“Six whole restaurants! Whoa, move over, New York City. What a riot of nightlife you’ve got here,” Grace muttered. She swiped past a coffee shop, pizzeria, Chinese restaurant, Mexican place, and sushi bar. The River House was the only restaurant that looked like it would offer her something she could pass off as home-cooked. Grace kept one eye on the sparsely populated road and the other on her phone. She tapped the button that offered to call the restaurant and soon heard a man’s warm, cheerful voice crackle through the car’s hands-free system.
“The River House, how may I help you?”
“Um. Yes. I wanted to pick up an order, please.”
“All right, we can help you with that. What would you like?”
Oh. I suppose I should have looked at the menu, huh?“What are the specials?”
“Tonight we have a baked manicotti, a grilled red snapper, ricotta-stuffed portobello caps over pasta in a pesto cream sauce, or a roasted rosemary half-chicken.”
Don’t have a food-gasm on the phone with the nice stranger.Grace realized the pathetic fast food nuggets she’d grabbed between appointments had done little to fill her up. The list of “real” food made her mouth flood. “Um. Wow. That all sounds so good! I don’t know what to pick.”
“You’re new in town, huh?” the voice chuckled.
“How can you tell?”
“Regulars usually know exactly what they want, and they make sure to tell me all their customizations. You can order from the menu, too. We’ve got salads, burgers, steaks...”
“I want the manicotti.”
“Okay. Side salad and garlic bread?”
“God, yes.”
Another warm burst of laughter. “Dessert?”
“Mm. Do you have pie?” Grace asked wistfully.
“Pecan, peanut butter silk, cheesecake, or cherry.”
“Cherry.”But I want them all.
No. Don’t blow your money on pastry, girl. Get your rear in gear and get to the grocery store.“That’ll be all.”
“All right. That’ll be twenty-seven dollars and ready in about twenty minutes. A name for the order?”
“It’s Grace. Thank you.”
“Grace. Good, see you soon.”
Grace switched back to her GPS. The restaurant was only five minutes away. Fifteen minutes to kill, and a mental engine that refused to shut off... “I guess I could cruise around the town.See what attractions I could recommend to the townie types of guests—when I finally have beds to put them in.”
As Grace drove slowly through the heart of town (which was only a few blocks of intersecting streets and their offshoots), she noticed dozens of charming little stores and several vacant spots. She knew the layout of the main streets and roads enough to find the grocery store and knew where the college campus of Pine Ridge NYU was.
She didn’t know there was a beautiful, festive street fair in a big, empty lot between two of the store-lined streets. “Ooh. What’s this? What events go on in May? I really do need to look at the Chamber of Commerce website for this place. Fall leaves, pretty mountain scenery, and Victorian architecture are nice, but that’s probably not enough...”
Grace parked her SUV carefully in the back of The Pine Loft Coffee Shop. It seemed to be closed, and she figured that made sense as it was already getting dark. In the periwinkle and purple-streaked sky, twinkling lights were strung from pole to lamp post across the crowded lot. Stalls selling everything from jewelry to fudge and apple cider were in neat rows. People milled and waved to one another, calling from one end of the lot to the other as they spotted their friends.
This—whatever this is—is bed-and-breakfast gold. And— Four matching antique dining room chairs?“Oh!” Grace almost ran into a ridiculously tall man in a hooded sweatshirt that hid his face as she tore towards a stall adorned with pink signage and four-leaf clovers. The white, flowing letters proclaimed “Chloe’s Curiosities—Yesterday’s Treasures and Secondhand Pleasures.”
“Excuse me! Excuse me, hi.” Grace shoved and wriggled through the crowd to get to Chloe’s Curiosities.
The woman who turned to face her had skin so pale that it was almost green, and white-blonde hair that billowed out behind her as she turned.
For a second, Grace forgot about the dining room chairs lined up in front of a stack of used dishes, books, and old picture frames. A prickling, uneasy feeling settled over her and landed in her chest, sinking in and reminding her of the foreboding feeling she had at Hilltop—only worse.
Something was off.
