The Mountain's Shadow Read Online Free PDF

like he worked toward some sinister purpose.
    “Regardless, you're the designated heir. I have a mystery to solve, so I need to ponder my strategy,” mused Lonna. Her eyes focused on a spot on the wall, and I knew she was drawing up a list in her mind. It was the same look she’d gotten on numerous previous occasions—some innocent planning, some diabolical plotting.
    “You can stay here as long as you like,” I told her again. “Goodness knows I don’t need all this room.”
    “And you probably need the company. I don’t know that you’re safe here.”
    “Thanks.” But I felt the same way.
    “The locals probably wouldn’t be very forthcoming with me,” she continued, “so how about you talk to them? If nothing else, they may remember the ‘old man’s little granddaughter’. You’re sort of a local.”
    “If spending six weeks for five summers makes you a local.”
    “It’s more credibility than I’ve got.”
    “True. Who will you talk to?”
    The corners of her lips turned up in a cat’s smile. “I’ll keep in touch with the charming Sheriff Bud Knowles, of course. And the new families who’ve moved in.”
    “Including the Bowmans.”
    “Right.” Her grin widened. “Including the Bowmans.”
     
     
    The after-work rush at the diner was more of a small swelling of the crowd that had been there earlier, but this time they all looked like locals. Judging from the hard hats and dirty, tanned shoulders huddled at the booths, many of the men were construction workers. I cringed internally when I realized their likely employment was building the houses that had displaced their families. When I came through the door, I thought I heard a lull in the conversation, but it picked up again quickly. Maybe Lonna was right—being half a local was better than being an outsider.
    “Have you been here all day?” I asked Louise as I slid onto a stool at the counter.
    She poured me a cup of coffee without my asking for it. “I took off for the lunch shift and came back to help Terry with dinner. Laurel, the evening girl, is sick. Difficult pregnancy.”
    I nodded, not sure what to say.
    “You all settled in?” she asked, as though inheriting my grandfather’s mansion and fortune was the most natural thing in the world.
    “No, Lonna and I weren’t brave enough to go upstairs yet. The place looks like no one’s been in it for months. Except for the kitchen.”
    “Now that’s a fact. Gorgeous, isn’t it? That city lawyer of your granddad’s had me bring some stuff up there. Oh, that reminds me.” She pulled a key out of her pocket and set it down. “I should’a given this to you earlier. I held on to it for your granddad when I’d do some cleaning for him.”
    “Thanks. I was wondering who had been helping him keep the house.”
    She grinned and showed the gap between her front teeth. “You know men. They need all the help they can get.”
    “That’s the truth.” I slid the spare key into my jeans pocket.
    “So did he tell you about why he redid the kitchen?”
    “No, I haven’t talked to him. In years, actually.” This wasn’t exactly Lonna’s investigation, but it would help mine. “I was really pleasantly surprised.”
    “Well, about six months ago…” She broke off as a customer waved her over. “One minute, sweetie.”
    I watched her as she walked down the length of the counter to where Peter Bowman had just settled in. He glanced at me, so I looked down into my coffee cup for a second. When I looked back up, Louise was nodding at him as if he’d just asked her a question.
    “You’ll notice the local guys are a bit more polite than those city types,” she told me when she returned. “They’re all about to faint from curiosity about you, but it’s Peter Bowman who had the cheek to ask.” She wiped at an invisible spot on the counter with a red checkered rag.
    “So you were saying something about my grandfather’s kitchen,” I reminded her.
    “Your kitchen, if I