Page 83 of The Summer Guests

“Would that be Dr. Greene?” said Maggie.

“Oh, Vivian never told me any of their names. Or much about their research project, for that matter. It was government stuff, you know, hush hush. She said I’d find it all boring anyway, and she was probablyright. I never had a head for math and science, but Vivian, that’s what she loved. Even if she didn’t much care for the people she was working with.”

“What was the problem with these colleagues?”

“They made her feel unappreciated, unheard. She was probably smarter than any of them, but that’s how it was in those days, if you were a woman. You could work twice as hard as any of the men, but you weren’t valued or listened to. Even if you had an advanced degree in neurochemistry, like she did.”

“Neurochemistry?” Declan said, glancing at Maggie.

“I have no idea what that really means. But it got her a job right out of graduate school.”

Outside, the rain had turned to a drizzle and mist clouded the window, blurring the landscape to gauzy shades of gray. The tea in Maggie’s cup was lukewarm, its aroma now dissipated, but she continued to cradle the cup in her hands as she considered what they had just learned. Vivian Stillwater had been a neurochemist, a woman known for her reliability.If Vivian said she’d be somewhere, you could count on it,Cathy had said. Yet brilliant, reliable Vivian had somehow driven her car into a ditch and wandered, barefoot and confused, onto a highway.

“This project in Maine that she was working on,” said Maggie. “Did it have something to do with testing pharmaceuticals?”

Cathy looked up from her teacup, her eyebrow raised. “How did you know?”

By the time they drove home that evening, the fog had rolled in, a curtain so thick that it felt like the rest of the world had fallen away, that she and Declan were traveling through a spectral landscape that headlights could not penetrate.

“Her records were deliberately wiped,” said Maggie. “That’s why Ingrid couldn’t find out what happened to Vivian Stillwater. It was allredacted—her death certificate, her hospital stay, the police report of her accident. Someone went to a lot of trouble to hide that information.”

“But they didn’t erase the news archives of the good oldPurity Weekly,” said Declan.

“A small-town newspaper with a whopping circulation of a thousand?” Maggie shook her head and laughed. “They probably thought it wasn’t worth the effort. Still, they managed to erase her in almost every other way. Twenty, thirty years from now, there’ll be no one left alive who remembers how Vivian died. Or what she was doing in Maine.”

“Now we’re back to our original mystery. If that wasn’t Vivian’s skeleton in the pond, whodothose bones belong to?”

“I have no idea, but itfeelslike it’s all connected. Vivian Stillwater. The lady in the lake. The attack on Zoe Conover.” She peered ahead, into the fog. Darkness had fallen, and the weak beams of their headlights illuminated a shifting landscape of mist curling over pavement. “At least now, we have a pretty good idea who Vivian was working for. Who they wereallworking for.”

Chapter 39

A new storm front had moved in overnight, and under dark clouds, the surface of Maiden Pond was black and wind churned. Maggie and Declan sat in Declan’s Volvo in the boat ramp parking lot, peering through binoculars at the cottages along the shore. Only two days ago, it had been sunny and warm, but Maine weather was famously fickle, and judging by the ominous clouds overhead, thunder and rain were imminent.

“Nasty weather ahead,” said Declan. “I think they’ll all be staying indoors for the day. Which, come to think of it, sounds like quite a nice idea. Sit by the fireplace, sip some Irish coffee ...”

She focused her binoculars on the figure who’d just emerged from one of the cottages. “Hannah Greene’s not staying inside. She’s getting in her car. I wonder where she’s off to.”

Declan pulled out his pocket notebook. “Hannah Greene inherited the cottage from her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Harold Greene. According to our friend Betty Jones, Dr. Greene purchased their house in 1968, initially planning to live here year round. Nine months later, George and Elizabeth Conover bought the house next door to the Greenes. Cash purchases, both of them. Since then, the homes have been extensively updated. They’re now used only as summer residences.”

She shot him an amused glance. “You got all that information out of Betty?”

“All it takes is a box of cranberry nut muffins from the Marigold. What can I say, our Betty the Realtor has a sweet tooth.”

“Or a taste for charming gentlemen.”

He gave a modest shrug. “I have my talents.”

“Go, tiger.” She refocused on Hannah’s car as it drove away. “And she’s sixty-one?”

“Which means she would have been eight years old when Vivian Stillwater quit and left. A girl that young probably had no inkling of what her father’s job really entailed.”

Maggie lowered her binoculars. “I wonder what she’d think of her father now, if she learned the truth about him. About the work he was doing.”

“People can justify almost anything, Maggie. That’s why history keeps repeating itself.”

She thought of the choices she, too, had been forced to justify during her career, choices she now regretted. In the line of duty, yes, people could defend almost any action, but there was usually a price to be paid. For Maggie, the price had been unbearably tragic.

She wondered if Dr. Harold Greene had ever regretted his choices.

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