Page 2 of The Summer Guests

The world around him seemed to halt on its axis. He moved past horrified pedestrians, their hands clapped over their mouths, past the two men in leather jackets, who’d followed him out of the café and now stood with mouths agape in horror. Through the freeze-frame of carnage, across shattered glass and blood-spattered pavement, Randy alone seemed to be in motion. As he drew closer to the crashed vehicles, he sawTarkin Fine Carpentryprinted on the white van. He knew this van. He knew the driver. Black smoke was rising from the engine, a terrifying harbinger of more disaster.

Through the driver’s window, he saw Sam Tarkin tilted forward, face down against the steering wheel. Randy yanked open the door. He couldn’t see any blood, any obvious injuries, but Sam was moaning, shaking.

Randy reached across Sam’s lap and released the seat belt. “You need to get out!” Randy yelled. “Sam? Sam!”

Suddenly Sam’s head snapped up, and Randy stared at a man wholookedlike Sam Tarkin, with Sam’s dark hair, Sam’s angular face, but the eyes ... what was wrong with his eyes? The pupils were dilated to black, bottomless pools. An alien’s eyes. No, this sweating, shaking creature looked like someone else.Somethingelse.

Randy glanced at the black smoke billowing out. He had to get him out, now. He grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled.

“Get away!” Sam shrieked. “Get away from me!” He clawed at Randy, and his fingernails gouged flesh.

Face throbbing, Randy jerked away and felt blood trickle down his cheek.What the hell, man?Enraged now, he wrenched Sam out of the van, and they both went sprawling onto the pavement. Even then, Sam kept fighting him, thrashing. Desperate to control the man, Randy grabbed Sam’s throat with both hands and squeezed. He squeezed so hard that Sam’s eyes bugged out and his face darkened to a horrifying shade of purple.

“Stop it!” Randy yelled. “Stop fighting me!”

He did not feel Sam reach for his holster—the holster he’d already unsnapped. Suddenly there it was, staring at him: the barrel of his own gun.

“Don’t,” he said. “Sam, don’t.”

But it was not Sam Tarkin looking back at him.

And it was not Sam Tarkin who pulled the trigger.

Chapter 2

Maggie

The present

It was the perfect summer evening: Maggie and her friends gathered around her picnic table, sipping martinis and bird-watching. Peering through binoculars as barn swallows dipped and swirled like bits of blue confetti over her freshly mowed field. Everyone relaxed and laughing and unarmed.

Although Maggie wasn’tentirelycertain about that last detail. She just assumed no one had felt the need to pack a firearm tonight, and really, what would be the point? They were all perfectly capable of unleashing mayhem with merely a shard of broken glass, and at the moment, they were each holding an easily shattered martini glass as they discussed this month’s chosen title for their book group:The Genius of Birds. The book had been Maggie’s selection, so it was her turn to host tonight’s meeting of the Martini Club, the name they’d adopted for their pleasantly boozy get-togethers. Serving as host was not an onerous task, because dinner was always potluck, and Maggie’s primary responsibility—indeed, the most important responsibility of these evenings—was having a sufficient selection of liquor on hand. For this group,sufficientmeant three different brands of vodka, two brands of gin, dry vermouth, red and white wine, and, for after dinner, a selection of single-malt whiskys.

Today’s weather was gloriously warm, so they’d carried the gin and vodka, vermouth and ice bucket outside to Maggie’s picnic table to enjoy the view over her rolling fields. Three years ago, when Maggie had first come to Purity, this view was what had convinced her to buy Blackberry Farm and finally put down roots. Here, she’d found a measure of peace. During the summers, she collected fresh eggs from her flock of layer hens and sold them at the local farmers’ market. During the winters, she shoveled snow and nurtured her newly hatched chicks and perused the seed catalogs for her vegetable garden.

But no matter the season, these evenings with her four friends carried on. She’d known them for decades, since long before they’d all migrated to Purity, Maine, where they now quietly blended in with other retirees. Where people asked few questions about their previous careers and left them to their secrets. Secrets they felt free to share only among themselves.

Tonight, Ingrid Slocum had appointed herself the bartender, and she was already at work mixing a second batch of martinis, vigorously shaking ice cubes in the stainless steel cocktail shaker. The merry clatter brought back Maggie’s days at Camp Peary, otherwise known as the Farm, where four of them—Maggie and Declan, Ben and Ingrid—had first bonded as clandestine officer trainees. Looking around at their faces, Maggie could still see them as they’d looked in their younger years: Ben Diamond, bull necked and muscular, with a glare that could freeze an assailant in his tracks. Eagle-eyed Ingrid Slocum, always the quickest to think her way out of any locked room. And Declan Rose, the dashing diplomat’s son who could charm a stranger with just his smile. Four decades later, their hair was grayer—or, in Ben’s case, shaved off entirely—and along with the passage of time had come the inevitable wrinkles and stiff joints and more than a few extra pounds. But the Farm veterans were still the Four Musketeers, undaunted by the encroaching years, eager for any challenge.

And a well-made martini.

“It’s a shame they’re dying off,” said Declan as birds swooped overhead. “In another generation, there’ll be no more barn swallows left in Maine.” He handed his binoculars to Ben. “Here, these are better than yours. Take a look.”

Ben, who was clearly not as much of an avian fan, halfheartedly peered up at the swallows. With his shaved head and faintly menacing scowl, he didn’t muchlooklike a bird-watcher either. “Where did you hear that? About the barn swallows dying off?”

“It was in last month’sPurity Weekly. The bird-watching column.”

“You actually read that column?”

“Bird-watching’s an excellent cover for surveillance. If you’re caught and need to bluff your way out, it’s good to know the basics of the subject.”

“Anyone else, another round?” asked Ingrid. “Lloyd’s bringing out his antipasti tray, and it’s all rather salty. You’ll want to keep your whistles wet.”

Ben raised his hand. “Hendrick’s, please, no vermouth. With all this talk about birds, my whistle’s already gone dry.”

“Snacks incoming!” Ingrid’s husband, Lloyd, announced cheerily as he came out of the house bearing one of the antipasti extravaganzas that he was so famous for: feta skewers and artichoke hearts, marinated mushrooms and paper-thin slices of salami. “Just don’t fill up on these,” he warned. “My braciole’s warming up in the oven, andthatdeserves your hearty appetites.”

Ben looked at Ingrid as she handed him his freshly shaken martini. “With that man cooking for you, how are you not three hundred pounds?”

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