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into the old inn to look around while everyone slept. He was going to have to get over that, and fast, if he was going to accomplish what he needed to do.
    He opened the casement windows in the bedroom under the eaves. No screens, of course, but it was long after blackfly season, and with luck the mosquitoes wouldn’t be too bad. If worse came to worst he could go down to Audley’s and get some screening to tack up. But he’d lived through worse than a few mosquito bites—besides, insects tended to have the sense to leave him alone. He just wished he could say the same for people.
    There was no coffeepot in the ramshackle kitchen. He found a stovetop percolator, but half the innards were missing. He should have just bought a jar of instant coffee, but he never considered the powderedstuff to be worth drinking. Right now he was ready to change his mind.
    He knew where he could find coffee, of course. And probably more blueberry muffins like the ones his visitor had brought over last night. It would give him the perfect excuse to get his foot in the door. Surely a neighbor would be willing to share a cup of coffee with a desperate man? Maybe he should apologize for being so unfriendly yesterday, try to worm himself into her good graces. It wouldn’t hurt to try the easy way of getting inside the old building.
    The only thing he could remember from the night that Lorelei died was being up at the inn. He and Lorelei used to sneak into the abandoned wing at the back and fuck like rabbits. They’d had too many close calls in the tumbledown cabin by the lake, and Peggy Niles considered it her duty to keep the girls virtuous. She’d had a fanatically religious streak, and Griffin had always figured it would be easier to just avoid her rather than arguing about his right to screw anything that would lie still long enough. He was counting on finding something—anything—in the old wing to jar his memory. If that didn’t work, he’d try something else, but it was the obvious place to start. And in order to get in there, he was going to have to get into Miss Sophie Davis’s good graces. Even if that was the last thing he wanted to do.
    He didn’t like the thought of going up there without caffeine already fortifying his system, but hedidn’t have much choice. It was that or head into the next town over to the old diner, and he wasn’t in the mood for grease and canned coffee. Two weeks until the place opened, she’d said. He hadn’t come for a vacation—he might as well start now.
    The path between the houses was narrower than he remembered, overgrown in places. He tried not to think about the last time he’d walked the footpath, and who’d been with him. It was more than twenty years ago—why couldn’t he pick and choose what he remembered and what he forgot? He would have been perfectly happy not to remember Lorelei clinging to his arm, laughing up at him, stumbling along beside him. He would have given anything to remember what happened that final night in Colby, when he woke up and found himself covered in blood.
    He’d forgotten the smell of the countryside, the clean, fresh scent of the lake, the sweet resin of the pine trees, the incense of growing things. He’d loved it here once—stayed here longer than he’d stayed anywhere after his father died and he’d been tall enough to pass himself off as an adult. In fact, he’d been much better off without dear old Dad, who’d been a little too fond of the bottle and belt. The old man spent his time either belligerent or mournful. Or passed out. Still, he’d been the only family Griffin had ever known with his mother long gone, and he’d loved him, anyway.
    But it was easier to find work, a dry place to sleep, decent food, when you didn’t have an old boozer trailing after you.
    Funny thing was, he couldn’t remember where his father was buried. His mother