“Then if you don’t mind, my law firm can act on both Megan’s and your behalf.”
“Is that legal?” Beth asked, bending down to pick up Joel.
“It’s sort of a gray area,” Chelsea said. “But this is a simple transaction, since Meg won’t have to obtain financing. Why don’t you and Bob stop in my office on your way through Bangor tomorrow, Joan? I’ll call them in the morning and have someone start the paperwork for you.” Chelsea took the check from Megan and handed it to Joan. “Give them this, and you may consider your house sold.”
“When can I move in?” Megan asked.
“You should probably wait until the deed is signed,” Chelsea said. “But it’s up to Joan and Bob.”
Joan picked up the keys on the counter and handed them to Megan. “After twenty-eight years of marriage, I know what Bob’s going to say. Welcome home, Megan and baby,” she said, lightly patting Megan’s belly. “This is a wonderful place to raise children.”
Chapter Five
E ven though there were disadvantages to having a large, overprotective family, there were also some very nice perks when one was five months’ pregnant and moving into a new house. While everyone had an opinion on what she needed to do and how she should do it, no one would let her lift anything heavier than her laptop. The only responsibility she’d had was to direct traffic when she and four large MacBain and MacKeage cousins went down to Boston and emptied her condo, and then stand back and watch them unload the truck in Maine.
Camry had decided that what was happening in Frog Cove was much more interesting than her work in Florida right now, considering that her latest attempt to harness ion propulsion had failed. Her job was somewhat an independent position; NASA supplied the lab and Camry contributed the brainpower. So Cam had called whomever she answered to and told them she was extending her vacation another week.
Great. It had been only three days since Megan had purchased her cozy little cottage, and she was ready to strangle her sister. Camry kept insisting she climb right back on the horse she’d fallen off when Wayne Ferris had broken her heart.
“I am not going over there with a pie you baked, to ask for a date,” Megan told her for the fourth time in as many minutes. Camry had actually baked an apple pie for Meg to present to her neighbor! Megan plopped into a chair in front of her still curtainless window facing the lake and glared at her sister. “And besides, what do you suppose his reaction will be when he sees my belly? He’s going to wonder what sort of woman gets knocked up by one man, then starts looking for a replacement before the kid’s even born.”
“I’m not asking you to propose to the guy,” Cam countered. “I’m only following up on Chelsea’s suggestion to use him for practice.”
“She made that suggestion to you.”
“Camry, leave your sister alone,” Grace said, walking out of the bedroom, her arms full of packing material. “Meg doesn’t want to date anyone. She wants Wayne.”
“Good God,” Cam said in a strangled voice, jumping to her feet. “You’re hoping Ferris will come after her. You think he’s going to show up here any day now, hat in hand, and beg her to take him back.”
Megan also jumped up, horrified. “Mom! Is that true?”
“It’s been four months,” Camry said. “He’s not coming.”
“Is it true?” Megan repeated. “All this time, you’ve been thinking Wayne’s going to suddenly show up here?”
“Would you take him back if he did?” Grace asked softly.
“No!” Cam said before Megan could. “The bastard broke her heart!”
Grace continued looking at Megan.
Megan shook her head.
“But what if Wayne realizes he made a mistake?” Grace asked. “You two had only known each other a little over a month, camping in tents out on the tundra in an isolated corner of the world.” She set the packing material down and walked up to Megan. “What if once Wayne got back to his empty home, he realized he needs you in his life? What if he’s been as miserable as you’ve been?”
“You have no idea of the things he said to me that day.” Megan took a shuddering breath. “Wayne made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing to do with me or our child. I begged him, Mama, to give us a chance, but it was like he suddenly turned into a completely different person. I—I actually became afraid of him,” she whispered. “I couldn’t pack my bags and get out of there fast enough.”
“What do ye mean, you were afraid of him?” Her father came out of the bedroom carrying several collapsed boxes. He dropped them by the door and walked up to Megan, taking hold of her shoulders. “Did he hurt you, daughter?”
“No, Daddy. He just…” She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against his chest with a sigh. “He just turned into somebody I didn’t like anymore.”
Jack sat on his snowmobile and sipped hot cocoa from his Thermos. He was parked on the lake about a hundred yards from shore, the moonless night making him nearly invisible while offering him a perfect view of what was going on inside his neighbor’s living room.
He’d finally figured out how to approach her, but he was no closer to catching Megan alone than he was to catching whoever had broken into the bakery. He could accept not making any headway on the vandals, considering that every doughnut addict within fifty miles of Pine Creek had left their fingerprints in that bakery, and forensics still hadn’t identified that foul-smelling slime.
As for Megan, Jack couldn’t believe his luck when Bob and Joan Quimby had come over to say good-bye and told him that a lovely woman named Megan MacKeage had purchased their house. And by the way, she was five months’ pregnant and single, so could he maybe keep an eye on her?
But she was always surrounded by people. Megan had enough aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws to populate a small city; he’d been tripping over MacBains and MacKeages in town for the last two weeks. And her only unmarried sister, Camry, was staying at her house at night.
Jack figured his legendary patience would survive only two or three more days before he got desperate enough to kidnap the woman. He really hated it when a hunt ended that way; things had a tendency to get messy, and he always felt he’d somehow failed. He snorted. Catching their new police chief with a local lady bound and gagged in his cruiser would certainly go over well with the fine folks who’d hired him.
Assuming Greylen MacKeage didn’t kill him on sight.
“What year was Wayne born, and where?” Cam asked.
Megan added a handful of marshmallows to her cocoa, then turned to look at her sister sitting on the couch. Their parents had left twenty minutes ago, and Megan and Camry had declared a truce—for now. “Why?”
“I’m Googling him, but apparently Wayne Ferris is a popular name.” Cam continued typing on the laptop sitting on the coffee table. “It would help if I knew when and where he was born.”
Megan walked over and sat down to look at the screen, intrigued despite herself. “Why are you searching Wayne?”
Cam shrugged. “Just curious. Where’s he from?”
“Alberta, Canada. He lives a couple hundred miles northeast of Edmonton…in Medicine Lake, I think he said.”
“Oohhh, he likes it cold and remote, does he? Maybe that’s where he buries the bodies,” Cam said, making a frightened face as she hit a few more buttons.
“When did Wayne graduate to being a serial killer? I told you, he isn’t violent.”
“Most serial killers aren’t, outwardly. Haven’t you seen those interviews with neighbors saying how they can’t believe it, that ‘he was such a nice, quiet man’?” Cam turned to Megan. “I understand why you wouldn’t have said anything to Mom and Dad, but it’s just you and me now. So when Wayne suddenly changed into a different person, did he get rough with you?”
“He got…At first he just stared in disbelief when I told him I was pregnant, then he hugged me, and then he turned around and walked out without saying a word. I have no idea where he slept that night. The next morning he showed up at the kitchen, led me by the hand to his tent, and told me to pack up my stuff and get the hell out of there before sunset.”