Read After Caroline for Free Online

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    “You resemble someone who used to live around here,” he said readily enough.
    “So I’ve been told. Holly Drummond said that the woman I look like … died.”
    “Yes. Three months ago.” Whatever he may have felt about that fact, Griffin Cavanaugh kept it to himself; his expression was calm, his voice without emotion.
    “Forgive me, but what was her name? And how did she die?” Joanna didn’t know why she was pretending ignorance about Caroline, except that she was reluctant to let anyone in Cliffside know that she had traveled thousandsof miles to explore a tenuous connection with a dead woman.
    “Why do you want to know?” he demanded bluntly.
    “It seems I look enough like her to be her sister.” Joanna managed a shrug. “I’m curious.”
    “Her name was Caroline McKenna. She was killed in a car accident. The highway was slippery; she was driving too fast and lost control of her car. Anything else you want to know?”
    Joanna didn’t let his rather harsh tone dissuade her. “Do I really look so much like her?”
    He looked her up and down quite deliberately and thoroughly, then said, “Dye your hair black and change the color of your eyes and her own mother wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.”
    She didn’t know if it was pain or anger she heard in his voice, but whichever it was warned her that she had gone far enough. “I see. Thank you, Sheriff—for the warning and for the information.”
    “Don’t mention it.” He looked beyond her, where the sun was sinking rapidly. “It’ll be dark soon. It happens suddenly this time of year. You should head back to the hotel.”
    Joanna knew a dismissal when she heard one, and she decided to obey. She was here for at least two weeks, after all; there was plenty of time to explore. But before she could do more than begin to turn toward the hotel, he stopped her with a question of his own.
    “Why are you here, Miss Flynn?”
    “Vacation.”
    “In October?”
    “I like fall vacations.”
    He frowned at her. “You’re Southern.”
    “Don’t you like Southerners?” she managed lightly.
    The sheriff ignored that. “Georgia, I’d say.”
    Without meaning to, Joanna answered the implied question. “Yes, Georgia. Atlanta, as a matter of fact. But wehaven’t tried to secede from the Union recently, so I don’t see that you should have a problem with my being here.”
    His hard mouth curved in a faint smile at that, but the amusement was short-lived. “You’ve come a long way just to spend your vacation in a place with nothing to recommend it but the scenery.”
    “That is surely my own business, Sheriff. But if you must know, I plan to vacation in every state eventually. It’s the best way I can think of to see the country. Oregon just happened to be my first choice in visiting the West Coast.”
    “And Cliffside?”
    Joanna couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. She shrugged. “The Chamber of Commerce made it sound like a nice place, and all I wanted was a pretty coastal spot where I could relax. Good enough?”
    “For now,” he said. “Good day, Miss Flynn.”
    “Sheriff.” She turned and headed toward the hotel, making a determined effort to move casually. At first, she was tempted to chalk the sheriff’s interest up to smalltown caution, but that reasoning didn’t hold water when tourism was so vital to the local economy. A more likely possibility was that he found the sudden appearance of a woman who looked eerily like Caroline McKenna to be far more than coincidental.
    It occurred to Joanna only then that there would no doubt be many people in Cliffside who would feel the same suspicion.
    She reached the neatly trimmed lawn of The Inn and paused to look back. The sheriff was still standing there where she had left him, but he wasn’t looking after her. He was instead gazing off toward that lonely house in the distance.

    For the first time in weeks, Joanna slept all night