In the window was a small sign.

“Stop,” Jack said. “This is the place.”

Harlan Pettigrew sat at the counter, nursing a bowl of stew. A napkin was tucked over his bow tie, to prevent staining. His eyes darted around the diner, lighting on the clock.

Addie pushed through the swinging doors. “Mr. Pettigrew,” she began.

The man blotted his mouth with his napkin and got to his feet. “It’s about time.”

“There’s something I need to tell you first. You see, we’ve been having a little trouble with some of our appliances.”

Pettigrew’s brows drew together. “I see.”

Suddenly the door opened. A man in a rumpled sports jacket walked in, looking cold and lost. His shoes were completely inappropriate for the season and left small puddles of melting snow on the linoleum floor. When he spotted her pink apron, he started toward her. “Excuse me-is the owner in?”

His voice made Addie think of coffee, deep and dark and rich, with a texture that slid between her senses. “That would be me.”

“Oh.” He seemed surprised by this. “Okay. Well. I, um, I’m here because-”

A wide smile spread over Addie’s face. “Because I called you!” She shook his hand, trying not to notice how the man froze in shock. “I was just telling Mr. Pettigrew, here, from the board of health, that the repairman was on his way to fix our refrigerator and dishwasher. They’re right through here.”

She began to tug the stranger into the kitchen, with Pettigrew in their wake. “Just a moment,” the inspector said, frowning. “You don’t look like an appliance repairman.”

Addie tensed. The man probably thought she was insane. Well, hell. So did the rest of Salem Falls.

The woman was insane. And God, she’d touched him. She’d reached right out and grabbed his hand, as if that were normal for him, as if it had been eight minutes rather than eight months since a woman’s skin had come in contact with his own.

If she was covering something up from the board of health, then the diner was probably violating a code. He started to back away, but then the woman bowed her head.

It was that, the giving in, that ruined him.

The part in her dark hair was crooked and pink as a newborn’s skin. Jack almost reached out one finger and touched it but stuffed his hands in his pockets instead. He knew better than anyone that you could not trust a woman who said she was telling the truth.

But what if you knew, from the start, that she was lying?

Jack cleared his throat. “I came as quickly as I could, ma’am,” he said, then glanced at Pettigrew. “I was paged from my aunt’s birthday party and didn’t stop home to get my uniform. Where are the broken appliances?”

The kitchen looked remarkably similar to the one at the jail. Jack nodded to a sequoia of a woman standing behind the grill and tried desperately to remember any technical trivia he could about dishwashers. He opened the two rolled doors, slid out the tray, and peered inside. “Could be the pump . . . or the water inlet valve.”

For the first time, he looked directly at the owner of the diner. She was small and delicate in build, no taller than his collarbone, but had muscles in her arms built, he imagined, by many a hard day’s labor. Her brown hair was yanked into a knot at the back of her head and held in place by a pencil, and her eyes were the unlikely color of peridot-a stone, Jack recalled, the ancient Hawaiians believed to be the tears shed by the volcano goddess. Those eyes, now, seemed absolutely stunned. “I didn’t bring my toolbox, but I can have this fixed by . . .” He pretended to do the math, trying to catch the woman’s eye. Tomorrow, she mouthed.

“Tomorrow,” Jack announced. “Now what’s the problem with the fridge?”

Pettigrew looked from the owner of the diner to Jack, and then back again. “There’s no point in checking out the rest of the kitchen when I have to return anyway,” he said. “I’ll come by next week to do my inspection.” With a curt nod, he let himself out.

The owner of the diner launched herself across the line, embracing the cook and whooping with delight. Radiant, she turned to Jack and extended her hand . . . but this time, he moved out of the way before she could touch him. “I’m Addie Peabody, and this is Delilah Piggett. We’re so grateful to you. You certainly sounded authentic.” Suddenly, she paused, an idea dawning. “You don’t actually know how to fix appliances, do you?”

“No. That was just some stuff I heard in the last place I worked.” He saw his opening and leaped. “I was on my way in to ask about the HELP WANTED sign.”

The cook beamed. “You’re hired.”

“Delilah, who died and left you king?” She smiled at Jack. “You’re hired.”

“Do you mind if I ask what the job is?”

“Yes. I mean, no, I don’t mind. We’re in the market for a dishwasher.”

A reluctant grin tugged at Jack’s mouth. “I heard.”

“Well, even if we fix the machine, we’ll still need someone to run it.”

“Is it full time?”

“Part time . . . afternoons. Minimum wage.”

Jack’s face fell. He had a Ph.D. in history, and was applying for a job that paid $5.15 per hour. Misinterpreting his reaction, Delilah said, “I’ve been asking Addie to hire a prep cook a while now. That would be a part-time morning job, wouldn’t it?”

Addie hesitated. “Have you ever worked in a kitchen before, Mr. . . .”

“St. Bride. Jack. And yeah, I have.” He didn’t say where the kitchen was, or that he’d been a guest of the state at the time.

“That beats the last guy you hired,” Delilah said. “Remember when we found him shooting up over the scrambled eggs?”

“It’s not like he mentioned his habit at the interview.” Addie turned to Jack. “How old are you?”

Ah, this was the moment-the one where she’d ask him why a man his age would settle for menial work like this. “Thirty-one.”

She nodded. “If you want the job, it’s yours.”

No application, no references, no questions about his past employment. And anonymity-no one would ever expect to find him washing dishes in a diner. For a man who had determined to put his past firmly behind him, this situation seemed too good to be true. “I’d like it very much,” Jack managed.

“Then grab an apron,” said his new boss.

Suddenly, he remembered that there was something he needed to do, if Salem Falls was going to become his new residence. “I need about an hour to run an errand,” he said.

“No problem. It’s the least I can do for the person who saved me.”

Funny, Jack thought. I was thinking the same thing.

Detective-Lieutenant Charlie Saxton fiddled with the radio in his squad car for a few moments, then switched it off. He listened to the squelch of slush under the Bronco’s tires and wondered, again, if he should have stayed with the Miami Police Department.

It was a hard thing to be a law enforcement officer in the town where you’d once grown up. You’d walk down the street, and instead of noticing the IGA, you’d remember the storeroom where a local teen had knifed his girlfriend. You’d pass the school playground and think of the drugs confiscated from the children of the town selectmen. Where everyone else saw the picture-perfect New England town of their youth, you saw the underbelly of its existence.

His radio crackled as he turned onto Main Street. “Saxton.”

“Lieutenant, there’s some guy here insisting he’ll talk only to you.”

Even with the bad reception, Wes sounded pissed. “He got a name?”

“If he does, he isn’t giving it up.”

Charlie sighed. For all he knew, this man had committed murder within town lines and wanted to confess. “Well, I’m driving into the parking lot. Have him take a seat.”

He swung the Bronco into a spot, then walked in to find his guest cooling his heels.

Literally. Charlie’s first thought, pure detective, was that the guy couldn’t be from around here-no one who lived in New Hampshire was stupid enough to wear a sports jacket and dress shoes in the freezing slush of early March. Still, he didn’t seem particularly distraught, like the recent victim of a crime, or nervous, like a perp. No, he just looked like a guy who’d had a lousy day. Charlie extended his hand. “Hi there. Detective-Lieutenant Saxton.”