Secrets of the Lost Summer by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online

trip—”
“California,” she interrupted, almost as if she were gulping. “I’m going. No matter what.”
She made the trip—one she wanted to take—sound like an impending biopsy, but Olivia felt her own throat tighten at the prospect of her parents flying across the country. “I’ve seen pictures of California’s Pacific Coast Highway. It looks beautiful.”
“Yes. Right. I’ll call you later, Liv. Be careful out there alone in this freezing rain.”
“I will, Mom. I’m not that far from town, and I have Buster here with me.”
“You’ve had the vet look at him? He could have worms—”
“Yes, and he got a clean bill of health.”
“Your dad should be walking in the door any minute. Oh—I just looked out the window. I can see the ice forming on my car. Freezing rain is the worst.”
“Do you want me to stay on with you until Dad gets there?”
“No, no. He’ll be here any minute.”
Her mother was close to hyperventilating as she hung up. Olivia took a breath, suddenly feeling anxious and unsettled herself. She jumped up from the couch and went into the kitchen. The freezing rain had ended her raking for the day. She’d clean up the lunch dishes and work on a design project.
She stood at the sink and noticed the raindrops on the window, the glistening film of clear ice on the grass, the gray mist swirling in the woods.
The house was so quiet.
“Buster,” she said. “Buster, where are you?”
She checked the living room, but he was no longer asleep by the fire. She checked the cellar door, in case she’d left it open and he’d gone down there, but it was shut tight.
She called him again, but received only silence in return as she headed back to the kitchen.
She felt a cold draft and went into the mudroom.
The door was ajar.
She grimaced. “Damn.”
Buster was gone, and she was going to have to go out into the freezing rain to find him.
Less than an hour after arriving in little Knights Bridge, Dylan found himself up to his calves in a patch of snow and mud next to a rusted, cast-off refrigerator and face-to-face with one seriously mean-looking dog.
The dog had bounded out of the trees as if he’d been lying in wait, planning his attack on the unsuspecting new arrival to his quiet country road. His wild barking had subsided to intermittent growls.
“Easy, pal,” Dylan said. “Easy.”
Olivia Frost had to be the dog’s owner. Hers was the closest house; in fact, from what Dylan had seen, it was the only other house in the immediate vicinity. Freezing rain was coating everything in a film of clear ice. Prickly vines, pine needles, bare tree branches, exposed grass, last year’s dropped leaves. The old fridge. The mean dog. Dylan.
“You should go home.” Dylan pointed in the direction of The Farm at Carriage Hill. “Go. Go home.”
The dog barked once, growled and didn’t budge.
Dylan debated his options, none of them good. The freezing rain showed no sign of letting up. He was trapped out here in the middle of nowhere until it did. His flight from San Diego had been long but unremarkable, putting him in Boston late yesterday. He’d stayed with a hockey player friend, Alec Wiskovich, a Russian who had passed muster with Boston’s discerning fans as a forward with the Bruins. Alec had never heard of Knights Bridge, either. Dylan rented a car in the morning, typed “Knights Bridge” into the GPS system and went on his way.
Whether it was jet lag, the freezing rain, the mean dog or thinking about his father, he felt at least slightly out of his mind. If he were sane, he thought, he would indeed have sent Loretta to deal with Olivia Frost instead of coming himself. He was a busy man. He could afford to pay someone to sort out a misunderstanding about an old house and junk in the yard.
“Buster!”
It was a woman’s voice. Keeping the dog in the corner of his eye, Dylan shifted his gaze slightly and peered through the mist and rain at the one-lane road. The many potholes were filling with