“Why?” Annie asked again, hardly seeing the road as she drove back to Grey Gables. “What are you hiding from? And what am I supposed to do next?”
As soon as she got home, she saw the light on her answering machine flashing. Absently, she pushed the button. “Hey, Annie, it’s Alice. You won’t believe who I saw in the Gas N Go a little while ago. Archer Prescott! I’m sure it was him. Call me.”
Annie froze where she stood, her car keys still clutched in her hand. Archer Prescott was in Stony Point. Why would a man like Prescott come here?
Annie knew why. It wasn’t a what that Susan was hiding from. It was a who.
She shook her head. If Susan didn’t want to marry him, why hadn’t she just left? Why the elaborate deception?
It didn’t matter. Whatever her reasons, she wanted everyone, including Prescott, to think she was dead, and Annie had led him right to her. At the very least, she could let Susan know he was in town.
She got into her car and hurried back out to the old Morris house. It wasn’t likely that Susan would appreciate what she had done, stirring up the past, bringing her back to whatever had made her want to disappear, but Annie couldn’t let that stop her now. She had to talk to Susan, and she had to talk to her right away. If she was wrong about Prescott, then she was wrong. The worst that could happen is that Susan would order her off her property and tell her to never come back. But if Prescott was the one Susan was hiding from, the one she had been hiding from for almost twenty years …
Annie racked her brain as she walked up to the door, the question still haunting her. Why? Why had Susan wanted to disappear? And why would Prescott still want to find her?
Almost as soon as she knocked, the front door swung open. Susan stared at her, saying nothing, and her face was pale and blank. Had she been crying?
“I’m sorry to keep dropping in on you.” Annie moved closer to the door, hoping she could have a few minutes with Susan before Prescott showed up. “I have something I need to tell you, and it can’t wait. I hope I haven’t ruined everything, but—”
“You’d better come in.”
Susan stepped back into the house, and Annie crossed the threshold.
“Look, I know—”
The door clicked shut behind her, and she turned, startled to see a man standing there.
“I wasn’t expecting to meet you here, Annie.”
He was tall, and even in his 50s, lithe and powerfully built. His blond hair was salted with gray, especially at the temples, and his hands—
His hands were large, neatly groomed and manicured, the fingers circled with gold and jewels that spoke of wealth and status. Despite the smile on the man’s face, those hands were somehow menacing. Perhaps it was their size and strength that frightened her. Perhaps it was that they held a wooden baseball bat.
“You’re Archer Prescott.”
She knew his voice from their telephone conversations. Even without that, she knew it was Prescott. She knew now what she had done.
She turned to Susan. “Sandy, I—”
“Uh, uh, uh.” Prescott’s smile grew slightly broader. “We ought to be honest with each other now, shouldn’t we, Annie? You’ve already let the cat out of the bag anyway. I’d say it’s time for some straight talk, isn’t it, Susan?”
“Please.” Susan cringed away from him, her voice hardly more than a whimper. “Please, please.”
Annie went to her, sheltering her in her arms. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know—”
Prescott gestured with the bat. “I think the two of you ought to sit down on the couch in there where I can keep an eye on you. Susan and I were about to have a nice little chat.”
He grinned again, and the determined coolness in his china-blue eyes made Annie cling closer to her terrified friend.
Again, he gestured. “Go on, now. Before I see to things here, I have some questions I want answered. Things I’ve wondered about for a good number of years now. Things only my darling Susan can tell me.”
Pulling Annie with her, Susan stumbled toward the little sitting room where the two of them had talked on Annie’s first visit. The room was still warm and bright, and a welcoming fire crackled in the hearth, but Annie couldn’t help feeling cold. Susan was trembling against her.
Prescott sneered at them both.
“That’s some friend you have there, Susan. She was so eager to meddle in your business, she told me all about her research and meeting your ‘Cousin Sandy.’ ”
Susan glanced at Annie and then dropped her eyes. There was bewildered hurt in those eyes, and beyond that, hopeless fear.