"Saw who?"

"Saw whom," she corrected him, sounding like his seventh-grade English teacher. "The killer. You saw him."

"What makes you think it was a him?"

"He," she corrected him again in her daft, cordial voice. "Semen."

He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Semen. The girls had just had sex. Women don't produce semen." She smiled sweetly.

"No, they don't," he agreed, rattled. "Grace, it's the middle of the night. I really think I ought to take you back home."

"Oh, would you? That would be so kind. I'm sure Sophie is terribly worried about me. She does worry, poor girl. She needs a man." She eyed him speculatively. "I'm not sure you'd do, though."

"I wasn't offering."

"You don't need to," Grace said. "You're an intelligent man-I can tell as much from a glance, and any intelligent man would find my Sophie worth the effort."

"Effort?"

"But I don't think you'll do. I think perhaps you should go away."

He struggled to follow her line of reasoning. "Why?"

"Because you saw him," she said with a touch of asperity. "And he'll have to kill you. Go away."

"Who will? Who would have to kill me?" He should have known better than to ask her. She looked and sounded perfectly reasonable, sitting there in the middle of the night in her bathrobe and flyaway gray hair, but she jumped from one subject to another the way a hummingbird sampled flowers.

Grace rose, suddenly majestic. "Take me home, young man. It's getting late. Sophie will be quite cross with you for keeping me out so long."

Griffin sighed. "With any luck your daughter will never know you've been out wandering. Let's just hope she's asleep when we get back there."

"I wasn't out wandering. I was paying a social call." Grace rose, smoothing her skirt as if it were layers of crinoline. "You shouldn't underestimate me. I know exactly what I'm doing."

He looked into her soft, hazy blue eyes, and for a moment he thought he saw the sharp glint of intelligence there. It must have been a trick of the shadows. Or was it? Was Spacey Gracey really as spacey as she wanted people to believe?

"Maybe you do," he said.

She was a little woman, much smaller than her luscious daughter, and the look she cast up at him was almost coquettish. "I'd tell you to button your shirt but I'm rather hoping you'll distract Sophie with that nice chest of yours."

Shit. He began buttoning the soft flannel shirt he'd grabbed. He hadn't even been thinking about the tattoo, but Grace would have been hard put to see it with the shirt over him. The snake coiled over his left hip, usually hidden by clothing, but he wasn't wearing a belt and the jeans hung low on his hips. If he'd moved the wrong way the shirt could have exposed the tattoo. Not at all what he wanted. He looked completely different from the man who'd been dragged away for murder twenty years ago. But the tattoo was still the same.

He should have had it removed. Would have, too, except that Annelise had always hated it, and it had become a matter of principle. Besides, he had a sort of affection for it. The tattoo was part of who he was, who he had been, and you couldn't escape from the past. It made you who you were today.

He wasn't sure how pleased he was with the kind of man he'd grown into. But he wasn't ready to wipe out the rebellious young drifter completely with a bit of laser surgery. Not until he found out the answers to the questions that haunted him.

His life had always been dogged by luck, both good and bad. Bad luck to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the body of a murdered woman found nearby and blood staining his body. Good luck that some fool in the prosecutor's office had been so sure he was guilty that he'd been ridiculously sloppy in his paperwork. So sloppy, in fact, that by the time Griffin had spent three years of his jail time studying the law he'd known it would be a relatively simple matter to get his conviction overturned. Everything they had on him was circumstantial, and most of it had been gained illegally. All he'd had to do was find the right lawyer.

It had taken another couple of years, but Bill Cragen had taken to the case with enthusiasm, and taken Griffin under his wing when he got out, supporting him through law school and his fledgling career. Anyone as smart as he was shouldn't waste his life as a ski bum, Bill had said. Besides, why not put those years of study to good use? And by the time Bill died of cancer, Griffin had earned his degree, joined Bill's practice and become engaged to Bill's daughter, Annelise. Stalwart, upstanding, with a snake tattooed across his hip and a dark night hidden deep in his soul.

Grace cackled. "She's probably called the police by now. Or at least that nice doctor. Maybe I should go back by myself. We wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea."

He was half tempted to let her. The thought of walking up to that house to a crowd of police brought back too many ugly memories, and not the ones he was searching for. But he couldn't let the old lady wander alone at night down that overgrown path so near the lake-he was a ruthless shit, but he still had that much decency left in him. He wasn't convinced she was as loony as she appeared to be, but he couldn't really take any chances.

"A gentleman always sees a lady to her door," he said. Not that anyone ever taught him that. Griffin had pretty much raised himself, and he'd picked up manners from reading, not from example. "And we don't want to worry your daughter, now do we?" he said.

Grace tucked her arm in his and gave him a companionable smile as they started out onto the porch. "You didn't kill her, did you?" she asked in her sweet voice.

She must have felt the involuntary jerk in his body, a dead giveaway. "Who?"

"I don't remember. I just know someone was killed. I don't think it was Sophie, but I can't be sure. You didn't kill Sophie, did you, young man?"

He didn't answer. There was nothing he could say, even if he knew the truth.

But Grace wasn't waiting for an answer that would never come. "Of course you didn't, love," she said, patting his arm in a vague, soothing manner. "Do you think I'd be wandering around in the night with you if you were a murderer?"

He looked down at her. He still wasn't sure what to make of her-whether she was pulling an elaborate prank with her dotty-old-lady act, or whether she was really senile. She couldn't be that old if she was Sophie's mother, but she was so frail. He wasn't in the habit of taking things at face value. Maybe she was playing a game, or maybe not. Maybe her mind was so addled she just picked up on things other people didn't. Or maybe she asked everyone if they were murderers.

She'd run into trouble if she did, he thought coolly. Because someone had killed the three girls. And unless that someone was him, the killer might strike again.

His vain hope that Sophie might be unaware of her mother's wanderings was dashed when they came through the end of the pathway. The main building of the old Niles homestead was ablaze with lights, and he thought he could see her standing on the porch, peering out into the darkness. At least there were no police cars parked there. No cars at all except for the late-model Subaru that belonged to Sophie.

"Yoo-hoo, dearie, I'm back!" Grace called out in a cheerful voice. "And wait till you see who I've brought with me."

"I'll head back now," Griffin said, trying to disentangle his arm from her surprisingly strong grip. "Your daughter will take it from here."

"I'm not sure I can make it to the house," Grace said in a quavering voice, suddenly sounding frail. "I'm very, very tired." As if to convince him she started to sag, and he had no choice but to put his arm around her fragile body and help her up the small slope to the porch, cursing inwardly.

"What the hell have you done with my mother?" Sophie looked like an avenging angel there on the porch. She was wearing some kind of white lace nightgown that looked more like an Edwardian wedding dress than something to sleep in, and her hair was down. He hadn't realized how long her hair was. It looked rich and warm in the overhead light, and he wanted to touch it. Her feet were bare, and she had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

"Brought your wandering lamb home," he said. "I found her in my kitchen half an hour ago."

"Don't you think it might have been a good idea to call me and tell me where she was before I got completely frantic?"

"Considering that I don't know your phone number, my telephone isn't hooked up, and my goddamned cell phone doesn't work at the back end of beyond, I couldn't very well call you, though I think it would have been an excellent idea. That way you could have come and gotten her instead of me having to traipse out in the middle of the night."

Grace seemed to have mysteriously regained her strength, and she abandoned him, scampering up onto the porch with all the energy of her teenage stepdaughter. "I'm going to bed now, Sophie," she said. "Don't let me sleep too late-I've got things to do."

"What things?"

"Oh, many, many interesting things," she said. "And he didn't kill anyone. He told me so."

"Who did?" Sophie said sharply, but Grace had already wandered back into the house, humming happily.

"Me. She asked me if I was a murderer and I told her no." He should leave, go back to bed, but for some reason he wanted to stand in the moonlight and look at Sophie in her ridiculous nightgown. Just for a moment.

And for some reason Sophie didn't disappear into the house, chasing after her errant mother. She was looking at him warily, as if she'd accidentally come across a wild bear, but she didn't back down. "I'm afraid that's a remnant of when she was still..." She glossed over the word. "She loves to read true-crime books. I thought she'd stopped, but when I checked on her this evening she was reading one of her old ones. She probably can't tell the difference between reality and what's in the books."

"Not the kind of fantasy world I'd choose," he said. What the hell was he doing, standing there in the moonlight, talking to her? He had better things to do-Sophie Davis couldn't help him with his search for the truth. She hadn't even known of Colby, Vermont, twenty years ago. He needed to make his excuses, get the hell away from her. From inexplicable temptation.

"No, I like mine better."

It was enough to stop his excuses. "Your fantasy world?"

She gestured toward the moonlit house. "Victorian values. Edwardian simplicity. Flower arranging and antique lace and wonderful food and everything just as it should be. I'm no fool, Mr. Smith. I know perfectly well I create my reality to suit myself, and it has nothing to do with the way most people live. I just happen to prefer it."

"Prefer living in a dream world?"

"Dreams are usually much better than the real world."

The wind had come up, blowing the long, lacy nightgown against her body. A good body, nicely rounded, just a bit plump, he couldn't help but notice. An old-fashioned woman with hair that drifted away from her face in the soft breeze.

Not his type, he reminded himself. But for a brief, irresistible moment he wished she was. Wished he was the kind of man who could embrace this kind of life, instead of always living in the darkness. Wished he could simply climb up the steps to the wide front porch and pick her up in his arms, carry her to some fluffy, old-fashioned bed and strip that ridiculous nightgown from her lush body.

He wasn't about to do any such thing, and he dismissed the brief fantasy automatically. "Dreams turn into nightmares," he said. "And they can't be shared."

"You look like you know more about having nightmares than sharing them," she said.

It was an odd conversation to be having with her, but she seemed unaware of it. A light in the house turned off, and he assumed Grace had finally gone back to bed. The bright half moon bathed the sloping lawn in silvery light. What would she do if he came closer? Would she turn and run?

Of course she would. And he wasn't about to move any closer, to put his hands on her skin and see if it was as soft and cool as he thought it would be. He wasn't going to see if she tasted of honey and fresh bread and wild clover. Even if he wanted to. He'd lost his innocence long, long ago and he'd never had a taste for it in bed. And as illogical as it was, he sensed that hardheaded Sophie Davis was, at heart, as innocent as a lamb.

He wasn't in the mood to play hungry wolf, no matter how tempting.

"I should let you get some sleep," he said, turning to go.

"I can't."

The quiet tone of desperation in her voice stopped him. He turned back. "Can't what?"

"Can't sleep," she said with a rueful shrug. "For some reason I can't sleep. Too worried, I guess. I've just been lying in bed, tossing and turning."

Innocent, indeed. In another woman, in Annelise, for example, that would have been a come-on, pure and simple. Sure, darling, I'll take care of you, wear you out so you can fall asleep. You just need a good man and a good fuck.

"They say worry is a waste of the imagination." Go away, he told himself. Don't stand here talking in the moonlight.

"Then I've definitely got too strong an imagination. Do you want a cup of coffee or something?"

He closed his eyes in exasperation for a moment. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he'd misread her, let that virginal nightgown convince him she was something she wasn't. And maybe he wasn't interested in fighting temptation, after all.

"If you drink coffee at this hour it's no wonder you can't sleep," he said. "Or was that your subtle way of asking me to go to bed with you?"

Victorian virgin, all right. She reacted as if he'd slapped her, with shock and outrage. "You really do have delusions, don't you, Mr. Smith?" she said, her voice icy. "I'm not interested in sex." The moment the words were out of her mouth she stumbled. "Not with you, I mean. Someone else, maybe, at another time. I'm perfectly healthy, but I'm not the slightest bit interested..."

"Don't tie yourself in knots, Sophie. I figured as much, but by the way you were acting I thought I might have been mistaken. Let me give you a little hint. Don't stand on the porch in the middle of the night wearing only your nightgown, especially when the light behind makes the damned thing just about transparent, and don't invite strange men in for coffee at two in the morning unless you're wanting something else. People might get the wrong idea."

Her mouth opened to say something, but she bit the words back. Nice mouth, he realized with belated regret. Very nice mouth, indeed.

"Go ahead and say it, Sophie," he said. "You know you want to, and you're not going to shock me."

"Fuck you." No hesitation this time. She was furious, and he told himself he should be sorry he'd goaded her. He knew he wasn't.

"I'll come back when you mean it," he said. If he'd been closer he would have kissed her, just to see how she reacted. Just to taste her mouth.

But she was too far away, up on the porch, and by the time he reached her she would have locked herself back in her inn, well out of reach, and he'd feel frustrated and foolish.

He hadn't come here to waste his time with an uptight Victorian throwback. So he simply turned and walked back toward the lake path, half expecting her to hurl something at his departing head.

All he heard was the slam of the door behind him. And he had no choice but to admit he was damned sorry he wasn't on the other side of that door, drinking her coffee, drinking her mouth.

He gathered his tools with the care and deliberation of a master craftsman. He prided himself on his work, and on the variety of his approach. It was part of his divine mission, given to him as a way to finish his task in this world of sin and grievous sexuality. He never killed the same way twice, and there were infinite ways to snuff out an undeserving life.

He had stabbed, slashed, garroted. Poisoned, beaten with his fists, hanged and drowned. Never the same, and the police had no way to track him down. The corrupt officials of the law had no idea how many women had died by his hand, their lives of filth and wickedness wiped out before they could ensnare another innocent.

He was running out of ideas, and he was a man who didn't like to repeat himself. He'd thought he had finished with his quest, until the newcomers arrived at the old inn. And he knew he had one more task.

Flames, he thought. A purifying fire to cleanse the body, the soul and the spirit. The old Niles place would go up like tinder, and by the time the volunteer fire departments arrived from the neighboring towns it would be too late. No one would ever know it wasn't the result of an old firetrap and an accidental cigarette from that young harlot. And if others died in the conflagration-well, there were always casualties in a holy war.

He'd pray for their souls.

7.

Marty opened her eyes to the glaring sunlight, cursing. It was well before noon, and outside her open window the sun was hideously bright, enough to give her a headache. A great, growling noise had shaken her awake, the insistent buzz like some giant dentist's drill, and she fumbled on the bedside table for her pack of cigarettes. Sophie had forbidden her to smoke in the inn, so Marty did her best to do so every chance she got. She encountered only an empty, crumpled package.

She shoved the covers away and stepped out onto the shiny wood floor. Everything was its usual blur-she pulled her glasses from the drawer and planted them on her nose, breathing an unexpected sigh of relief when the room came into focus. If Sophie would only let her have laser surgery to correct her eyes then she wouldn't have to bother with her damned contacts. At least extended wear would have been an improvement, but she'd never been able to get used to them, so each morning she had to wear glasses until she was ready to emerge from her room. There was no way she was letting anyone see her without her contacts.

The horrible buzzing noise grew even louder, and she headed straight for the windows overlooking the side lawn. She grabbed the window frame, ready to slam it down to shut out the noise, when she saw the young man.

He was stripped to the waist, wielding a chain saw with deliberate power. For a moment she stared at him, mesmerized by the play of muscles beneath his tanned skin, the controlled strength of his movements, and she couldn't breathe.

He must have felt her watching him. He looked up, but she couldn't see his face beneath the shadow of the protective helmet he wore. She only knew he was looking straight at her as she stood in the window, dressed in nothing more than a baggy T-shirt, her hair sticking up, her glasses perched on her nose.

She jumped back, away from the window, just as the roar of the chain saw sputtered to a stop. There was no way she would edge back up to that window. For one thing, she wasn't going to risk having anyone see her in her glasses, and if she took them off she wouldn't be able to see a damned thing.

Where the hell was the plain, gawky boy who usually did the mowing and the gardening? He'd been of no interest whatsoever, and she'd decided she was doomed to an empty summer. Doubtlessly one reason Sophie had dragged her up here was the complete and total lack of good-looking boys. It wasn't as if she was a sex fiend or anything. She just liked boys. A lot.

Things were definitely beginning to look up, judging by the muscular torso of the man outside. If only his face matched the body. She had friends who would have told her it didn't matter, but she hadn't gotten quite so jaded that she didn't appreciate a pretty face. But she was working on it.

There were times when it seemed like Sophie had hired the most homely people in northern Vermont to renovate the old inn. This was the first decent possibility she'd seen in months, and she wasn't about to let him get away until she got a good look at his face. Maybe he had cigarettes. Otherwise she was going to have a hell of a time getting new ones-Audley's was very strict about selling to minors, and she hadn't yet found someone to buy for her on a regular basis. People were so judgmental up here. It wasn't as if they all hadn't smoked when they were younger. Even her paragon of a sister.