She was halfway down the stairs when she heard Andrew’s voice, along with Evvie’s, coming from the kitchen. After her abrupt departure last night, she would have preferred to keep some distance between them, but there was no way to get to the mudroom door without passing through the kitchen.

They stopped talking the minute she entered the room. Not a good sign. Andrew turned to face her, the straw doll clutched in his fist. “Were you planning to mention this?”

Lizzy’s head swiveled in Evvie’s direction, but she was already holding up her hands, absolving herself before Lizzy could get a word out. “Don’t go laying this at my door. I told you to get rid of it. It’s not my fault he saw it when he came in.”

“I found it this morning,” Lizzy explained wearily. “In the tree out front. I know it looks bad, but we don’t really know what it means.”

“Yesterday you paid Fred Gilman a visit. Today you find this. You don’t think the two are related?”

“I get how it looks, and that the timing is suspicious, but if Fred Gilman wanted to hurt me, he had the perfect opportunity last night when I was standing on his front porch. Can you honestly see him climbing a tree and hanging that thing up in the dark?”

Andrew blew out a long breath. “You can’t ignore this, Lizzy. It isn’t like having your car keyed. You need to report it.”

“I’m not ignoring it. And I will report it—eventually. Though, after what Roger told me about Summers the other day, I don’t trust the police to lift a finger when it comes to the Moons. All I want right now is time to do what I need to do without the police muddying the water. Now, can we please drop it? If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the wildflower garden, pulling weeds.”

She turned and walked out, leaving Andrew and Evvie to stare after her, knowing full well they’d have plenty to say once she was out of earshot. She didn’t care. Bad juju or not, it was going to take more than a straw doll to scare her off.

FOURTEEN

July 26

Lizzy had to circle the block three times before she finally located a parking space near the ReadiMaxx office. She was far from eager to sit down with “Southern New Hampshire’s Premier Residential Specialist,” but she’d already wasted an entire week. It was time to talk to someone, to get some idea about what to expect given the farm’s run-down condition. Not to mention the stigma of two dead girls turning up in the pond.

The news wouldn’t be good—she was prepared for that—but at least she’d have some idea about what her options might be. She had some money in savings, but nowhere near enough to pay for the laundry list of repairs Andrew had rattled off. Maybe she could take out a small mortgage. Nothing huge, just enough to pay for the most urgent repairs, and swing the property taxes until the place sold. But what if it didn’t? What if finding a buyer took years rather than months? She’d be risking foreclosure.

The thought made Lizzy’s stomach churn as she dug in her wallet for coins to feed the meter. A nickel and two pennies were all she came up with. She scanned the businesses along Center Street, looking for somewhere to change a ten-dollar bill. Her choices were slim: the post office, a chiropractic clinic, a flower shop that was apparently closed on Mondays—and the coffee shop.

She eyed the sign queasily. BREWED AWAKENINGS. The scene of Rhanna’s infamous last stand—still here. Which was more than she could say for her mother. But then there’d been no staying in Salem Creek after that particular spectacle.

Rhanna had spotted a pair of women staring at her over their lattes, and had proceeded to stage a meltdown of epic proportions, railing about pious old biddies who simpered about turning the other cheek on Sundays, then turned into vipers the other six days of the week. She might have gotten away with it if she’d stopped there. But Rhanna had never been one to do things by half. Instead, she walked to the center of the shop, raised her arms above her head, and in the name of all the Moon girls, living and dead, had called down a curse on every breathing soul in Salem Creek—as if such a thing were actually possible.

The so-called curse had produced the desired effect, emptying the shop in a matter of minutes. But there’d been undesired effects as well, like the police showing up to investigate a threat reported by a half dozen townspeople. In the end, nothing came of it. There were no laws on the books regarding curses, threatened or otherwise.

Word of the incident spread like a wildfire, and the outcry for something to be done about that Moon woman and her girls quickly swelled. The day after the vigil, Rhanna packed her van, pocketed Althea’s emergency cash from the stoneware jug on top of the fridge, and disappeared, leaving her mother and daughter to deal with the fallout.

And now, eight years later, one of those Moon girls was about to walk into the same shop and ask for change. The thought made Lizzy’s palms clammy. Perhaps she’d just risk the ticket. But that was ridiculous. Instead, she turned and made herself push through the door with its tinkling brass bells.

The shop hadn’t changed much over the years: black-and-white floor tiles, scarred bistro tables lined up along yellow walls, potted ferns suspended from macramé hangers. Lizzy scanned the chalkboard menu while she waited in line, but her gaze kept straying to the woman working the register. She wasn’t wearing a name badge, but she looked vaguely familiar.

Lizzy watched as she rang up the man ahead of her, barked out his order to the barista—maple scone and a half-caf macchiato for Brandon—then opened a roll of quarters while he slid into the pickup line. She was still fumbling with the change wrapper when she closed the register and finally looked up. “What can I get for you, hon?” Her smile wavered, the crumpled coin wrapper in her fist forgotten. “Lizzy Moon . . . It is Lizzy, isn’t it?”

Lizzy squared her shoulders, trying to read the woman’s expression. Was it fear? Disdain? In the end she decided it didn’t matter. “Yes, it’s Lizzy.”

The woman’s face softened. “I heard you were back. I was so sorry to hear about your grandmother passing. She was a fine lady. A fine, fine lady.”

“I’m sorry,” Lizzy said, flustered at this unexpected show of kindness. “I thought you looked familiar, but I don’t remember your name.”

“I’m Judith Shrum. I was a customer of your grandmother’s. Always knew just how to fix me up. Good as any doctor, if you ask me.” She leaned forward, dropping her voice to a whisper. “All those busybodies flapping their yaps about those poor girls. They had no idea what they were talking about. Anyone who knew Althea Moon—I mean really knew her—knew she wasn’t capable of such a thing. Even their mother knew it.”

Lizzy seized on Judith’s words. “Mrs. Gilman?”

“Susan. Yes, poor thing. We were friends, though we don’t see each other much since she moved. Not that I blame her. She had a hard time of it. She told me once that she never felt right about what people were saying about your grandmother, how it just never sat with her. It seemed like—” She went quiet as a girl in a smudged apron and Brewed Awakening T-shirt sidled past with a spray bottle and cloth, resuming only when she was sure the girl was out of earshot. “It always seemed to me like she had her own ideas about what happened.”

“What . . . kind of ideas?”

Judith shrugged. “She never said. It’s only a feeling I had. And then one day she just stopped talking about it. Stopped talking about everything, really. Like she’d tuned out the whole world. Again, not that I blame her. I did wonder, though, if her going quiet had to do with Fred. Bit of a bully, that one. I was sad when she moved, but I’m glad she’s away from him.”

Lizzy peered over her shoulder, relieved to find that there was no one lined up behind her. “Do you still see her?”

Judith shook her head wistfully. “No, but we still talk. She lives in Peabody now. She’s a hairdresser. Doing all right for herself too. She was seeing someone last time we spoke, which made me glad. She deserves some happiness after everything, a fresh start with fresh memories.”

Lizzy nodded. She understood better than most that sometimes a fresh start meant leaving a place. She also knew how hard it could be to look old memories in the eye. Was it fair to force herself into Susan Gilman’s world, to rip the scab off a wound that might finally be healing? She’d made that mistake with Susan’s ex, and it hadn’t gone well. But if she passed along her cell number by way of Judith Shrum, the decision would be Susan’s to make. Perhaps the years had rendered her more willing to share her ideas about the fate of her daughters.