Kiss the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.