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Kiss the Moon
Carla Neggers


Lost in the frozen woods of New Hampshire, Penelope Chestnut discovers the wreckage of a small plane. An aviator herself, she sees clues to a conspiracy in the rusted-out remains.Rumors of her discovery bring Wyatt Sinclair to Cold Spring, determined to put to rest a family scandal and learn what really happened to his legendary uncle, who had disappeared with his adventuress lover years earlier.As Wyatt and Penelope investigate, old motives are uncovered and new ones created, including a growing attraction between the pair. But when an unknown enemy emerges with a violence rooted in desperation, uncovering the truth will be far less problematic than surviving it.









Praise for the novels of Carla Neggers


“No one does romantic suspense better!”

—Janet Evanovich

“Worth the wait. Well plotted, with Neggers’ trademark witty dialogue and crackling sexual tension, this is a keeper.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Whisper

“Suspense, romance and the rocky Maine coast… The Harbor has it all. Carla Neggers writes a story so vivid you can smell the salt air and feel the mist on your skin.”

—Tess Gerritsen

“A believable, gripping story that will keep armchair sleuths guessing… Here is intelligent writing that remains highly entertaining.”

—Publishers Weekly on Betrayals

“Neggers’ trademark use of atmospheric mood and setting, including the mist of the title itself, comes front and center. What she’s done is add aspects of the high-action thriller to traditional romantic suspense, combining the best of both in creating a genre all her own. Flat-out great.”

—Providence Journal on The Mist

“Well-drawn characters, complex plotting and plenty of wry humor are the hallmarks of Neggers’ books.”

—RT Book Reviews

“When it comes to romance, adventure and suspense, nobody delivers like Carla Neggers.”

—Jayne Ann Krentz




Kiss the Moon

Carla Neggers







www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


Dear Reader,

Whenever I think about Kiss the Moon, I can feel early spring in northern New England, with its lengthening days, maple-sugaring and end of “cabin fever.” It’s the perfect time of year to set a story about an adventurous woman who discovers the wreckage of a long-missing private plane and a mystery that’s anything but forgotten.

Many of you have asked when Kiss the Moon will be available again—it’s great to see it back in print! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’re ever in New Hampshire, be sure to visit the lakes region! We go there often, first having visited as a child when my family joined friends on a small island in beautiful, crystal-clear Lake Winnipesaukee.

Next up for me is the paperback edition of The Whisper, due out in paperback this July. It’s the fourth book in my loosely connected series about Boston detectives, FBI agents, spies and experts in Irish archaeology and folklore. The Widow, The Angel and The Mist are all available now in paperback. In The Whisper, Cyrus “Scoop” Wisdom takes center stage when a Celtic archaeologist looks him up, convinced that the bomb that almost killed him is connected to the night she was left for dead in a remote Irish cave.

In the meantime, I’m hard at work on a new book. For all the details, please visit my website and sign up for my newsletter.

Thanks, and happy reading!

Carla

P.O. Box 826

Quechee VT 05059

www.CarlaNeggers.com


To Kate and Zachary




Contents


Prologue

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 Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Acknowledgments




Prologue


Frannie Beaudine had the intelligence of a Katharine Hepburn and the sexiness of a Marilyn Monroe, and he couldn’t believe she was his. That such a woman had fallen for him, Colt Sinclair, a skinny twenty-one-year-old, filled him with a pride and contentment he’d never known.

She paced in front of the tall windows of his family’s sprawling apartment on Central Park, Manhattan glittering at her feet. Her long, dark hair was swept into an elegant twist, and she wore diamond studs at her ears—fake diamonds, for she couldn’t afford real ones. She’d even borrowed her gown, a swirl of black velvet that barely contained her breasts. Her lips and nails were painted a deep red, sexy, vibrant.

Colt said nothing about the thrill he felt just watching her. Complimenting her appearance would only irritate her, add to her already heightened state of impatience. Frannie despised being beautiful. She believed it distracted people from noticing her other attributes—her skills as a pilot and art historian, her independence, her spirit of adventure. She wanted everything, she’d told Colt last summer in New Hampshire, when she still regarded him as a gawky Dartmouth graduate, a pampered rich boy. She was already something of a legend in her hometown, a poor girl from the hills who’d become an accomplished and daring pilot while simultaneously studying art history, not at a college, not with a tutor, but on her own, at the public library.

Colt, who’d been born with the “everything” Frannie wanted, knew she would get her wish. But he also knew her beauty wouldn’t be a hindrance, it would be an asset. And it was.

She’d asked him to fly tonight. Just six weeks ago she’d seemed so remote and unattainable. He fell short as a Sinclair. His father had told him as much less than an hour ago.

But now he was with Frannie, and all things were possible.

Her eyes, a deep, almost navy blue, were vivid, shining as they focused on him, and she stopped pacing just for an instant. He could feel her urgency. “You’re sure there won’t be a problem with the plane?”

“I’m positive. Everything’s ready, Frannie. Unless you change your mind, we’ll be on our way before midnight.”

She nodded, taking in a sharp, shallow breath. They had everything planned almost to the minute. First they would make an appearance at the reception honoring the donation of the Sinclair Collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Colt’s father had offered Frannie a job last fall as an assistant curator for the collection, and she’d seized it as her chance to live in New York. Colt had been barely aware she was in the city. She worked exhaustively all winter, seldom emerging as she catalogued, picked, chose, examined, checked and rechecked the history and authenticity of every painting, sculpture, artifact and bit of treasure that the Sinclairs had collected over the past century and stored in their warehouse on the lower east side. His family’s trips to South America, Central America, Africa, Asia, Russia, Australia had all yielded their prizes. Frannie worked without a break, and Colt had to admire her dedication even as he worried about how pale and weak she was from overwork, even now, six weeks after he’d spotted her at the museum and she’d turned his life upside down.

She would want to collect her kudos tonight for the brilliant work she’d done. Colt understood. Frannie Beaudine was a woman consumed with the need for recognition and affection.

In the second stage of their plan, they would make their apologies and leave early, separately, within a decent interval of each other. They had warm clothes waiting in the hangar north of the city, and Colt’s Piper Cub J-3, ready to fly. A grand adventure. That was what he and Frannie were embarking on. It wasn’t a lion hunt in Africa or an attempt at Mount Everest, but it was, finally, an adventure Colt felt the courage to undertake. He loved Frannie with all his heart and soul. That she wanted to run away with him, now, tonight, didn’t have to make sense, didn’t require a five-year plan, a vetting by a menagerie of Sinclair advisors. It required only faith, trust and the willingness to take action. All his life, one of those had been missing. Not now.

“Then there’s nothing more to do but get on with it,” Frannie said. “Your father and mother are already at the reception. We should go.”

“I’d just like to say goodbye to Brandon.” Colt observed a rare flash of nervousness in her eyes. She knew if anything could give him cold feet, it would be his baby brother. “He’s asleep.”

“Hurry.”

Colt had rehearsed this moment a thousand times in his mind. He hurried down the hall, hardly making a sound on the thick carpeting, his heart racing, his hands clammy. He passed portraits and photographs of uncles and great-uncles, cousins, his grandfather, on various adventures. There would be no photographers to record his adventure. He didn’t want notoriety or adulation.

He just wanted Frannie Beaudine, he thought, his pace slowing as he approached his brother’s half-closed door.

He pushed the door open, and his throat caught at the sprawl of boy and stuffed animal in the bed, the city lights silhouetting his bony figure. He wore pajamas with little cars and trucks on them.

Unexpected, unrehearsed tears stung Colt’s eyes. He doubted he would see his brother again for months, perhaps a year. He would have given up Bear by then, lost his boyish imagination and possibility. Sometimes Colt longed for his own boyhood, when he had liked nothing better than to roam around in the Museum of Natural History. His father had assumed his mind was filled with fantasies of becoming a Sinclair. Instead he’d memorized the form and the colors, the shapes, the essence of the birds and animals and tools on display. In dark corners, where no one would find him, he would pull out scraps of paper and a nub of charcoal and try to capture what he’d memorized.

Sinclair men did not become artists.

If Frannie hadn’t fallen in love with him, Colt was certain he would have thrown himself off the Empire State Building by now. And then he would never have seen Brandon again. Now, at least, there was a chance.

He gave his sleeping brother a mock salute and tiptoed down the hall, where Frannie was waiting for him. She had no brothers and sisters. She couldn’t know the agony of what he’d just done.

Ten minutes later they were at the museum. They made small talk and drank champagne and pretended not to be in love, and Colt thought Frannie was the most beautiful and alluring woman in the room. She seemed at ease with everyone—scholar, rich donor, journalist, poor art student—and she talked knowledgeably and passionately about the collection of art and treasure she’d helped put together even as people asked her when she would again climb into a cockpit. She was unique, and Colt could hardly contain himself at the thought that she loved him.

He avoided his father, fearful Willard Sinclair would penetrate his older son’s mind and find out what he was planning. When the time came, Colt had no intention of telling his father goodbye. His mother, either. She would be impossible to extricate from her friends and her champagne.

Across the room, he saw Frannie, impatient, unable to stay still, slip down a dark corridor past indulgent guards. Colt followed, stifling a surge of panic. What was she doing? They were to make their apologies and separate exits in minutes. He glanced at his father, who was regaling eager listeners with tales of his latest expedition up the Amazon. If only he could give his two sons as much care and attention, Colt thought bitterly, and tried to ignore the tug of regret for his brother, who would no longer have a buffer between their father’s increasingly domineering temperament and Brandon’s zeal to take him on. After tonight, Brandon, just eleven, would be on his own, at least for a while.

Colt shook off his sudden melancholy and followed Frannie into the bowels of the museum, where she had been granted a closet-size office to continue her work on the Sinclair Collection. She used her key to open it, moving quickly. He could hear her rapid breathing. She left the door ajar, but he remained in the dark shadows, trying to ignore a sense of foreboding. This wasn’t in their plan.

Seconds later she emerged from the tiny room, and he heard her check a laugh.

In her hand was a black, hard-sided case the size of a small artist’s painting case.

Colt took a step forward, and she stopped, her already pale face going paler still. “Colt, good heavens, you startled me!”

“Frannie?” He pointed. “What’s in the case?”

She caught him by the arm and pulled him down the corridor. “It’s no time for questions,” she whispered fiercely, “or for the fainthearted. You’re in, Colt. You’re in all the way.”

“Frannie…”

“We have to go.”

He didn’t move. He didn’t speak.

“Now.”

Wisps of hair dripped from their pins, her dark blue eyes shone even in the shadows, and her chest heaved, not from fear but breathlessness. Excitement. She was so certain. Always so certain. He hadn’t asked about how many men she’d loved. She was twenty-six, and she was Frannie Beaudine, beautiful, intelligent, spirited.

Her expression softened. “Colt…I can’t do this without you.”

Still he didn’t move. “What’s in the case, Frannie?”

Her lower lip quivered, the red stain gone, and he could see uncertainty creep into her eyes.

“It’s something from the collection,” he said.

“Of course it’s something from the collection. Diamonds, Colt. Valuable, perfect diamonds of an uncertain provenance. No one but me even knows they exist. God knows how long they sat in that dusty warehouse.”

“Frannie, I can’t.”

Irritation set her jaw. “It’s the only way for us to be together. You know that as well as I do. Colt—please, we have to go. If the guards catch us now, it won’t be Canada we’ll be seeing at dawn, it’ll be the bars of the jailhouse.”

He followed her out. There was nothing else he could do. They would take a cab to the airfield where his Piper Cub was waiting. She’d asked him to fly it. He’d been so stupidly pleased. Now he knew he was a romantic, idealistic fool, just as his father had told him.

In the cab, Frannie covered his hand with hers. “I do love you, Colt Sinclair.”

Maybe she did. He stared out the cab window as they crossed the bridge. It was a cold night for flying, but they had a full moon. It was so huge, and it seemed so heavy and big that even the night sky couldn’t hold it. Colt pretended he was on it, looking down at the shiny cab, at the beautiful aviator, the rich twenty-one-year-old and their stolen diamonds. He had fancied them living by their skill and wits in Canada until his family accepted them and what they’d done. But Frannie had wanted it all, and she’d wanted it now.

For six weeks, Colt had deluded himself into thinking he was enough.

He remembered reading Treasure Island aloud to his little brother under a full moon last summer, and he wished he could be with Brandon now, poking him in the ribs and sneaking him into the kitchen for hot cocoa.

Wouldn’t their father be surprised, Colt thought. He was a Sinclair, after all. He had given up the love of his brother for a misguided, wild adventure, and in so doing, he had given up himself.

It was, of course, the Sinclair way.




One


Five hours after she’d headed onto Sinclair land to check out sugar maples for tapping, Penelope Chestnut sank onto a granite boulder and admitted she was lost. The sun had sunk low in the sky, the temperature had already started to drop, she was down to the last of her water, and she didn’t have the vaguest idea where she was. New Hampshire, in the woods above Lake Winnipesaukee, probably still on Sinclair land. More specifically than that, who knew?

Her parents were expecting her for Sunday dinner at six. If she didn’t show up, they’d worry. Given her history, they’d worry all of ten minutes before calling out a search party. Dogs, snowmobiles, helicopters, men on snowshoes with flashlights. They’d all join in the hunt. Not one would be a stranger. And not one wouldn’t be just a little pissed at her for taking them out on a chilly March night.

It was galling. She’d rather spend the night in the woods. She could make a little fire, boil snow if she couldn’t find a stream, survive quite nicely until daylight. With the clouds pushing out, the temperature would drop overnight. Not that she minded—the cold nights and above-freezing days of early March made the sap run. Her current predicament notwithstanding, Penelope was an accomplished hiker. She wouldn’t freeze.

Maple-sugaring season was what had ostensibly brought her onto Sinclair land in the first place. A tiny corner of their vast tract of central New Hampshire wilderness abutted the ten acres she’d inherited from her grandfather, and she’d wanted a few more maples to tap. So she’d set off for an hour survey, with anorak, gloves, a hip pack of water, a Granny Smith apple and two Nutri-Grain bars. One thing had led to another—through a clearing, up a hill, over a stone wall, across a stream—and pretty soon she was sitting on a rock in the middle of nowhere.

All because she didn’t pay attention. She’d spotted a woodpecker fluttering among the hemlock, an osprey nest high in a tall half-dead pine, followed the sound of a waterfall newly formed by the melting snow, thought about tea and warm scones with her cousin Harriet tomorrow afternoon, when she would return from ferrying two businessmen to Portland, Maine. Provided her father let her carry passengers. He didn’t like the way she’d been flying lately. A wandering mind was a dangerous thing on foot in the wilds of northern New England, but in the air, it could be fatal.

Which, Penelope decided, didn’t bear thinking about while she was lost in the woods with dusk encroaching.

She had hoped to find something on top of the hill to orient her. A view of the lake, a stream, a stone wall, smoke curling from the chimney of a nearby house, something. But below her was just another steep, narrow, dry ravine. There were no landmarks. No promise of a way out. She had to go down this hill and up the next and just keep hoping for the best.

“I need another Nutri-Grain bar,” she said aloud in the stillness and silence that seemed to envelope her. But she’d consumed her last one an hour and several over-hill-and-over-dales ago.

She blinked back fatigue and the eye strain that came with hours on snow-covered hills without sunglasses. She hadn’t brought a compass, either. Or her wilderness medical kit. If she tripped and fell, she’d just have to lie there until someone found her. She’d tried following her trail in the snow, but it wasn’t good snow for tracks, and the two times she did pick up her trail, she found herself back where she’d started. So she’d given up, figuring that even if she could follow her tracks, there were five hours worth of them. They wouldn’t exactly provide the shortest, most straightforward route home. And she figured she had no more than ninety minutes of daylight left.

She was doomed. A search party was inevitable.

The sun poked through gray clouds that had been hanging over the lakes region for three days and were due to move out tonight. Everyone’s mood seemed to have suffered because of them, including her own. Heading into the woods by herself had seemed like a damned good idea five hours ago.

She scooted to the edge of her boulder and looked at the steep, tree-covered, rock-strewn hill. The going certainly wasn’t getting any easier. It was a north-facing hill, still encased in snow and ice, with small patches of wet, slippery leaves where the snow and ice had melted in circles around trees and rocks. She was sweating from temperatures in the upper forties, exertion, frustration. She’d worn none of her specially designed hiking clothes, just jeans and an anorak over a red plaid flannel shirt she’d been maple sugaring in since she was seventeen.

“Might as well get on with it,” she muttered, the silence and stillness almost eerie.

She lowered herself off her boulder, and her foot slipped on a patch of wet, brown leaves. She caught herself before going down on her butt, her heart rate jumping at the close call. A broken ankle and hypothermia were just what she needed. She scooped up a handful of snow and stuffed it down her back. It melted instantly on her overheated skin, cooling her, soothing her. There were worse things than having her parents call out another search party on her. She just needed to stay focused and make their job as short and simple as possible.

She wished she’d brought her cell phone. Flares. Even a book of matches would be welcome.

The sun glinted off something down the steep hillside, drawing her eye to her right. Her heart skipped. Now what? She edged down a few steps, trying to get a better view through the pine, hemlock and naked birches and oak. She squinted, wondering if the sun had just caught a rock with a lot of mica at the right angle.

No, there was something there.

Penelope took another couple of steps to her right. The snow was wet and slippery on the steep hillside, and getting a good purchase in her day hikers wasn’t that easy. She grabbed the thin trunk of a birch for balance and leaned over as far as she could for a better look.

Metal for sure, a lot of it, in a compact heap amidst the tumble of rocks and half a dozen pine trees. In summer, ferns and brush would leaf out and make the pile even harder to spot. If not for the sun striking a bit of metal at just the right moment, Penelope would have gone past it even at the end of winter with the landscape at its starkest.

And for the sun to glint off it, it wasn’t completely rusted, and that meant it was aluminum.

She held her breath. No.

The frame of Frannie Beaudine and Colt Sinclair’s Piper Cub J-3 was aluminum tubing. Its fabric covering would have rotted away by now, forty-five years after it had disappeared in the skies above Cold Spring, New Hampshire, last seen by a half-dozen locals out on the clear, chilly night. Penelope wouldn’t expect to find much more than a crumpled heap of struts and trusses, rusted engine, bits of wing and tail assembly, whatever hadn’t succumbed to the crash and decades of exposure to the harsh weather of northern New England.

But she hadn’t expected to find Colt and Frannie’s plane here. According to her own pet theory, they’d faked a crash in New Hampshire and made it to Canada. Whether they’d crashed there or were living happily ever after was open to question.

Except it wasn’t anymore. This had to be Colt and Frannie’s long-missing Piper Cub. Penelope suddenly shivered as she stared at the wreckage. What else could it be?

A leap of the imagination, brought on by fatigue, low blood sugar, her own fascination with the ill-fated flight of the two lovers. Even as a kid, she would wander the woods with one eye searching for a downed Piper Cub. Later, she’d started collecting information—newspaper and magazine articles on the weeks-long search, headed by Willard Sinclair himself, then articles on the Sinclair Collection and Frannie’s role in pulling it together, turning it into a magnificent, coherent whole instead of a mishmash of stuff generations of Sinclairs had picked up on their various expeditions. In the past year, Penelope had started interviewing local residents who remembered Frannie Beaudine as a little girl and a young woman, who had known the Sinclairs from their years of mountain climbing, fishing, hunting and boating in the lakes region. The men were all Dartmouth alumni. Colt was barely a year out of Dartmouth when he disappeared.

The intensive, exhaustive search for the missing plane had turned up nothing, not one clue beyond the separate, positive sightings of it in the sky over Cold Spring. It was possible it wasn’t Colt’s Piper Cub J-3—but who else’s could it have been? When the news came out of New York that he, his plane and Frannie Beaudine were missing, the search was mounted, focusing on the New Hampshire lakes region.

After a while, people stopped looking. If the plane turned up, it turned up. Most believed if it was in New Hampshire at all, it was at the bottom of a deep part of one of its many lakes. Sections of Winnipesaukee, a clear, glacial lake, were ninety feet deep—nobody could see that far down. If the plane was ever to be found, whether in water or on land, it would have to be by accident.

In the forty-five years since Colt and Frannie had disappeared, not one Sinclair had set foot in Cold Spring.

Except for Harriet, of course. Penelope grimaced in anticipation of her cousin’s reaction to what she’d just found. But Harriet was another matter. Penelope couldn’t concentrate on scoping out plane wreckage, finding her way out of the wilderness and the oddities of Harriet Chestnut.

She squinted at the heap of metal. It was unquestionably a plane. Anyone in New Hampshire would be thinking just what she was thinking—this was the spot where Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine had gone down.

From her position, Penelope couldn’t make an educated guess about what had happened to the plane, why or how it had crashed into the steep hillside. She imagined the Piper Cub coming in low on that dark night, in trouble, possibly clipping trees before slamming into the hill. Colt and Frannie saying their goodbyes, guessing their fate. Penelope wasn’t a romantic, but the image of the two young lovers plunging to their deaths brought tears to her eyes.

Her pulse pounded in her ears, and she didn’t move as she absorbed the impact of what she had stumbled upon. To get to the wreckage, she would have to climb over icy rocks and big boulders, fallen trees and limbs, patches of slippery leaves covered in thin, clear ice and rough, snow-covered, nearly vertical ground. It would take time she didn’t have, and it would involve risks she didn’t need to take. Given that Frannie and Colt’s plane had lain here for forty-five years without being discovered, Penelope didn’t like the odds of what would happen to her if she fell and couldn’t get up again.

Not that anyone in Cold Spring would appreciate her reining herself in. Being lost in the woods at dusk was enough for them to assume she was back to her old tricks, taking unnecessary risks, not thinking, not considering who might have to strap on snowshoes to come fetch her on a cold, dark night.

She frowned, preferring not to think about past transgressions. She was thirty, after all, not twelve. She hadn’t been this lost in years.

Naked deciduous trees stood outlined in sharp relief against the gray sky, every twig sharp and clear and black. Soon pinks and lavenders would streak across the horizon, and they’d seem so bright and vibrant against the grays and whites of the late winter landscape.

Darkness would fall rapidly, and the temperature would plummet.

She had to get back. Tearing her gaze from the wreckage, she crawled over another boulder, then carefully made her way through young trees and stick-like brush, through more wet, dense sugar snow—not the light and fluffy snow of January—to the bottom of the steep, narrow ravine. There was no stream, there were no trails, no stone walls, no hunter’s lookouts—there was no reason for anyone to have stumbled on the wreckage in the past forty or so years.

Colt and Frannie’s bodies.

Penelope came to a sudden halt, imagining the skeletal remains of the two lovers above her on the hill. This wasn’t merely the solution to a forty-five-year-old mystery. It was a tragedy. Two people had died up there.

She shook off the morbid thought and started up the opposite hill, her legs aching, her stomach begging for a Nutri-Grain bar. She needed home, food, water and rest. Then she’d figure out what to do about Colt and Frannie and their Piper Cub.

A twig—something—snapped, and she stopped. Went still. Listened.

Had she heard anything? A squirrel, birds prancing in the branches of a nearby tree? She couldn’t be sure.

“You’re tired.”

Her voice seemed to go nowhere in the quiet, still, late afternoon air. Maybe she’d heard a deer or a moose, even a bear venturing out of hibernation.

Yep. Best to get on home.

Her water-soaked socks squished inside her day hikers. No blisters yet. She was lucky. She hadn’t bothered with boots or snowshoes, never imagining she’d end up lost. A little lost was one thing. That she could manage. But she was a lot lost.

Then, there in front of her, at her feet, was a melting trail of footprints. Not moose or deer or even bear, but human prints. And not her own. They were big. Probably male. She pivoted and stared toward the opposite hill, unable to make out the wreckage from her position. The snow, the gray rocks, the gray trees, the gray sky. The heap of plane tubing was gone, as if it had been a mirage.

The footprints ran down the hill to the left of the way she’d come, weaving among maple and oak and hemlock, even, unhurried. They had to be relatively fresh prints. The warm temperatures had barely melted them, and the last snow had been just two days ago, four inches that freshened the landscape and heartened the skiers who loved to see March stay a lion for as long as possible.

But who could have ventured out here, possibly have seen the wreckage and not mentioned it?

“Bubba Johns.”

Of course. He would have no interest in a lost plane.

Penelope could feel some of the tension ease out of her. She wasn’t afraid of Bubba. He was the town hermit, a recluse who had a shanty on the edge of Sinclair land—technically on Sinclair land, but no one had made an issue of it in the twenty years since he’d set up housekeeping there.

“Bubba!” she called, her voice dying in the ravine. There was no echo. “Bubba, it’s me, Penelope Chestnut!”

She could almost feel his ancient, some said crazy, eyes on her, a frosty gray that went with his unkempt white beard and scraggly white hair, his tall, rangy body. Sinclairs or no Sinclairs, it was Bubba who owned these hills and had for years. Penelope’s parents had warned her as a child to stay off Sinclair land, not because she was trespassing, but because she might run into Bubba Johns. But at ten years of age, she’d found herself out in the hills, exploring on her own, pretending, fantasizing, not realizing until it was nearly dark that she was lost. Bubba had materialized out of nowhere and silently led her home. She had been terrified, and her active imagination had conjured up images of Little Red Riding Hood meeting up with the big bad wolf. She half expected Bubba to drop her over a cliff or toss her onto a fire even as she’d followed him home, chattering at him as if she’d known him all her life. Without ever speaking, he’d left her at the end of her parents’ driveway and disappeared, not waiting for thanks or an invitation for coffee and cake. Her parents hadn’t seemed too sure they should believe their only daughter’s story about the silent hermit who’d seen her home.

Bubba Johns was as much a part of the landscape as the moose, deer, hawks and chipmunks, and like everyone else in Cold Spring, Penelope left him to his chosen life of isolation and solitude.

She turned and continued on her way, feeling the sun sinking in the west even as the sky melted into a pink so deep and dark and beautiful it made her want to lie on the snow and stare at it. But she kept walking, her head spinning, her legs leaden, her mind full of thoughts of Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine buried in their twisted metal grave and Bubba Johns out there in the gathering darkness, waiting, perhaps, to see if once again he needed to lead her home.



Wyatt Sinclair gave up on sleep and kicked off his blanket sometime before dawn. He didn’t know the exact time because Madge, his ex-lover, had insisted on removing the clock radio from his nightstand. It was bad chi, she’d said. Apparently he was a walking time bomb of bad chi. That was spooky enough, but then she did his astrological charts using some computer program. She’d plugged in the date, time and place of his birth, and out popped stuff that had compelled her to pack up.

“I have to move out,” she’d told him, whipping things into her suitcase. “There’s just too much negative energy around you. You’re—well, to be very straightforward with you, Wyatt, you’re one scary son of a bitch.”

He’d grinned. “You needed a computer to tell you that?”

Ten minutes later, she was out the door. She’d left the cat. Allergies.

He stumbled out to his living room, tripping over the cat en route. It got up and did its cat-stretching thing. It wasn’t much of a cat. Short gray hair, yellow eyes, lean. Bad tempered. Madge called him Sarsaparilla, but Wyatt thought that was a hell of a name for a cat and just called him Pill.

A New York apartment, a cat, an ex-lover like Madge. No wonder he had sleepless nights.

He flipped on lights, put on coffee, poured some orange juice and clicked the remote. “Headline News” came on. He flopped on his couch, noticing on the TV clock that it was four-eighteen. Early, especially for New York. The city was strangely silent at this time of day, at least from the vantage point of his fourth-floor upper east side apartment.

He liked New York on and off. His mother, the first of Brandon Sinclair’s three wives, had raised him there through eighth grade. Then the Sinclairs had taken over, and it was off to prep school, Dartmouth and Wharton. He’d endured, struck off on his own for a while and returned to the city of his childhood eighteen months ago. Who’d have ever thought.

If Hal hadn’t died, Wyatt supposed he might still be tallying new bird and plant species in remote parts of Australia and South America. But Hal had died, and Wyatt had come home.

He stared at the reporter on the screen and yawned, not out of fatigue, he realized, but boredom. Stress was not a factor in his intermittent insomnia. He had money, food, lodging and—dear God, it was true—a good job. He would be at his desk on Wall Street in another five hours.

His office had a view of the harbor. It was something.

He watched a commercial pushing laxatives, then a report about the latest scandal in Washington, and he was about to flip to “Nick at Nite” when the anchorwoman started in on her next news item.

“The solution to one of the more tantalizing mysteries of the past half-century may be at hand. A New Hampshire woman claims she’s found the small plane adventurers Frannie Beaudine and Colt Sinclair were flying the night they disappeared.”

Wyatt sat straight and turned up the volume.

The woman was named Penelope Chestnut, she lived in Cold Spring, and she had stumbled on the wreckage while she was out hiking on Sunday, the report continued. She would be leading local authorities to the crash site today, Tuesday, for verification.

Contacted at his vacation home in St. Croix, Brandon Sinclair had declined comment.

Wyatt wasn’t surprised. His uncle’s disappearance was the most enduring and mysterious scandal involving a Sinclair, if hardly the only one. Or the most recent. Hal’s death and Wyatt’s near death—and presumed culpability—in Tasmania had garnered their share of headlines. His father maintained his only son was a throwback to previous generations of Sinclairs, who had been adventurers and daredevils since Roger Sinclair had taken on the English as a privateer in the American Revolution. Naturally, he’d made a fortune, pissed off friend and foe alike and died young.

“Headline News” put up the famous picture of Frannie and Colt taken the night of their ill-fated flight. Wyatt was struck by how young they looked. Frannie was from Cold Spring, a captivating mix of daring pilot and self-taught art historian whose exploits, intelligence and beauty had drawn her rich lover’s eye. They’d cut out of a reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, took off in Colt’s Piper Cub and were never seen again. No trace of them or their plane was ever found.

Until Sunday, Wyatt thought, wishing they’d put up a picture of Penelope Chestnut instead of his uncle and Frannie Beaudine. He was generally an excellent judge of character, and if he could see what she looked like, he would be better able to assess if this was a hoax. But there was no picture, no footage, even, of Cold Spring, New Hampshire.

He debated calling his father. Colt’s disappearance was still a raw wound that infected everything Brandon Sinclair did, including raise his only son. He seldom talked about his brother, brushed off questions Wyatt would ask. Wyatt wasn’t sure whether his father’s reticence stemmed from the lingering pain and grief of losing his only brother or from embarrassment. Even after forty-five years, Colt could still attract national headlines.

To his credit, Brandon had worked hard to change the Sinclair way of doing things. He wanted to preserve their spirit of scholarship, exploration and adventure but without the penchant for scandal and premature death. He was determined his brother’s example would not extend to another generation. Colt would be the last Sinclair whose recklessness and zest for adventure would leave behind mourning parents, wives, children—and younger brothers.

Not that Brandon had ever told Wyatt he’d loved his older brother, missed him, felt hurt and betrayed because he’d abandoned him for Frannie Beaudine. But if he knew nothing else about his family, Wyatt knew that love was never enough for a Sinclair. That was their abyss. It was impossible to fill with money or adventures. No matter how many lions they shot or mountains they climbed or discoveries they made, the abyss remained unfilled.

He wondered when his father had realized his only son was that way, too. Another Sinclair destined for notoriety and adventure.

But no more. After the disaster in Tasmania, Wyatt had opted for the safe path. A desk, a suit, a job putting his MBA to use. He’d already thrown his trust fund in his father’s face, so there wasn’t that. But there was plenty of money. Even a disinherited Sinclair was good at making money.

The cat jumped up on his lap and started pawing, and Wyatt shut off the television and listened to Manhattan awaken on a dreary March morning. Garbage trucks, cabs, dog walkers, hospital workers, a siren off in the distance. He patted Pill, although he didn’t much like cats, and he told himself that Penelope Chestnut and her discovery in the woods above Lake Winnipesaukee weren’t his problem. His only problem was scrounging up enough energy and interest to get to work for nine o’clock.



By nine-fifteen Jack Dunning was standing in front of Wyatt’s office window high above New York harbor. Jack was a tall, rangy, sandy-haired man dressed in cowboy boots and jeans. Wyatt regarded him without comment. A Brooklyn native gone Texan. He’d worked as a private investigator in Dallas for years, apparently wore out his welcome and was back in New York. His chief client was Brandon Sinclair, a man not only very rich but also very suspicious, determined to protect himself, his wife, his two ex-wives, his son and his two young daughters from scoundrels, kidnappers, con men and lunatics. Jack seemed perfectly willing to oblige. As soon as he made enough money, he always said, he planned to buy a ranch in west Texas and retire. New York made him itch, and the women wore too damned much black.

He glanced at Wyatt. “Nice view.”

Wyatt smiled. “The Statue of Liberty reminds me of the virtues of tolerance.”

“Reminds me of the dangers of being a sucker.”

Wyatt couldn’t tell if he was serious. In his eighteen months back in New York, he’d come to believe Jack Dunning was a man not nearly as uncomplicated as he liked to pretend. His angular features and dead gray eyes made him difficult to read. He could be fifty—he could be sixty. It was impossible to tell. And Wyatt had no real desire to know. Jack worked for his father. If he was here, it was because Brandon Sinclair wanted him to be here.

“You heard about your uncle’s plane?” Jack asked.

“I caught it on the morning news.” Wyatt didn’t say how early that morning. Dunning would regard a sleepless night as a weakness and file it away as something he had on his employer’s eldest child.

“Then you haven’t heard the latest. The woman who said she found the plane—this Penelope Chestnut—she’s changed her mind. Says it was a mistake. She was hypoglycemic and on edge because she was lost.”

“Lost?”

“That’s how she found the site in the first place—she was out hiking on Sunday afternoon and got lost. Her folks were organizing a search party when she found her way out on her own. Claims she went back yesterday afternoon and saw it wasn’t a plane but just an old dump site, probably from the turn of the century.”

Wyatt rolled that one around in his mind. A mistake. Not what he’d expected from Penelope Chestnut, although he had no reason to expect anything. “So no Colt and Frannie, after all.”

“That’s what she says. Here’s the thing.” Jack turned from the window. There was no indication he felt out of place in the elegant wood-paneled Wall Street office, which Wyatt had leased furnished, down to the brass lamps and slate blotter. If he were to play the venture capitalist, he needed a robber baron office.

Dunning stayed focused on his reason for being there—Penelope Chestnut. “Now she’s also claiming she can’t find the dump site again,” he said.

That tweaked Wyatt’s interest. “How’s that possible?”

“She says she was able to follow her tracks in the snow yesterday, but it was tough even then because of all the daytime melting. Says she planned to take people up today to prove it, but it snowed last night and covered what was left of her tracks. She got up at the crack of dawn this morning and says she can’t find the site. Says she wandered around and just can’t find her trail or figure out how to get back there. Maybe she can find it in the spring.”

Wyatt tilted in his buttery leather chair and considered this twist. At first blush it sounded like bullshit. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s hogwash. This girl’s lived her whole life in those woods. She can find her way back, snow or no snow. I’d bet my molars on it.”

“What does my father say?”

Jack gave a small grin. He was a striking man, but not handsome. Wyatt sensed he liked his employer, despite the vast difference in their manner and sensibilities. “Your daddy’s more diplomatic than I am. He asked me to go up there and check out this girl’s story. New Hampshire in March. Just where I want to be. But I’ll do it and see what’s what.”

“And why tell me?” Wyatt asked.

The grin turned to a smirk. “Because your daddy asked me to.”

As Wyatt had expected. “Okay. Thanks for the report. If you need my help for anything, let me know. You have my number.”

Jack winked. “I have all your numbers, Sinclair. See you around.”

Thirty minutes later, Wyatt was still staring at the same printout. He’d had his secretary hold his calls. He got up from his desk and walked to the window, the Statue of Liberty shrouded in a sudden fog. He agreed with Jack. Penelope Chestnut’s story didn’t wash.

He called his father, knowing already he was making a futile effort. His father would tell him nothing, possibly less than he’d told his personal private detective. Jack was a professional. He could be controlled.

“Wyatt—good to hear from you. How’s the weather in New York?”

“Foggy. Jack Dunning was just here. He told me you’ve sent him to New Hampshire to check out this woman’s story about Colt’s plane. Anything I need to know?”

“It’s just a precaution. If she made a mistake and is doing what she can to save face, so be it. But if she’s lying, I want to know why. And, of course, if she’s lying, I want to find my brother’s plane.” He paused, no chink in his self-control. They might still have been discussing the weather. “After all these years, I’d like to know what happened to him.”

“You trust Dunning?”

“I’m paying him well enough.”

Wyatt didn’t comment. As far as he was concerned, money and trust had nothing to do with each other. “I guess that’s your call. Anything else?”

His father was silent for half a beat. “What else would there be?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just always had the feeling there’s more to Colt and Frannie’s disappearance than you’ve said.”

“There’s nothing more, Wyatt. If you can, come down this weekend. Ann and I would love to have you, and you know the girls would be thrilled to see you.” Ann was his third wife; they had two daughters together, Ellen, nine, and Beatrix, eleven. “March isn’t my favorite month in New York.”

“Thanks for the invitation. I’ll let you know if I can wiggle loose.”

“It’s best I sent Jack up to Cold Spring, Wyatt. The people there tend to blame Colt for what happened. Frannie Beaudine was one of their own.”

“No problem.”

When they disconnected, Wyatt didn’t hesitate. He told his secretary he needed to go out of town and asked her to keep her finger in the dike for a few days, possibly longer. He caught an elevator to the lobby of the 1920s building and hailed a cab to take him to his apartment. He fed the cat and called Madge. “I’m going to be out of town for a few days. Can you tend to Pill?”

“You know I’m allergic.”

“Wear gloves and a mask.”

“You’re a heartless bastard, Wyatt. Just because you can climb a rock wall with your bare hands doesn’t mean the rest of us are weaklings. My allergies are serious.”

“If you can’t take care of Pill, say so and I’ll get someone else.”

“Can I stay at your place while you’re gone?”

His apartment was bigger and in a better location than hers. “Sure.”

“I’ll take medication for my allergies,” she added quickly.

Within the hour, he was on the Major Deegan Express-way heading toward New England.

No Sinclair had ventured to Cold Spring, New Hampshire, since Colt and Frannie had disappeared—unless his father had lied about that, too. Because something—maybe a lot, maybe not a lot—was missing in Brandon Sinclair’s rendition of the events of forty-five years ago. Wyatt had believed that for years, but hadn’t pushed, hadn’t confronted his father out of respect for the loss he’d suffered. Some things, he’d decided, just weren’t a son’s business.

But as he drove north against a hard wind, he wondered if he and his father could ever make their peace if he didn’t learn, finally, the truth about the night Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine took off into the darkness.




Two


Penelope tried to ignore the clicking of a camera three yards behind her. Another reporter. Most of the swarm of reporters—print, television, radio, tabloid, mainstream—that had flocked to Cold Spring had gone home after hearing the discovery of Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine’s plane was a mistake. A few lingered, angling for whatever news and gossip they could find while they were there. Penelope didn’t know what good a picture of her preflighting her Beechcraft would do anyone.

It was a breezy, chilly morning, and she couldn’t wait to get into the air. She’d pulled her hair into a sort of braid, put on a functional flight suit that always, rather ridiculously, made her feel like the Red Baron and packed herself some cheddar cheese a friend had made on her own farm, an apple and a bit of this season’s maple sugar. Decadent. In twenty minutes she was saved. No more questions, no more doubting eyes.

“You know, Penelope,” the reporter called, using her first name as if they were pals, “I drove all the way up here from New York to cover this story. Colt and Frannie are, like, icons on the upper east side. Rich, good-looking, adventurous, intellectual, fucking doomed. Now, here I am, and what do I have? A dump. A fucking dump.”

Penelope ignored him. A turn-of-the-century dump was the best she could do. It was lame, and it wasn’t sexy at all, but it explained the metal. She had decided pegging the whole thing on a mirage was just too much to swallow.

The reporter didn’t quit. He was lanky, bearded and obnoxious. “You should get your facts straight before you go to the media.”

She turned from her plane. She was at the tail, trying to concentrate on her checklist. “I didn’t go to the media. They came to me. Look, stop at Jeannie’s Diner on Main Street for pie, or if you want to hang around until three o’clock, wait and stop at the Sunrise Inn for tea and scones. My mother and my cousin Harriet make the best scones in New Hampshire. The inn’s on the lake. Just take a left off Main.”

“I didn’t come to fucking New Hampshire for pie and scones. Jesus. This weather. You know, we have daffodils in New York.”

“Send me some when you get back.”

He let go of his camera and let it hang from his neck. It was a small, cheap camera on a thin black cord. He was probably freelance. He certainly wasn’t from Newsday or the Times. “You’re not very contrite,” he said.

“I made a mistake. You guys jumped all over this thing before anyone could verify what I’d found. It’s not my fault you got the cart before the horse.”

The guy went red. Penelope thought he might throw his camera at her, but then she saw her father marching toward them. He had on his work pants and wool work shirt, and he didn’t look as if he knew as much about airplanes and flying as he did. People underestimated Lyman Chestnut all the time. He was the quintessential hardheaded Yankee, a gray-haired, craggy-faced man of sixty who was the law at Cold Spring Airport. It was a small, uncontrolled airport with three hangars, one runway and three full-time year-round employees: Lyman, his sister Mary and Penelope. What they couldn’t do they hired part-time help to do or contracted out. Winter and early spring were their slow seasons. Come summer and autumn, the place hummed.

Lyman jerked a thumb toward the parking lot. “Out. Let Penelope do her job.”

“I was just—”

“You’re compromising safety.”

The reporter sputtered, then gave up and retreated.

Penelope grinned at her father. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You’ve done enough thinking for this week, I expect.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Finish your walk around.”

He about-faced and returned to the office in a corner of one of the hangars. Penelope watched him in frustration, then resumed her preflight. She knew what he meant. He meant he didn’t believe her dump story, either. No one believed her dump story.

But this morning when she woke before dawn, she realized she had no choice. She had to undo what she’d done. Brandon Sinclair, contacted in St. Croix, was sending his own investigator to represent his family’s interests. It was a Sinclair plane found on Sinclair land, and it had been a Sinclair in the cockpit. As Penelope had said yesterday afternoon to Andy McNally, the local police chief, “Who’s looking after Frannie’s interests? What if Colt killed her before the plane crashed? Then we have an unsolved murder. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, you know.”

Andy had calmly told her, yes, he knew, and she should mind her own business. The story was out, reporters were on the way. That was when Penelope realized she had no control. She’d been booted to the back of the raft, and someone else was negotiating the rapids.

Except for one thing. She knew where the wreckage was. No one else did, besides Bubba Johns, who presumably wasn’t about to talk.

Late yesterday, when she’d found reporters skulking around on her land discussing getting shots of her sap buckets and hunting up “that hermit,” Penelope had realized the extent of her folly. If she didn’t do something fast, dozens of reporters, the police and Brandon Sinclair’s investigator would descend on poor Bubba Johns. Even if by some miracle he had never noticed the plane wreckage, he was a colorful addition to the story. A wild-haired hermit living on Sinclair land. It was a nice contrast to the scandal and tragedy of the missing daredevil heir and his beautiful, intelligent, adventurous lover.

And then there was Harriet. Only humiliation and embarrassment waited for her.

So Penelope had made up her mind. The wreckage became a small, turn-of-the-century dump, and she couldn’t find it again. She pretended she’d made her way to it late yesterday and tried to thrash her way back first thing this morning. The light covering of snow gave her a touch more credibility, although apparently not enough for her father.

“Well,” she said to herself, “first things first. The heat’s off Bubba for now.”

She climbed into the cockpit and took a breath, focusing on the task at hand. She was transporting a time-sensitive package to Plattsburgh, New York, from a management consultant who worked out of his home on Lake Winnipesaukee. It had to be there this afternoon, not tomorrow morning. Her father had canceled her passenger charter yesterday. He didn’t like the way she was flying, hadn’t for weeks, and getting herself lost in the woods on Sunday proved she was distracted and bored. She’d had a few semi-close calls in a row, and he’d decided she wasn’t taking her job seriously enough. He couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong, but he wasn’t happy. And finding a forty-five-year-old plane wreck that turned out to be an old dump hadn’t done a damned thing to get her with the program.

She hoped by the time she returned, Brandon Sinclair’s investigator and the last of the reporters would all have turned around and gone home. Then she could take her time and figure out what, if anything, to do about the downed Piper Cub J-3 in the hills above town.



There were no bolts of lightning and no men with tar and feathers to greet Wyatt when he crossed into Cold Spring, New Hampshire. It was late afternoon, and the landscape was bleak. Pretty, but bleak. The White Mountains looming in the distance, rolling fields, winding roads, stark, leafless trees, lots of pine and fresh, clean, white snow clinging to everything. The snow was melting rapidly in the above-freezing temperatures, and the roads were clear. The only signs of spring he could see were the potholes and frost heaves.

The sun was out intermittently, and a persistent breeze made the temperature seem colder than it was. Wyatt had pulled over once to consult his map. Damned if he’d give the locals the satisfaction of seeing him get lost his first day in town. He had climbed the White Mountains, including the infamous Mount Washington, during his four years at Dartmouth, but at his father’s request, he’d avoided Lake Winnipesaukee. He’d had other things on his mind at twenty besides the fate of an uncle he’d never known. He’d never seen his family’s land in New Hampshire and couldn’t understand why they hadn’t sold it or donated it as a nature preserve.

A two-lane road led into the village of Cold Spring, a few picturesque streets nestled along the western shore of Lake Winnipesaukee. Twenty-seven miles long, Winnipesaukee was the largest lake in the state, formed by glaciers and famous for its crystal-clear water and three hundred islands. At this time of year, it was still an expanse of snow and ice, although only a few ice-fishing shanties dotted inlets close to shore. Winnipesaukee, Wyatt had learned from his map, was Abenaki for “beautiful water in high places.”

Like most of the other villages on the lake, Cold Spring was busiest in the summer and fall, but from the mix of shops on its maple-lined Main Street, Wyatt guessed it had a strong year-round population. Signs were discreet, storefronts neat and pretty even on a dreary March afternoon. Wyatt noticed shops that sold antiques, vintage clothing, quilts, gifts and the like, which the tourists would enjoy, but he also saw a pharmacy, a diner, a photo and print shop, a clothing store—the sort of shops one needed when a mall wasn’t close at hand.

He pulled into a parking space in front of the diner, fed the meter and went in for a very late lunch and whatever local gossip he could pick up about one Penelope Chestnut. So far, no sign of Jack Dunning, not that Jack would willingly share his findings with his boss’s son.

The diner was crowded for four o’clock on a bleak Tuesday afternoon. A plump waitress with perfect mauve nails was moving down the counter with a pot of coffee. Five booths lined the opposite wall, three of them filled. Reporters, Wyatt guessed. They’d be up from Boston and New York and God knew where else to check out the sighting of Frannie Beaudine and Colt Sinclair’s plane. The story had probably evaporated before they’d arrived, and now they were having a bite to eat in a country diner before heading back to the city.

Wyatt slid onto the one unoccupied stool at the counter and listened.

“Of course she’s lying,” a middle-aged man at the other end of the counter said. “The question is why.”

A skinny woman yawned. “No one gives a shit, ace. The people don’t care about Penelope Chestnut. The people care about the fate of Frannie and Colt.”

“One of these days I want to meet ‘the people,’” an older woman grumbled, “because I don’t give a rat’s ass about Frannie and Colt, either. I just care about that last piece of coconut pie sitting over in that case.” She raised her voice. “Miss, you earmark that pie for me, okay?”

Wyatt managed to get in an order of grilled ham and cheese on rye and coffee while listening to the reporters grouse and catching the locals—two men in flannel shirts at one of the booths—grinning at the wild-goose chase Penelope Chestnut had put them on. From what he gathered, she’d done this sort of thing before. Maybe not this precise thing—crying wolf about a famous long-missing plane—but stirring up trouble in her small lakeside village.

Then he got it. A scrap of conversation, a link between what was being said on one end of the diner and the other.

Miss Penelope was a pilot.

Wyatt smiled. Pilots he understood. He wasn’t one himself, but he’d hung out with them, used their services and appealed to their sense of adventure for most of his twenties and the first two years of his thirties. Now he was thirty-four, a suit behind a desk. He grimaced and drank his coffee and ate his sandwich. When he paid his tab, he got directions to the airport from the waitress.

“Penelope won’t be there,” she said. “She’s flying today. And she’s not talking to reporters.”

Wyatt didn’t disabuse her of her notion that he was a reporter. As instructed, he followed the main road the way he’d come, turned left at a flower shop, followed that road—its massive potholes and frost heaves required bright orange warning signs—until he came to a perfunctory green sign that said Airport. Bingo. He turned onto a barely paved country road, bounced over it until he came to a precious stretch of flat land. The Cold Spring Airport. It wasn’t much of an airport, but he hadn’t expected much. The one runway and three small hangars fit with his image of the woman who said she’d found Frannie and Colt’s plane, then said she didn’t.

He rocked and rolled over the undulating dirt parking lot and did his best to avoid the huge holes that had opened up with the warming temperatures. They’d filled with water that, presumably, would ice overnight and melt again tomorrow. Leaves on the trees, flowers and green grass all seemed a long, long way off.

Wyatt parked next to a mud-spattered hunter-green truck. It had four-wheel drive. So did the SUV next to it. His car did not. The air was damp and cold, the kind that got into the bones. He picked his way through water-filled holes to a small, squat building with a crude sign indicating Office. People did get to the point around here.

A sixtyish man stood out front, glaring at the gray tree line. Without even glancing at Wyatt, he said, “If you’re from the press, the story’s over. You can go home.”

“I’m not a reporter.”

He turned, but Wyatt sensed his mind was still on whatever he expected to find on the tree line. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Penelope Chestnut. As I said, I’m not a reporter, but I would like to talk to her about what she found in the woods.”

The older man’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re a Sinclair.”

His tone hadn’t changed. He fit the stereotype of the naturally stoic, taciturn New Englander. Wyatt checked his surprise. “Yes, I’m Wyatt Sinclair. Colt was my uncle.”

“You’re Brandon’s boy.”

It wasn’t a question, but Wyatt said, “That’s right.”

A heavy, fatalistic sigh, as if he should have expected a Sinclair to wander into town. “Your father sent his own investigator, you know. Jack Dunning. He’s flying up—he’s taking a detour over your family’s land first. I suppose he’ll try to spot Penelope’s dump.”

“Jack’s thorough. I’m here for my own reasons.”

“I see. Well, Penelope’ll be coming over those treetops in about three minutes. She’s low on fuel. Not paying attention. Too damned much going on. I never should have let her fly today.” He bit off an irritated sigh. “I’m her father, Lyman Chestnut.” He put out a hand, and they shook briefly. “I knew your grandfather, and your father and uncle.”

Wyatt nodded. His father had never mentioned Lyman Chestnut.

“I was fifteen when Colt disappeared,” the older man went on. “Tough break. It happens. We had a plane go down about an hour west of here a couple years ago, and it still hasn’t been found.”

He stared at the horizon, and Wyatt got the message. Whatever he might believe about what his daughter had found on Sunday, Lyman Chestnut was on her side.

The office door opened, and a heavyset woman thrust her hands on her ample hips and said, “Jesus Christ, Lyman, I can’t believe that girl! She says she’s running on fumes. She’s going to land. You want me to get the ambulance and fire department up here?”

“Get the police, because when this is over, one of us is going to be arrested. Her or me. I’ve had it, Mary. She’s crossed the line.”

Mary snorted. “Now, how many times have I heard that?”

A small Beechcraft materialized above the treetops, and Lyman Chestnut held his breath. Wyatt thought everything looked just fine. It seemed to have good speed. A normal descent. It landed smoothly on the single paved runway without a hitch.

Lyman breathed out with a whoosh, but his relief only lasted a moment before he clenched his teeth. “Goddamn it, this time she’s grounded.” He turned to the gray-haired woman, who still had her hands on her hips and was shaking her head in disgust, whether because Penelope had landed safely or didn’t have the close call she apparently deserved Wyatt couldn’t tell. Lyman pointed a thick finger at her. “Mary, you hear that? I’m grounding her. I own the goddamned plane. I’m her goddamned boss. I can goddamned ground her.”

So much for stoic and taciturn. Wyatt judiciously kept quiet.

“For how long?” Mary asked.

“Thirty days.”

“She’ll go crazy. She’ll drive all of us crazy.”

“Three weeks, then.”

Wyatt stood between two dripping icicles and watched Lyman march up to the Beechcraft. He moved at a fast, determined clip. He wasn’t a big man, a couple inches under six feet, and his granitelike features didn’t bode well for the woman in the cockpit, given that they were related.

By the time he arrived, Penelope Chestnut had jumped onto the runway, beaming, no indication she’d given herself a scare.

“Well, well,” Wyatt said under his breath.

He assessed her from a distance. Gray flight suit that would have done NASA proud, dark blond hair in a fat braid that had long since gone wild, athletic body, height just an inch or two under her father’s—and attractive. Not cute or elegantly beautiful, but striking. Unless the package all fell apart a few yards closer, Penelope Chestnut was not what Wyatt had expected. On his way north, he’d developed two different images of what he’d find. Both were older than he was. Neither had her flying planes. In one, she was the stereotypical pinch-faced New Englander with no makeup, faded turtleneck and tweeds, sensible shoes. In the second, she was the dairy farmer and earth mother. Cows, kids, land, gardens, dogs, cats, maybe a few chickens.

Obviously he’d been way off the mark.

Lyman Chestnut started in on her, pointing a callused finger, and Penelope about-faced and walked off as if they’d done this all before. Her father hollered so half the state of New Hampshire could hear. “I don’t give a good goddamn if you were in control of the situation, you’re still grounded!”

She stuck her tongue out at him. Without turning around. That bit of prudence was the only point Wyatt had seen so far in Lyman’s parenting favor.

“I saw that, Penelope Chestnut,” Mary said from the office door. “You’re lucky you have a father who cares about you. You’ve scared the bejesus out of him more times than any daughter has a right to and still live.”

Penelope took a breath. Up close, Wyatt saw that the last few minutes had taken their toll on her, after all. She was a bit paler and shakier, he expected, than she wanted anyone to see. He also saw that she had green eyes, greener even than her father’s. She said, “I’ve scared the bejesus out of myself a time or two.”

“Ha. The day you’re scared, I want to be in the front row. Do I need to call the FAA?”

“No, Aunt Mary. Good heavens. I didn’t crash. I just didn’t get an accurate fuel reading before I left Plattsburgh. I never should have told you.”

Mary sighed loudly. “Your father’s right. What you need is a break, and a break’s what you’re going to get. I still have the paperwork from the last mishap, before Lyman softened. He won’t this time. I won’t let him.”

“Damn it, Aunt Mary, this is collusion. I have rights—”

“Not here you don’t, missy.”

Mary withdrew into the office, and the door banged shut behind her. Wyatt thought he saw a glimmer of humor—and affection—in Penelope Chestnut’s eyes. Then they focused on Wyatt, and he could see the wariness come into them—but no hint of embarrassment over the scene he’d just witnessed.

Before Wyatt could introduce himself, Lyman caught up with his daughter and, containing his obviously still-boiling anger, jumped in ahead of him. “Penelope, this gentleman wants to see you about the junk you found in the woods. Talk to him. Then come talk to me. Wyatt, this is my daughter, Penelope Chestnut. Penelope, Wyatt Sinclair. Brandon’s son.”

He stood back as if expecting fireworks. Penelope tilted her head, slightly, studying Wyatt with a frankness that somehow didn’t surprise him. Boots, jeans, black shirt, black leather jacket, no hat, no gloves. She seemed to take in all of him with that one appraising look, no problem shifting from her troubled landing and her quarrel with her father to a Sinclair on the premises.

“I drove up from New York this morning,” Wyatt said.

“I see. Well, I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time, but I don’t have anything to tell you except that I screwed up. Low blood sugar, bad light, an overactive imagination.” She shrugged, matter of fact. “I didn’t find your uncle’s plane. I found an old dump. That’s all there is to it. Look, I have to see about my plane—”

“I’ll be seeing about your plane,” her father broke in. “You might as well have a cup of coffee with Wyatt here. You’re going to have three weeks to kill. And that’s just for starters. If I don’t like what I see in three weeks, you’ll have another three weeks to cool your heels.”

“I don’t need a break. I need to fly more.”

“You don’t fly to get your head together. You fly when your head’s together.”

She turned to Wyatt. “Never fly for your own father.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Wyatt saw that immediately, even if Penelope didn’t. Her father swallowed his anger and allowed his natural stoicism to reassert itself. He said calmly, making it impossible to be misunderstood, “I am not acting as your father right now. I am acting as a responsible owner of six charter planes and a flight instructor for the last thirty years who has the right and the duty to ground an unfit pilot. And you, Penelope Chestnut, are unfit to fly.”

“Fine,” she said without missing a beat, “then I’ll boil sap.”

Wyatt would have throttled her right then and there.

“Have coffee with Sinclair here,” Lyman said, teeth gritted, patience spent, and headed to the runway and his daughter’s plane.

His departure left Penelope alone with a Sinclair, which made Wyatt wonder if his family’s reputation was as bad in Cold Spring as he’d been led to believe. Then again, Lyman Chestnut could simply believe a Sinclair would insist on talking with his daughter and best get it over with.

With one hand, Penelope stuffed stray hair behind her ears, missing even more than she captured. She had a face that was all angles and straight lines—except her mouth, which was soft and full. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and she wore tiny silver hoops on her ears. Her green eyes narrowed on him. “I’m sorry you had to witness that little spat. Pop worries too much— I don’t know, maybe I should go easy on him. It’s been a crazy couple of days. Do you really want to go for coffee? I don’t have a thing to tell you.”

No question in his mind she had a lot she could tell him—if she would. “I’d love some coffee.”

She shrugged. “As you wish.”

He made a move to go into the office, but she shook her head. “Not here. Aunt Mary’s into flavored coffees. I think today’s is raspberry. Blechh. My mother and cousin own an inn on the lake—they serve coffee and tea in the afternoon. And they make the best scones in New Hampshire, maybe all of New England. I think today’s are currant.”

“Sounds fine.”

“You’re not the investigator your father sent up here, are you? I had the impression it was someone he’d hired.”

“That would be Jack Dunning. He’s supposed to arrive soon—he’s flying up from New York, scoping out the landscape. He has his own way of doing things.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

Wyatt shook his head.

“Your father?”

“No.”

“Well, I guess you’re a big boy and can do what you want to do. Let’s go. We can take my truck.”

So the truck was hers. Here was a woman who flew planes, drove a truck and was off to have tea and scones at a lakeside inn. Definitely not what he’d envisioned—never mind the wild, wavy blond hair, the green, green eyes, the tight, sexy body, the flight suit, the keen wit.

She stopped abruptly in the middle of the parking lot, tilted her head at the sky and took a deep breath. She held it a moment, then exhaled. “It’s a fine spring day. I’m glad I didn’t crash.”

Yep, a pilot. She liked life a little on the edge. Maybe a lot on the edge.

And suddenly Wyatt could see how she might have made the leap from old dump to Frannie Beaudine and Colt Sinclair’s plane. A missing plane was more exciting to find in the woods when you were lost and tired—and this woman would hate to be either—than an old dump.

Which meant his trek to New Hampshire could be for nothing.

“I’m glad you didn’t crash, too,” he said dryly, “but this isn’t spring.”

She grinned at him. “Technically, no. But the ice is melting and the sap is running—it feels like spring to me.”




Three


A black-haired, black-eyed, suspicious-minded Sinclair in a leather jacket. Just what she needed. Still jumpy from her mishap in the air, Penelope waited for Wyatt Sinclair to climb into her truck. “Whoops—hang on a sec.” She whisked a little blue calico bag off his seat onto the floor. “Rose petal potpourri. I let Pop drive my truck and it came back smelling like an ashtray. He’s taken up smoking cigars. Disgusting.”

“You have strong opinions.”

“About cigars. Anyway,” she said, starting her truck, “opinions are by definition strong. Otherwise they’re not opinions.”

She backed out over the rutted, washboard lot, which seemed even worse this year than usual. On the main road, she drove faster than was necessary, swerving around potholes, braking hard for frost heaves. She knew just where the worst ones had formed in the freezing, thawing, refreezing cycle of late winter and early spring that wreaked havoc on the roads yet made the sap run sweet.

Beside her, Wyatt Sinclair didn’t say a word. He was exactly what she’d expected of a Sinclair. Suspicious, probing, good-looking. He had a natural arrogance that she didn’t find as off-putting as she’d anticipated. It was just so…easy for him. Her research into Frannie and Colt had led to facts about the entire Sinclair family, including this first of his generation. He was well-educated, he spoke four languages, he was an expert mountain climber and outdoorsman, and he came close to killing himself every year or two.

Two years ago, his luck ran out and tragedy struck during a climbing expedition in Tasmania, when bad weather and bad judgment combined to leave him bug-infested, dehydrated, infected, with three broken ribs, a broken leg and his hiking companion and best friend dead at his side. Penelope had read about the incident in the papers. Even the Cold Spring Reporter had picked up the story.

She didn’t notice any obvious lingering effects of such a terrible ordeal. Maybe he’d gnashed his teeth and pushed, pulled, argued, rebelled and thrown himself into enough danger over the years to have established a certain peace with himself. Except he didn’t look peaceful, either.

It was way too early, she reminded herself, to draw any conclusions about what Wyatt Sinclair did and didn’t feel. Indeed, she’d probably do herself a favor not to go down that path at all. She heard he’d moved back to New York to become some sort of money type on Wall Street, possibly because of his experience in Tasmania. Then again, sooner or later, all Sinclairs made it back to Manhattan to prove they could make money and didn’t need the family fortune.

Of course, she also heard his father had disinherited him. Rumors were forever circulating around town about Sinclairs, and Penelope had learned not to believe everything she heard.

She glanced at him. The black eyes were squinting as he stared at the landscape, the square jaw set hard. For sure, getting lost in the New Hampshire woods for a few hours and running out of gas in a small plane would be nothing to Wyatt Sinclair. A pop fly to Plattsburgh and back to deliver a package would bore him silly—he’d probably dump fuel just to liven things up.

But Penelope loved her work, and she couldn’t believe she’d screwed up again. Damned near running out of fuel. How stupid. She wanted to blame the reporters, the hoopla over her discovery in the Sinclair woods, the anticipation of having to explain herself to Brandon Sinclair’s investigator—but that wasn’t it. This sort of thing had been happening before she’d wandered into the woods and found a forty-five-year-old plane wreck. She and her father had been at loggerheads for weeks over her inability to concentrate.

Maybe it was just spring fever, she decided.

Whatever it was, she was grounded and off to town with a Sinclair—and at the Sunrise Inn, no less. And it was her suggestion. Lord, what a day. But the only cure for it was tea and scones, despite the risk of running into Harriet, who’d wanted to meet a Sinclair her whole life. Considering her impulsiveness of late, Penelope supposed she should never mind Harriet and worry about herself instead. With that black Sinclair gaze probing her from across the table, she could blurt out everything. Clearly, he’d come to Cold Spring to find out if she was lying. If he concluded she was, he’d have the truth from her. It was that quiet, natural arrogance, she thought. She could sense it, even as they roared down Main Street in her truck. He’d simply get her to tell the truth, and he knew he would.

The Sunrise Inn was tucked onto a point that jutted into the lake just off Main Street. Harriet and Penelope’s mother had bought it twelve years ago and painstakingly turned the relatively simple Queen Anne into a charming, popular lakeside inn. It was painted deep brown and had a curving porch that overlooked the lake and a smaller screened porch that looked out on one of the inn’s many stunning, award-winning gardens. Of course, at this time of year all the gardens were covered with mulch and melting snow, and the porch furniture was in storage.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention you’re a Sinclair,” Penelope said as she lurched around a pothole. “It’ll just complicate things—and for heaven’s sake, don’t mention that episode at the airport to my mother, if she’s here. She hates planes. If I come home alive, that’s all she needs to know. She’s still having fits about having to call a search party on me this weekend.”

He turned to her. “Do you like living life on the edge?”

“I don’t like it. It just sometimes turns out that way.”

She led him up a brick walk. Since the house faced the lake, the inn’s main entrance was at the back, up a set of stone steps. A spring grapevine wreath graced the door, its pretty dried tea roses, larkspur and pepper berries a colorful contrast to the snow, mud and patches of sopping, grayish grass. Inside, stairs curved up to the right, and the wide entry opened into a sitting room with a fireplace and the front desk. Immediately to the left, off the entry, was an elegant parlor, almost completely Harriet’s doing with its dark wood and damask fabrics. She’d added an 1893 rosewood upright piano, a dozen needlepoint pillows, even an easel for drawing.

Penelope immediately felt the heat of the sitting room fire and smelled apples and cinnamon and something faintly tangy—oranges, perhaps. Harriet always liked to keep something fragrant simmering, and if there was snow on the ground, there was a fire in the fireplace. She was convinced her guests wanted fires.

In borderline temperatures like today’s, that meant it got toasty fast. Penelope unzipped her flight suit about six inches. She’d worn a black T-shirt underneath, a mistake on a day filled with lies, reporters, a flying screwup and Wyatt Sinclair. She groaned. “It’s hot in here. I can’t believe Harriet has a fire going. It’s almost fifty degrees outside.”

Sinclair cut her a quick smile. “Downright balmy, isn’t it?”

“Compared to the eighteen degrees it was two weeks ago, yes. I’m suffocating.”

She grabbed what was left of her braid with both hands, let it drop and undid her zipper another inch.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Wyatt twitching. With a white-hot jolt, she realized he wasn’t her father or one of the guys from town. He was a Sinclair, and he would be attuned to everything physical in his surroundings. Including her. Especially her, because she was the reason he was here. He wanted to know about his uncle’s plane.

That he was obviously aware of her meant nothing. She didn’t have to be his type or even particularly attractive—she had only to be breathing for him to scope her out. It was simply the nature of the beast.

Scones, she reminded herself.

Fortunately, neither Harriet nor her mother—in fact, no one—was at the front desk. Penelope led Sinclair down a short hall to the left, past the wood-paneled bar and up another short hall to a cheerful octagonal room that served as the inn’s dining room. It jutted from the main house, with views of both the gardens and the lake. With nothing in bloom, the tables and windowsills were decorated with pots of narcissus, paperwhites, daffodils and hyacinths. They were a cheerful touch that complemented the white linens and blue willow china.

Penelope greeted Terry, the manager of the Octagon Room and sole server of afternoon tea, and quietly asked, “Is Harriet or my mother around?”

“Harriet’s upstairs, and I think Robby’s at the sugar house.”

Penelope couldn’t hide her relief. She was pretty sure Sinclair noticed. He was in observational mode, keying in on every nuance. Best to remain on guard, no matter how good the scones, how tired she was after her long day.

“Do you want me to tell Harriet you’re here?”

“No—that’s okay. We’re just having tea and scones.”

“Of course. Any table’s fine. We were crowded yesterday and this morning, but I think all the reporters have checked out by now.”

Terry was clearly curious about the man at Penelope’s side, but Penelope had no intention of introducing him. She wanted to convince Wyatt of her sincerity and honesty and hurry him back to New York. She chose a table in front of a window with the best view of the lake and a blue pottery dish brimming with daffodils.

“My mother does sugaring in the spring—the sap’s running like crazy,” she explained to Wyatt, just to say something. She wanted to distract him from coming to judgments she couldn’t control, like the certainty that her turn-of-the-century dump was made-up. “She and Harriet use the syrup at the inn and sell the surplus to guests.”

He settled into a chair opposite her. Even in black leather, he didn’t look out of place. He had an obvious ability to make wherever he was his space. The New York financial district, the Tasmanian wilderness, a charming New England inn. “Is Harriet your cousin on your mother’s side?” he asked.

Already they were on dangerous ground. Penelope shook her head. “No, Harriet and my father are first cousins. She’s between my mother and me in age—they’ve just always gotten along.” And that was all he needed to know about Harriet Chestnut.

“Are you related to everyone in town?”

“Not quite.”

Terry brought two individual pots of tea, two small plates of warm currant scones and two little crockeries, one of soft butter, one of raspberry preserves. Penelope smiled and thanked her, then said to Wyatt, “After nearly dying today, I’m putting jam and butter on my scones.”

“I didn’t realize it was that close a call.”

“It wasn’t, but anything to justify butter and jam.” She split open a scone, spread a generous amount of butter and checked her tea. “Another minute.” She settled in her chair, trying to ignore a flutter in the pit of her stomach. Lying to the national media was one thing, to a Sinclair another. “I’m sorry I got your family all stirred up about your uncle’s plane.”

Wyatt broke off a piece of his scone, smeared on a bit of butter. “I’d like to hear your story from start to finish, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

He smiled. “Is that the truth?”

She smiled back, her stomach twisting—damned if she’d let him ruin her afternoon tea. “Okay, so it’s awkward and I’d rather not. But I’ll oblige you. How’s that?”

“Better.”

“Are you going to pick apart every sentence?”

He shrugged. “Only if I sense you’re…dissembling.”

“Dissembling’s just another word for lying. It’s that Dartmouth education showing, huh? Well, sense away, Mr. Sinclair.”

“Wyatt,” he said smoothly.

She poured her tea, relieved her hand didn’t shake. “Wyatt Sinclair,” she said. “The only son of Brandon Sinclair, who was just eleven years old when his older brother and Frannie Beaudine slipped out during the reception honoring the donation of the Sinclair Collection to the Met.” She sipped her tea. “Rumor has it Colt stopped to say goodbye to his little brother before heading to the reception.”

“You’ve done your research.”

She waved a hand. She wanted to establish a measure of control over their conversation but saw no need to get into what she knew about Frannie and Colt—and him. “That much everyone around here knows. It’s printed on diner place mats. Frannie Beaudine’s sort of a local heroine.”

“And the people of Cold Spring blame Colt for sweeping her off her feet and to her doom?”

“Pretty much.”

Wyatt poured his tea, adding a bit of lemon, no sugar or cream. “It’s been forty-five years—”

“Around here, forty-five years is the blink of an eye. I mean, it’s not like we’re in England or Greece, but still. My father remembers both your uncle and Frannie—and your grandfather, too.”

“He told me.”

“He was fifteen when they disappeared. He helped search for their plane. It’s not so long ago.”

“I suppose.” Sinclair leaned back, watching Penelope as she ate her scone, which was feathery light and just perfect, but she resisted the temptation to wolf it down. “So, tell me how you mistook a dump for plane wreckage.”

She’d been explaining that point since morning. On her trip to Plattsburgh, New York, and back, she’d worked out the kinks in her story. “Well, I did and I didn’t. I just thought it was plane wreckage—I realized I wouldn’t know for sure until I went back. Because of the conditions, I only saw it from a distance. It was on a steep, icy, rocky hillside, and I didn’t want to risk climbing over to get a closer look. It was late, and I was out in the woods alone.”

The dark, almost black eyes settled on her. “And you were lost.”

She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “I wasn’t lost-lost. Lost-lost is when the search party has to find you. I made my way back while they were still arguing over who got to ride the snowmobiles.”

The eyes didn’t move from her. Wyatt Sinclair wasn’t going to be easy to roll. He had more at stake. It was his uncle—his flesh and blood—in that plane. Feeling a twinge of guilt, Penelope poured her tea. “Anyway,” she went on, welcoming the steam and the smoky smell of Earl Grey, “I said I thought I might have found Colt and Frannie’s plane, and next thing it’s all over the news that I did find it. So before things got too far out of hand, I slipped off on my own late yesterday to check out what I’d found for myself.”

“What time did you leave?”

“I don’t know, about four, four-thirty.”

“And when did you get back?”

She slathered jam and butter onto another piece of scone. “What’re you going to do, get out your compass and map and calculate my coordinates?”

His gaze darkened enough to remind her that she was dealing with a man who hadn’t exactly driven six hours for tea and scones. “Maybe I’m just pinning you down.”

He said pinning in such a way that her stomach rolled over and a prickly, all-over awareness settled in. “Pin away,” she said lightly, making it a challenge. “I got home after dark. I didn’t look at the clock.”

His gaze remained steady, probing, all the more disconcerting because she had the distinct feeling he knew he’d gotten to her with that last remark. No doubt it had been deliberate. Part of his strategy. Make the woman quiver with thoughts of your hard body and dark eyes and then pounce—prove her a bald-faced liar.

“You must have some idea,” he said mildly.

She had no idea because she’d never made the trip. She’d tramped to the edge of her property, tossed snowballs against trees for a while and tramped back by a different route, careful not to let any enterprising reporter spot her. “I guess it must have been around seven. I took a shower, ate dinner, checked my e-mail and went to bed.”

“All right. And you say what you found this time was a dump.”

“What I found last time was a dump, too. I just didn’t know it.”

“Isn’t it unusual to find a dump, even an old one, that far out in the woods?”

“Unusual but not impossible. Most of New Hampshire was denuded by logging and farming a hundred years ago. A lot of reforestation has occurred over the century. The woods—even the Sinclair woods—are crisscrossed with stone walls, old logging trails, cellar holes, wells. Dumps. We see trees and like to think we’re stepping on virgin ground. But we’re not.” She sipped her tea, feeling calmer. “You went to school up here. You must know this stuff.”

“I was more concerned with climbing mountains and surviving for another semester than with local yore.” He settled back, his attention focused intently on her. He would want to be absolutely certain she was telling the truth before he left Cold Spring. If not, she had no idea what he’d do. “What made you think you’d found plane wreckage? Initially. Before you went back and learned otherwise. You’re a pilot. Something must have made you think it was a plane, specifically a Piper Cub J-3.”

So much for working out the kinks in her story. Being pelted with questions from a reporter was one thing—from Colt’s only nephew quite another. But Penelope saw no point in backing down. Telling Wyatt about his uncle’s plane would only bring on chaos. “It was a weird day. I don’t know if there was anything specific or not. And what I thought I saw on Sunday is irrelevant—what I did see yesterday was an old dump.”

“Which now you say you can’t find again.”

His tone wasn’t neutral. If he’d meant it to be neutral, it would be neutral. But it wasn’t. He didn’t believe a word she’d said. And he meant her to know it. “Mr. Sinclair, I get the distinct impression you don’t believe me.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t come here to put you on the defensive. I just want to know the truth. You tried to follow your footsteps to the site this morning but they’d been covered with snow?”

“That’s right.”

“Where’s the snow now?”

“There was more in the higher elevations. Four inches in some spots. We hardly got any along the lake. Microclimates.”

“There was enough snow to obliterate your tracks?”

“My tracks were hard enough to follow yesterday with all the melting and refreezing this time of year. And I wasn’t really paying attention to landmarks. It was lousy light, and I was focused on my tracks. I suppose I might be able to find my way back, given enough time, but I don’t see the point. It wasn’t Frannie and Colt’s plane I found, it was a dump.”

The dark gaze stayed on her. “That’s your story?”

Penelope popped the last of her scone into her mouth. “That’s what happened.”

“The press buying it?”

“Sure. They’re not going to traipse through the wilds of New Hampshire in March and risk finding out I’m not lying after all. They’d look like idiots. Besides, they won’t find it—it was a miracle I found it myself.”

Wyatt said nothing.

“I’m sorry you wasted your trip north,” Penelope said.

He leaned forward, gave a roguish wink that called up all her images of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Sinclairs—the adventurers, the privateers, the reckless men who’d lived hard and too often died young. “Your story’s bullshit, Penelope. I doubt anyone believes it. I sure as hell don’t.”

In hindsight, she should have said she’d hallucinated the Piper Cub. She could have blamed stress, the trouble she was having concentrating in recent weeks, cabin fever, her general restlessness and malaise. Her father would have believed her. He’d have immediately grounded her, of course, but he’d ended up grounding her, anyway.

The dump story hadn’t worked. Now it was too late. She had no rewind button, no chance to revise it and start over.

And damned if she’d give the skeptical man across the table from her the satisfaction of witnessing her admit her folly. If he was naturally arrogant, she was naturally defiant and stubborn—faults, at times, to be sure, but occasionally, too, virtues.

“Well,” she said, “there’s nothing I can do to make you believe me. That’s your problem.”

“At the moment, yes. In a day or two, if I’ve found anything that casts doubt on your story—then we’ll have to have tea again.” He grabbed the check. “Allow me.”

Damned right she’d allow him. He’d ruined her tea, he could pay for it. He slid to his feet, calm, knowing just how much he’d rattled her. “This looks like a decent inn. I expect they’re not booked solid this time of year.”

“You’re going to stay here? Why? There are hotels in Laconia—”

“I prefer to stay in Cold Spring.”

Penelope nearly choked. Harriet, her mother and Wyatt Sinclair. No…

He paid Terry and walked to the front desk, leaving Penelope to sputter, recover her senses and follow. How could she explain her cousin to him? The dump in the woods was enough to swallow.

Harriet was at the front desk. Tall, plain, blue-eyed, sensitive Harriet. Penelope felt a rush of emotion. Although her cousin was fifteen years her senior, Penelope was the one who was protective, who did what she could to allow Harriet her illusions of gentility and refinement. When she was small, Harriet would read her L. M. Montgomery, Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott, and she let Penelope thumb through her scrapbook of pretty houses and gardens she clipped from magazines. They’d had tea parties, trimming the crusts from their sandwiches, and they’d played dress-up with clothes from the church attic, Edwardian dresses, feathered hats, impossible shoes. With unwavering patience, Harriet had tried to teach Penelope crewel embroidery and needlepoint, but their lessons usually ended with blood all over everything. Penelope had found ways to prick her fingers—and often Harriet’s—with even the bluntest of needles.

Sunrise Inn was perfect for Harriet. It took all her yearnings and all her skills and put them together in a profitable business. She had a suite of rooms on the third floor, as precious and perfect as she could ever want. If she longed for marriage and children, she never said. Certainly no one in Cold Spring expected her to take a husband—who would it be?

She wasn’t naive, innocent or stupid. There was a core niceness to her that people tended to respect, and perhaps, as a result, she brought out the best in them. That was what Penelope found herself wanting to protect. Harriet wasn’t cynical or bitter about anything, including the guests who stayed at her inn. She wouldn’t become one of those businesspeople who griped about the tourists.

But the thing was, Harriet was also just a little odd.

“Penelope, I don’t believe you. I just got off the phone with your father. He said he’s grounded you. All I can say is it’s about time. A wonder you haven’t given that man a heart attack.”

“Harriet, Pop’s going to live to be a hundred. Look, I’ve got to run—”

But Harriet’s brows drew together, and clear, blue eyes—easily her best feature—focused on the tall, dark man next to her cousin. She expected an introduction. Penelope knew she expected an introduction, and she silently cursed her father for not mentioning there was a Sinclair in town. It was the coward’s way out. He knew damned well she’d find out.

Before Penelope could sort through this latest dilemma, Wyatt stepped forward, playing the gentleman. “You have a lovely inn, Miss Chestnut. I was wondering if you might have a room available for tonight. My name’s Wyatt Sinclair. I drove up from New York this morning.”

Penelope groaned inwardly.

Harriet gawked, turning pale. She fumbled around on her antique desk, trying to find something to do with her hands, her fingers finally closing on a pen. Penelope felt for her. This was the day Harriet had waited for her entire life, when she would stand face-to-face with a Sinclair. “Um—are you related to the Sinclairs—the Sinclairs who own the land up above the lake—Colt—”

“Brandon Sinclair is my father. Colt was my uncle. I never knew him. He disappeared before I was born.”

“Oh.” She breathed out, her lower lip trembling. “Oh, dear.”

Wyatt glanced at Penelope, who was making a show of pretending she wasn’t listening. Damn him for being so smooth. She snatched up a jar of maple syrup from a display of goods the inn had for sale and held it to the light. “Harriet, I wouldn’t call this Grade A. I think it’s Fancy.”

Sinclair wasn’t giving an inch. Instinctively suspicious, he was probably wondering why she didn’t want him staying at the inn. “Do you have a room?” he asked Harriet gently.

She nodded, clutching her shirt. She favored cotton button-down shirts and skirts or jumpers, sensible shoes. She didn’t dye her graying, mousy brown hair, just kept it parted in the middle and pulled back, occasionally pinned up. “Yes, yes, of course. I’ll freshen it up myself. We’ve had reporters here the past two nights…” She took a breath, steadying herself. “But they’ve all left now that Penelope changed her story.”

“Well,” Wyatt said, “I won’t be leaving for a while.”

Penelope thumped down the jar. “What do you mean, a while? A while could be a week. There’s no reason—”

“I came all this way, I might as well check out the land my family owns.” He glanced at Penelope, his dark eyes unreadable, his mouth neutral, neither smiling nor unsmiling. She had no doubt—not one—that he knew he was getting under her skin. “I’ve never seen it.”

She was beside herself. “It looks like all the other land around here. Steep hills. Trees. Rocks. Brooks. Stone walls.”

“Turn-of-the-century dumps,” he added without detectable sarcasm. Unmoved by her protest, he turned to Harriet. “I’d like to reserve a room for three nights, perhaps longer.”

“As long as you wish, Mr. Sinclair. This is our slow time.”

“I rode with your cousin from the airport. I’ll check in after I’ve picked up my car.”

“You can check in whenever you want.”

He smiled, laying on the charm. “Thank you, Miss Chestnut.”

“My pleasure. Penelope—”

“I’ll talk to you later, Harriet. The scones were spectacular today, as usual.”

Penelope had no intention of chitchatting with her cousin. Couldn’t she tell she wanted Wyatt Sinclair out of town? Not Harriet. There was a simple reason she could deal with the public with such genuine good cheer—Harriet was oblivious to the undercurrents between people. She took them at face value, and that was that. Which was why she’d missed Penelope’s frustration with Sinclair, the phoniness of his charm and how much he was enjoying thwarting her. If she was going to stick to her story, he could at least do something she didn’t want him to do. Jerk her chain. Rattle her.

As if the black leather jacket and the strong, lean build weren’t enough, Penelope thought grimly.

She started for the door, assuming Sinclair would follow. To her relief, he did. She glanced at Harriet. “Oh, and if Mother calls, I’d like to tell her myself I’ve been grounded, not that she won’t have heard it from half the town by now.”

“Your father already told her. She’s staying out of it.”

Just as Penelope had expected. If Robby Chestnut was anything, it was laissez faire when it came to her husband’s relationship with their daughter, especially if flying was involved.

Penelope charged through the door and into the chilly, damp air. She never should have picked the Sunrise Inn, except that during the crisis, thinking about Harriet’s scones had helped her stop berating herself for not properly preflighting her plane.

Her father’s plane, she amended, suddenly feeling quite grouchy.

When she finally had Wyatt Sinclair in her truck, she gripped the wheel and took a deep breath. It had been one hell of a day. And it showed no signs of improving.

“What’s the matter?” he asked mildly, knowing damned well he’d struck a nerve. “Is Harriet the crazy cousin who snuck out of the attic?”

“No, she’s the crazy cousin we should lock in the attic.” Penelope shook her head, debating how much she should tell Sinclair about her cousin before he spent the night under her roof. Tears rushed to her eyes. Damn. That was all she needed, to start crying. Harriet, Harriet. What am I going to do with you? She took one last look at the Sunrise Inn, shook her head and started the engine. “You knew I don’t want you staying there.”

“Why not?”

“Harriet’s—she’s—” This wasn’t going to be easy. “You’re the first Sinclair she’s ever met.”

“I’m the first Sinclair you’ve ever met. It hasn’t seemed to affect you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then explain.”

She thrust her truck into gear and let out the clutch. “It’s not my place, but if you’re intent on sticking around town for a few days, you’ll find out anyway. If no one else tells you, Harriet will herself.” She exhaled slowly, refusing to imagine the results if that happened. Would Sinclair laugh hysterically? Threaten her? Call in the men in white jackets? “Look, she’s a sweet soul.”

“And?”

“Well, she thinks she’s one of you.”

Wyatt frowned. “You’re right. I don’t understand.”

Penelope bit her lower lip. “Harriet is convinced she’s Colt and Frannie’s long-lost daughter.”




Four


That was all Wyatt could get out of her. The plain, sweet-souled woman at the inn thought she was Colt and Frannie’s daughter. It was a harmless fantasy, no one believed it, end of story. Just like the turn-of-the-century dump was the end of that story.

He was beginning to think Cold Spring was one weird little town.

He headed for his car. The temperature had dropped noticeably, the sun long gone. Penelope had driven him to the airport, given him a tight-lipped smile and charged off in her truck.

“Sinclair—wait a second.”

It was Lyman Chestnut. He crossed the rutted lot at an unhurried pace, wiping his thick fingers with a black rag. Wyatt waited for him. His patience was at a low ebb. Tea, scones, lies—and those green eyes and flushed cheeks, sexy, challenging.

“Harriet called,” Lyman said. “Says you’re staying a night or two.”

“I might.”

“Penelope tell you her story?”

Wyatt noticed the careful wording. He nodded.

“She was in rough shape when she came out of the woods Sunday night. She was lost most of the afternoon. It was dark—we’d organized a search party and were just about to get started after her. She has a way of losing track of what she’s doing and getting herself in trouble. She’s been doing it since she was a little kid.”

He wiped his fingers on the rag, pretending to concentrate on the task. Wyatt could see he was frustrated, preoccupied, awkward. Having the daughter he had would have its ups and downs. “Mr. Chestnut—”

“Lyman. I make my flying students call me Mr. Chestnut, but that’s about it. Look, Penelope’s been fantasizing about finding that plane since she could walk. Everyone around here has. I’m guessing once she realized she didn’t find anything up in the woods after all, she just tried to figure out a way to save face. She hates to be wrong.”

That Wyatt could believe. “What about this dump story?”

“There are plenty of old dumps around here.”

He wouldn’t counter his daughter, not to a Sinclair. Wyatt acknowledged his statement with a curt nod. “It’s hard to believe she can’t find her way back to whatever it is she found.”

Lyman shrugged. “Maybe she’s just embarrassed.”

“Excuse me, but your daughter doesn’t strike me as a woman who embarrasses easily.”

“That’s the God’s truth.” He almost managed a smile. “Here’s the deal. I don’t want any trouble. Penelope’s a good kid. Her mind hasn’t been on her work lately, but that’s got nothing to do with you Sinclairs.”

“What does it have to do with?”

Lyman inhaled, shaking his head. “Damned if I know. Boredom, I think. She needs—well, hell, I’ll just get myself into trouble if I start talking about what she needs. It’s getting around town, you being here. You know, I searched for your uncle’s plane myself. I walked up and down these hills for weeks, never saw a thing, not one sign a plane had gone down. We all did everything we could, but…” He broke off, shook his head. “What’s done is done.”

Wyatt finished Lyman’s thought for him. “But my family wasn’t satisfied. My grandfather didn’t think you’d done enough. The people of Cold Spring, I mean, not you individually.”

Lyman leveled his frank gaze on Wyatt and nodded. “I guess that’s right. I heard he died—your grandfather. He and my father used to go hunting and fishing together. Well, I guess old Willard thought of my father as a guide. But that’s not how my father saw it.”

He stopped, looking faintly embarrassed, as if he hadn’t strung that many sentences together at one time in years. Wyatt couldn’t tell if this little visit was a shot across the bow, a fishing expedition or just a father not knowing what to do about a daughter he feared was in over her head.

“By the way,” Lyman went on, “this Jack Dunning character’s decided to park his plane here. Mary’s renting him a car.” He paused, his gaze settling on Wyatt. “You’ll go easy on my daughter?”

Wyatt grinned. “I left my thumbscrews in New York.”

He chose not to mention the crazy cousin who thought she was a Sinclair or to stick around for Jack’s arrival. Instead he drove to town, hitting every damned frost heave and pothole in the road, mostly because he kept thinking about Penelope unzipping that flight suit in the heat of the Sunrise Inn. He hadn’t expected any attraction to her. But there it was, impossible to ignore.

Harriet Chestnut, still flustered, put him in something called the Morning Glory Room. She gave him his key—a real, old-fashioned key, not one of those card things—and told him his room rate included a continental breakfast. Nothing about her reminded him of either Colt or Frannie. Coloring, build, features. It wasn’t that it was impossible she was their daughter, just not readily apparent. He thanked her and headed upstairs.

Morning glories, indeed. They were on the wallpaper, a needlepoint pillow and a print above his four-poster bed. It was all tasteful, pretty, elegant, just the sort of room a husband tolerated on a weekend getaway with his wife. A side window looked out on snow-covered gardens, a front window on the lake. In addition to the bed, there was a marble-topped bureau, a writing desk and an antique washstand that served as a night table. Wyatt figured he’d gotten off easy, because he’d passed a rose room on his way down the hall.

He dumped his bag on the floor and tried not to think about what in hell he was doing, or why. He’d never known his uncle. His father hadn’t asked him to come here. Now he’d rented a room at a charming country inn for three nights.

But he knew he wasn’t staying because of Colt or Frannie—he was staying because of Penelope Chestnut. She intrigued him, and he had an odd, possibly unreasonable sense that she was in trouble, perhaps more than she knew. It was the sort of sixth sense he’d come to rely on before his ignominious return to New York and a desk on Wall Street. He could be dead, flat wrong, just as he had been when he and Hal Strong had embarked upon their most exciting and ultimately final adventure, no sixth sense telling him they never should have left Melbourne, that danger and death awaited them in the mountains of southwestern Tasmania.

“So, you could be full of shit,” he said aloud, breaking the spell.

He could. Penelope Chestnut’s only trouble might be him.

The energy required to weave her tale about the turn-of-the-century dump and the snow obliterating her tracks had probably led her to miss her fuel check in her preflight. She was distracted. The truth was seldom simple but at least it was easier to remember.

He wandered into the bathroom, where the morning glory theme continued. Thick, soft white towels and a big, gleaming tub beckoned. He settled for splashing cold water on his face. He noticed little blue soaps and bottles of locally made lotions. When he traveled, he was used to pitching a tent.

The phone rang. Grateful for the distraction, he returned to the bedroom and picked up.

“You’re in Cold Spring,” his father said. “Why?”

The abrupt tone didn’t offend Wyatt. His father prided himself on his self-control and would bury any strong negative emotion under an abrupt, even cold manner. “Jack must have arrived. Obviously he’s reported back to you.”

“I like to know where my son is.”

“Well, you’ve found me.”

His father inhaled sharply. He wouldn’t yell at his son the way Lyman Chestnut had at his daughter. Open confrontation wasn’t the Sinclair way. “How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know.” He decided, at that moment, not to tell his father about his dealings with Penelope Chestnut and his sense she was in over her head. “Father, Colt was your brother—”

“Yes, he was. I knew him, Wyatt. He was a person to me, not an adventure. This woman has withdrawn her story. Let Jack figure out why. He’ll tie up loose ends and make sure her story checks. That’s his job.” Not yours, was the unspoken rest of the sentence.

No more details were forthcoming for the meddling son. Wyatt said hello to his stepmother, and to Ellen and Beatrix, who begged him to fly down for the weekend and take them snorkeling. They were on school holiday, and he promised to see them when they got back to New York—he’d do whatever they wanted. The rascals were his soft spot, and they knew it.

When he hung up, he stood in front of the window and looked across the lake toward the mountains. It was dusk, quiet, still. His father and uncle had roamed this area as boys with their father, the imposing, exacting Willard Sinclair, who’d died when Wyatt was fourteen. They’d gone swimming, fishing, mountain climbing, camping. He knew from his father that, despite their age difference, the brothers had been close, relishing their time together.

After Colt ran off with Frannie Beaudine, Willard Sinclair refused to let his younger son return to the New Hampshire lakes region. Willard became increasingly difficult in his grief, his surviving son never able to make up for the loss of his firstborn, never able to be the bright spark in his father’s life that Colt had been.

Wyatt had sensed all this, pieced it together over the years through observation, overheard fights between his father and one wife or another, his own conversations with his dying grandfather. Always, always he came away with the unshakable conviction that his father and perhaps his grandfather were holding back on him—not just feelings, not just their private grief, but information, possibly even vital information.

As Penelope had said, forty-five years meant nothing. Colt was still real to his younger brother. The loss, the questions, the scandal still resonated in Brandon Sinclair’s life and the lives of his family. This wasn’t some damned lark. This was real.

She had to understand the consequences of her lie. If she’d found Colt and Frannie’s Piper Cub in the woods on Sunday, she had to admit it and take Wyatt there.

No, he thought. Penelope Chestnut’s pretty eyes and whatever trouble she might be in weren’t what he was doing in New Hampshire, weren’t why he was staying. A missing brother, a lost son, an uncle never known—that was what he was doing here, why he was staying. He couldn’t let himself be distracted from what was a clear, uncomplicated mission.

But while he unpacked his bag, Wyatt wondered where Cold Spring’s green-eyed, hot-headed pilot lived, and when he finished, he headed downstairs to see if he could get directions out of her cousin.



Penelope was relieved to be home, a fire crackling in her wood stove, a robin investigating her deck. She’d changed into a soft fleece shirt and drawstring pants and sat at her kitchen table, watching the robin through her sliding-glass doors. The snow had melted off her deck, another sign spring was on its way.

She’d inherited her grandfather’s winterized, lakeside cabin when he’d died three years ago. It was on a narrow dirt road well-removed from the village, and her lake frontage was the bare minimum. The cabin sat atop a steep bank with stairs down to the water, a dock and the little shed where she kept her canoe and kayak. But she also inherited ten acres on the other side of the road. Her woods eventually bled into Sinclair woods, which was how she came to be hunting maples suitable for tapping there in the first place.

The cabin still had a seasonal feel to it. It consisted of a living room and kitchen across the front, overlooking the lake, and two small rooms and a bath across the back. She’d kept her grandfather’s mismatched dishes, his red-and-white checked vinyl tablecloth, his moose head on the wall above the fireplace. His ugly lamps and the vinyl recliner had had to go.

No one had expected her to move here. She’d had a nice apartment in town where she could walk to the Sunrise Inn and have tea and scones with her mother and cousin every afternoon. The idea, of course, was for her to get married before she moved into a real place of her own—at least, that was the idea of most of the women she knew. The men didn’t seem surprised at all by her choice of a home. They showed up to use her dock, invited her hunting and fishing, tossed trout on her grill, shared their six-packs with her on her deck. One of the guys. It wasn’t that she looked like a guy. She wore dresses and makeup and did her hair. She polished her nails.

“They don’t think of you as one of the guys,” Harriet had told her. “They think of you more as a surrogate sister.”

And you didn’t date your sister.

Not that Penelope wanted to date any of them. She shuddered. They were her friends. She couldn’t envision sleeping with them any more than they could her.

Her social life had taken a sharp downward turn in recent months. For a while there’d been a man in Bangor she’d see whenever she flew in that direction. Another pilot. Then she realized he never made the effort to get to New Hampshire to see her, and if she knew anything about herself it was that she didn’t want a one-way relationship. So, exit the pilot. Enter no one to replace him.

Well, she wasn’t pitiful. She had her place on the lake, her flying, her friends, her family. If this was it, this was it. She liked to fantasize about tearing down her grandfather’s cabin and building her own place, with lots of wood and glass. She’d hire an architect to design a house especially for this piece of land.

But that all seemed a long way off. Right now, she was grounded, and she had a Sinclair out to prove she’d lied about Colt and Frannie’s plane.

Which, of course, she had.

She shrugged off a sudden wave of uneasiness. She could almost feel the smooth leather of Wyatt Sinclair’s jacket as he’d sat next to her in her truck. She’d never touched him, but she might as well have.

This was just the sort of effect Colt must have had on Frannie Beaudine. And look where that weakness had led her. Right into the side of a hill.

At least Wyatt wouldn’t be on the loose in Cold Spring, not if he was staying at the Sunrise Inn. Her cousin had been madly curious about Sinclairs for as long as Penelope could remember. The two of them had even wandered through the Sinclair Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a trip to New York. Harriet would keep a close eye on the first Sinclair to step foot in Cold Spring in her lifetime.

Penelope went into the second bedroom, which she’d converted to a study, and turned on her computer. While it booted up, she stared at the framed front page of the Cold Spring Reporter from the first day of the search for Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine. On her bookcase, she had scrapbooks of articles and cassettes of recordings she’d done of interviews with locals who remembered the crash and the ensuing search. She hadn’t developed such a hobby just because Colt and Frannie were pilots, because they’d disappeared in one of her favorite planes or because her father and grandfather and Aunt Mary had participated in the search. She’d come to it because of Harriet, because of the years she’d listened to her cousin fantasize—at first tentatively, then with more certainty—about being the daughter of the handsome, adventurous couple.

Wasn’t her cousin entitled to her fantasy? It was harmless enough. But Penelope pushed such thoughts aside and got on the Internet, going straight to one of the sites devoted to the missing Piper Cub. There was an amazing amount of information, gossip, speculation and junk about Frannie and Colt on the Internet, most of which was useless. Theories about their disappearance ranged from elopement to kidnapping by aliens with a thousand scenarios in between. They were alive and living in Canada, they were Communist spies, they were thieves, it was a suicide pact, it was murder-suicide. Colt was the foppish un-Sinclair, the impressionable college grad, the innocent. Then he was the quintessential Sinclair, the rake, the daredevil, the instigator. Frannie was the beautiful innocent, the bookish refugee from the wilds of New Hampshire, the vixen, the gold digger. Every possible theory from the nutty to the sublime was there.

News of Penelope’s false alarm had reached the enthusiasts. Debate was raging about why she’d changed her story. Had she been forced? Had she found something in the wreckage she wanted for herself? There were, of course, conspiracy theorists. But most believed she’d simply made a mistake, even if her turn-of-the-century dump was an awkward cover for that mistake. They didn’t want to give up their Frannie-Colt fantasies any more than Harriet would want to give up hers. Not every mystery begged for unraveling.

How had she ever thought finding their plane would help her cousin? Seeing her flush and stutter over Wyatt Sinclair this afternoon was unsettling, and now Penelope wished she’d never started down this path. She should have kept her big mouth shut about what she’d found in the woods.

But, as her grandfather would remind her, there was no point crying over spilled milk.

She decided she’d have supper by the fire and read until she fell asleep. The aftereffects of her mishap in the sky and tea with Wyatt Sinclair were taking their toll. She couldn’t think straight.

An instant message flashed on her screen. She jumped, startled, then was pleased for the diversion. She had plenty of friends in faraway places.

Frannie Beaudine was a sweet young thing not unlike you. Yet her bones lie bleached by the elements, her flesh no more, her body and spirit dead and gone. Do you want to share her fate? Behave yourself, Penelope. You know what you’ve done wrong.

She stared at the screen, paralyzed. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t blink. The words blurred, and her eyes stung until tears formed. Finally she hit the key to reply. But the person on the other end was no longer available. She jotted down the user ID. It would be useless, she knew—who would send such a message if it could be easily traced?

She typed a reply, deleted it. Maybe she should pretend she hadn’t received the message, hadn’t read it. Just ignore the thing. Don’t do anything to stir the pot.

Her hands shook, and suddenly her whole body was shaking. She gulped for air, felt the bile stinging her throat.

“Well, Aunt Mary,” she said, “you should have your front row seat.” Because she was scared. There was no other word for it.

She returned to the great room, where the warm fire of the wood stove helped to calm her. She could call the police. Andy McNally would roar out here. But what could he do?

It was a kook, she told herself. The Internet was full of kooks. No one took instant messages seriously. She’d once had one asking her if she liked to skinny-dip in Lake Winnipesaukee. The whole world knew she’d claimed she’d found Colt and Frannie’s plane. She should have anticipated such harassment. Andy McNally would tell her as much.

Her stomach ached, and she had to fight dizziness, a pulsing pain behind her eyes. She was Penelope the Fearless, the woman who could live on the lake in her grandfather’s cabin, who loved adventures and thrills and action and scoffed at things that went bump in the night.

Yet as the sky slowly went black and the fire crackled in the stove and she couldn’t even hear the caw of a crow, she couldn’t shake her fear. The reporters, Wyatt Sinclair, a Sinclair investigator, her mishap in the air, her own lie—and now a creepy message on the Internet. It was all too much.

She made herself go out to her woodpile and bring in wood, five trips, five full armloads, until her wood box was overflowing, because she had no intention of letting the fear get to her. She hadn’t this afternoon when she’d realized she was low on fuel. She wouldn’t now.

She dumped the last load into the box. A log rolled off and narrowly missed her toe. She jumped back, out of breath from exertion and too much adrenaline pumping through her system. There were more logs on the floor—five at least. She’d tossed in one load after another, not concerned about neatness, only about the need to force herself to keep moving.

Hearing a car negotiating the pits and ruts of her spring-ravaged dirt road, she prayed it would continue past her cabin.

It didn’t.

She groaned. “Now what?”

Picking sawdust off her fleece shirt, Penelope went to the side door off the kitchen. Maybe it would be her father, telling her he’d changed his mind and she wasn’t grounded, after all.

But there on her doorstep, as if he’d known his timing couldn’t be any worse, was Wyatt Sinclair.




Five


He wasn’t wearing his leather jacket, as if he expected to go straight from warm car to warm house. Penelope could feel him taking in the bits of sawdust and wood on her shirt, her difficulty in getting a decent breath. “Your road’s nothing but mud,” he said. “I sank up to my hubcaps.”

“It’ll freeze overnight. Of course, it’ll be all mud again by noon.”

“What happens if you have to get out of here in a hurry?”

“I use my four-wheel drive.”

Wyatt paused, studying her. She wondered if she was pale, if she had a wild look in her eyes. He said, “May I come in?”

Just what she needed. “Sure. I’m a little out of breath from filling my wood box.”

He glanced past her into her front room. “Looks as if it’s plenty full.”

She raked a hand through her hair, ignoring the snarls, the bark chips. “I kind of just dropped the last two loads. I’m more tired than I thought.” Changing the subject was her only hope. “Have you eaten yet? I was just about to heat up some chili.”

Wyatt didn’t move. “Penelope, are you all right?”

“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be? Here, come inside before we let the cold air in.”

He came in without comment, and she shut the door behind him. The quiet thud made her heart skip. What if he’d sent her that instant message and now he’d come to see the results of his handiwork? Except he seemed more direct, more the type to tell her straight to her face that she’d lied.

You know what you’ve done wrong.

She didn’t know! Was it telling about the plane in the first place? Or changing her story? What was so wrong about trying to keep the spotlight off an old hermit and her crazy cousin? They were alive. Colt and Frannie weren’t.

But Colt’s family was, she reminded herself. She shook off the thought. The message was from a nut, someone intent on upsetting her after she’d dashed expectations of ending the mystery of what happened to Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine. Well, mission accomplished. She was upset.

“I’ll fix your wood box,” Wyatt said, his gaze on her, narrowed, wary. “You can heat the chili.”

“Don’t feel obligated to stay.”

He smiled. “Already regretting your invitation?”

She didn’t know if his steadiness was a tactic to throw her off guard or if he was simply trying to be nice. Either way, she found his presence reassuring. Suddenly she could feel the warmth of the fire, and her breathing was less shallow. Wyatt got to work arranging the overflow logs still in the wood box. Penelope caught herself watching him, then quickly pulled open the refrigerator for the quart of chili her mother had given her yesterday. She scooped it into a bowl and heated it in the microwave while Wyatt continued his work.

“Did Harriet give you directions?” Penelope asked.

“Don’t skewer her, but, yes, she did.”

Her cousin would never give such directions to a guest she didn’t know, but if most people in Cold Spring demonized the Sinclairs, Harriet romanticized them. Penelope couldn’t blame her for telling Wyatt where she lived. She chopped onion and grated cheese, got out bowls and spoons, and when the microwave dinged, she put everything out on the table.

Wyatt had the wood box straightened, the extra logs neatly stacked in front of it. He joined her at the table. The hissing and crackling of the fire, the sudden darkness outside, the scratch of her chair on the floor all made her aware of how isolated she was, how far from any help if Wyatt Sinclair was a nastier son of a bitch than she thought he was. She was on her own with him.

“Was there something I could do for you?” she asked, keeping her tone formal and distant.

A darkness came into his eyes that hadn’t been there before, and she took a quick breath, realizing the multiple ways he could interpret her question. But he, too, maintained an outward level of formality. “I’d like you to tell me about your cousin and why she thinks she’s Colt and Frannie’s daughter. It’s not something she made up out of thin air, is it?”

Penelope shook her head. She sprinkled cheese on her steaming chili. She would have to tell him something. If she didn’t, he’d find another source, perhaps not one as devoted to Harriet as she was. “Not out of thin air. Out of a coincidence.”

“Tell me,” he said softly, not making it an order.

“My great-uncle and great-aunt adopted Harriet around the time Colt and Frannie disappeared. Uncle George was a minister here in town forever. He’s my grandfather’s younger brother—he’s almost eighty now. He and Aunt Rachel have retired to Florida.”

“Aren’t there adoption records, some way to disabuse your cousin of this notion?”

“It’s not that simple.” She tried the chili, which was spicy and packed with vegetables. Her mother did like her hot peppers. “Look, this is none of my business or yours. Harriet didn’t ask for any trouble.”

“I’ll be discreet.”

A Sinclair discreet. Penelope almost smiled. “What about your father’s investigator? Are you going to tell him?”

“Jack doesn’t report to me, I don’t report to him.”

“I suppose you’ll find out anyway. Everyone in town knows the story.” She paused, added chopped onion to her chili, saw that none of what she’d said so far had affected Wyatt’s appetite. She forced herself to think, examine her options. They weren’t good. “Okay. Uncle George found Harriet on the church doorstep about forty-eight hours into the search for Colt and Frannie’s plane. The doctors figure she was between six and eight weeks old. She was wearing a diaper and a sleeper, and she was wrapped in a blanket. She’d been placed in an apple basket.”

Wyatt straightened. “Good Lord.”

“I know. It’s right out of a Dickens novel.”

“There must have been an investigation—”

“A thorough one. The authorities didn’t find a thing, not a single clue as to who her biological parents were, who’d left her there. My aunt and uncle stepped in and adopted her. They were thrilled—they have an older son, but Aunt Rachel couldn’t have any more children after him.”

“They treated Harriet well?”

“They’re a wonderful family. They love her, and she loves them. That didn’t stop her, though, from creating this kooky fantasy.”

“I don’t know,” Wyatt said, “maybe it’s not so kooky.”

“It’s much more likely someone took advantage of the hoopla over the missing plane. Chances are she’s the result of some incestuous or otherwise illicit relationship. But it’s a lot more fun to be Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine’s long-lost daughter.”

“The timing—”

“There’s a narrow window of opportunity. Say Harriet was six weeks old. The Piper Cub disappeared in mid-April. That would mean Frannie would have given birth around the first of March. Right?”




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