Still Lake by Anne Stuart

hour ago.”
    â€œDon’t you think it might have been a good idea to call me and tell me where she was before I got completely frantic?”
    â€œConsidering that I don’t know your phone number, my telephone isn’t hooked up, and my goddamned cell phone doesn’t work at the back end of beyond, I couldn’t very well call you, though I think it would have been an excellent idea. That way you could have come and gotten her instead of me having to traipse out in the middle of the night.”
    Grace seemed to have mysteriously regained her strength, and she abandoned him, scampering up onto the porch with all the energy of her teenage stepdaughter. “I’m going to bed now, Sophie,” she said. “Don’t let me sleep too late—I’ve got things to do.”
    â€œWhat things?”
    â€œOh, many, many interesting things,” she said. “And he didn’t kill anyone. He told me so.”
    â€œWho did?” Sophie said sharply, but Grace had already wandered back into the house, humming happily.
    â€œMe. She asked me if I was a murderer and I toldher no.” He should leave, go back to bed, but for some reason he wanted to stand in the moonlight and look at Sophie in her ridiculous nightgown. Just for a moment.
    And for some reason Sophie didn’t disappear into the house, chasing after her errant mother. She was looking at him warily, as if she’d accidentally come across a wild bear, but she didn’t back down. “I’m afraid that’s a remnant of when she was still…” She glossed over the word. “She loves to read true-crime books. I thought she’d stopped, but when I checked on her this evening she was reading one of her old ones. She probably can’t tell the difference between reality and what’s in the books.”
    â€œNot the kind of fantasy world I’d choose,” he said. What the hell was he doing, standing there in the moonlight, talking to her? He had better things to do—Sophie Davis couldn’t help him with his search for the truth. She hadn’t even known of Colby, Vermont, twenty years ago. He needed to make his excuses, get the hell away from her. From inexplicable temptation.
    â€œNo, I like mine better.”
    It was enough to stop his excuses. “Your fantasy world?”
    She gestured toward the moonlit house. “Victorian values. Edwardian simplicity. Flower arranging and antique lace and wonderful food and everything just as it should be. I’m no fool, Mr. Smith. I knowperfectly well I create my reality to suit myself, and it has nothing to do with the way most people live. I just happen to prefer it.”
    â€œPrefer living in a dream world?”
    â€œDreams are usually much better than the real world.”
    The wind had come up, blowing the long, lacy nightgown against her body. A good body, nicely rounded, just a bit plump, he couldn’t help but notice. An old-fashioned woman with hair that drifted away from her face in the soft breeze.
    Not his type, he reminded himself. But for a brief, irresistible moment he wished she was. Wished he was the kind of man who could embrace this kind of life, instead of always living in the darkness. Wished he could simply climb up the steps to the wide front porch and pick her up in his arms, carry her to some fluffy, old-fashioned bed and strip that ridiculous nightgown from her lush body.
    He wasn’t about to do any such thing, and he dismissed the brief fantasy automatically. “Dreams turn into nightmares,” he said. “And they can’t be shared.”
    â€œYou look like you know more about having nightmares than sharing them,” she said.
    It was an odd conversation to be having with her, but she seemed unaware of it. A light in the house turned off, and he assumed Grace had finally gone back to bed. The bright half moon bathed the sloping lawn in silvery light. What would she do if he came