that had been snapped by the out-of-season storm. As an encore, full-on winter arrived early in the form of heavier-than-usual snows inDecember and January. All construction work had stopped for a couple of weeks.
Then when the forces of nature didn’t stop Enfinger completely, Valerie Gerard went missing. A few days later her body had been found, and a faction of the village residents had jumped on the curse bandwagon. Enfinger’s temporary office at the development site had burned.
Just like twenty years ago, the headlines had read. The accidental unearthing of a historic, and previously undiscovered, family cemetery had set off the chain of events back then. A hurricane had struck, doing substantial damage and killing four Youngstown residents. Almost immediately afterward, two women, one eighteen and one nineteen, had been murdered in a very similar manner as Valerie Gerard—their bodies discovered at the chapel. As if that wasn’t punishment enough, according to those who clung to the curse theory, the winter that followed was the worst in Youngstown history.
Until now.
Though Conner and Brighton hadn’t mentioned it, the tale went that the devil himself had been commissioned with punishing the villagers for any infractions of this nature.
“Bullshit.” Sarah pushed away from the window and scoped out the minibar. Wine. Bottled water. She frowned. No liquor?
Frustrated and tired, she opened a personal serving bottle of white wine that had been grown, bottled, and aged right here in a Youngstown vineyard.
“Probably poisoned.”
She took a long, deep swallow anyway.
Not bad. She drifted back to the bed, plunked the bottle on the antique side table, and opened her suitcase. She shoved her stuff into a couple of drawers and tucked the bag under the bed. Cosmetic bag in hand, she shuffled to the bathroom and tossed it onto the counter. “Cosmetic bag” was a misnomer in her case. She didn’t wear unnecessary cosmetics. Deodorant, Chapstick, toothbrush and paste, and hairbrush were all she packed.
Finishing her wine, she kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed. It was early still but she was tired. She needed to think, to review the research she’d done before she crashed for the night.
Tomorrow she would get started with the interviews. That was when she would really make friends. She would be watching for that compassion Conner spoke of.
The buzz of her cell phone vibrating reminded her that she hadn’t called her editor. Don Wiley would be pissed. She rolled off the bed and dug for her phone in her coat pocket.
“Newton,” she answered without checking the number first as she usually did.
“Sarah, you missed your appointment today.”
Big mistake to answer without checking the caller ID.
“Sorry about that, Doc. I had an unexpected assignment. I completely forgot the appointment.” Hell. Dr. Ballantine. Her shrink. She would never get off the phone without answering endless, probing questions.
“You know our deal, Sarah. You can miss one appointment, but if you miss two, we have the session by phone. Is now good for you?”
Sarah fell back onto the bed. Damn it. Damn her editor. This was his fault. She’d had that little meltdown a couple of years ago and he’d blackmailed her into therapy. One session per week or no field assignments. Even worse, he kept Ballantine abreast of Sarah’s assignments—just to ensure she wasn’t working too hard or going against the doc’s orders.
Damn it.
“Sure.” She made a face. “Now’s fine.”
“Excellent.”
The sound of a page turning told Sarah the doc was preparing to take notes. At least she wasn’t recording it. Sarah hated recorded sessions. What if someone broke into the doc’s office and stole the tapes or the notes? The dirtbag killer here in Youngstown wasn’t the only one with secrets.
Sarah would just as soon prefer that hers stayed where they belonged. In the past.
“How have you been sleeping?”
“Great.” Lie one.
“Good. Any dreams or nightmares that wake you or unsettle you?”
“Nope.” Lie two. She usually made it all the way to four before Dr. Ballantine called her on her lack of cooperation.
“Any night sweats or headaches?”
