Sherri's eyebrows shot up. "Who told you that? The first year's membership is thirty dollars a month, which includes full use of all the machines, an aerobics class once a week, and use of the hot tub and ladies' locker room." She turned to Quill, her eyes sparkling. "But that does remind me. I've got those flyers for you. The passes entitle you to a thirty-minute workout, use of the hot tub, et cetera, and then the next visits are twenty dollars each."
Quill, who couldn't recall having agreed to the flyers, said, "Well, thanks, but—"
"Hot tub?" Carol Ann interrupted, her voice glacial. "I don't recall a license for a hot tub."
"Urn, Sherri," Quill said.
"You wouldn't recall a license for a hot tub because it's none of your business," Sherri said cheerfully. "The building inspector takes care of that stuff."
"Sher—" Quill began again.
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"And," Sherri rolled on inexorably, "you're going to need the hot tub if you're going to get rid of that cellulite." She reached forward and pinched Carol Ann's upper arm between two fingers. "If you've got it here, lady, I'm petrified to look at your thighs."
"Cellulite?" Carol Ann said anxiously.
"You betcha. Just at a guess, I'd say your body fat ratio is way out of line." Sherri gave Carol Ann a familiar smack on the rear. "Get into your workout duds, pal. We'll see what you're made of."
"And that was that," Quill said to Meg and Andy a half an hour later. She set the bag of food supplements on the steel worktable with a thump. "I gave the flyers to Dina and she set them out on the reception desk. It was worth buying this stuff just to see Carol Ann get flattened."
All three of them were in the kitchen. Quill had walked back to the Inn with a light step, despite the thousand-pound bag of herbal junk food dangling from one arm. "A complete and total rout."
Meg waved her chef's knife in the air. "Hah! Carol Ann and her comeuppance! I wish I'd seen it!"
"You would have seen it if you hadn't fibbed about your trip to Syracuse," Quill said. "You could have come with me and seen it yourself."
"What's Sherri like?"
Quill thought a moment. "A steamroller." She took a deep breath. "She had an interesting perspective. You know, apparently there's been talk of you leaving Hemlock Falls, Meg. As a matter of fact, it's great that
54 Claudia Bishop
both of you are here right now, because I want to talk—"
"Oh, no!" Meg drummed her wooden spoon on the stainless-steel worktop. "No gyp club for me."
"Meg! It is not a gyp! And signing up for exercise class is not what I wanted to—"
"I'll pass. I get more than enough exercise slamming around this kitchen all day. And you've got a hope if you think I'm stuffing my insides with that herbal stuff. Besides—"
"Besides, you'll be in New York City a lot," Quill put in easily. "I'm going to sign up. I might even try some of this stress-reducing powder, or whatever it's called. And speaking of living in New York ..."
"You left a check, didn't you? You've already signed up. She bullied you into it right there! Quill, you sucker! How much?"
"I don't get nearly enough exercise around here. And I'm getting sort of spongy."
"How much of a check did you leave?"
"Meg!"
"I'd just like to point out that we haven't signed with the Finn yet, and at the moment the old bank account is about zero dollars."
"Three hundred bucks. But I'm going three times a week, plus the aerobics class."
"In a pig's eye."
"I am," Quill said heatedly. "If I go three times a week plus the aerobics class, it works out to like three dollars a hour or something. A bargain," she added sententiously, "when one's health is at stake."
"And the herbal crud?"
"Not that much," Quill fibbed.
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"You know very well the best thing for your body is fresh food. Not stuff that's been packaged up in some godforsaken place in the Himalayas. I'll bet the filler's yak dung."
"I'm taking the supplements back," Quill said. "So lay off."
"What a racket." Meg grinned and took off the cloth draped over the top of the bowl containing her sourdough starter. "Listen. Make sure Bjarne checks this while I'm in New York, okay? It needs a few more days, but it's iffy how long because of the heat."
Meg seemed in an approachable mood. It was the time to work this thing out. She glanced quickly at Andy Bishop. The doctor was just slightly taller than Meg, and had the lean, compact build of a professional tennis player. He was quiet, and didn't react at all to emotional Sturm and Drang. He was a great partner for Meg.
"I know Sherri offers family memberships," Quill said casually. "If you two lived here and commuted to New York, rather than the other way around, maybe we could all join." Meg frowned.
Andy shook his head, smiling. He patted his flat stomach ruefully. "I've already taken a membership in a city gym."
Meg's frown developed into a scowl. She stared defiantly at Quill.
"Well. Let's talk about that." Quill settled herself onto a handy stool and took another deep breath.
The door to the kitchen swung wide, and Dina Muir poked her head inside. "Quill?" Dina's unnaturally high-pitched voice broke Quill's train of thought.
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"We've got a little problem. The guys from L.A.—"
"Guests," Quill corrected automatically. "Did you show them the flyers from Sherri's gym? It's our latest guest feature."
"Yeah, but they just got here. So, like, I really need to talk to you."
"Okay," Quill said in a bewildered way.
"Out here! In the dining room! You can see them from here!"
Meg shrugged and turned to the sink. Quill followed Dina out into the dining room. She could see the foyer through the arched entrance. There was a confusion of people.
"It's Sneezer, you know!" Dina whispered urgently, "I've been trying to tell you! They've turned him into a Finn!"
Quill rubbed her nose, sorting this out. "Sneezer's a cartoon," she said. "And the character's a Finn?"
"They changed it!"
Quill didn't ask what she meant. Quill made it a practice never to try to follow Dina's erratic thought processes. Doreen's opinion was that Dina was too smart to talk plainly, and the opinion had merit. Dina was all-but-issertation at Cornell University. She only really focused when the conversation revolved around coecephods, which it rarely did.
"They'll have to meet Horvath, then," Quill said cheerfully. "He might get a kick of it."
"Quill, just give me a second in private, okay? I mean, not only is Sneezer a Finn, but the sheriff's in the lobby."
"Myles?" Quill said, her voice going up a bit. She
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patted her hair. She would not, she told herself firmly, check to see that she had any blusher on. She was suddenly aware of John's quiet presence at her side. 'Tell him, Myles, I mean, that I'm a little too busy to see him now, and I'll give him a call later."
"He's not here to see you," Dina said.
"Hey! Dina!" A burly man in a sloppy denim shirt and wrinkled khakis signaled Dina from the archway. "Where'd you get to, kiddo? We're getting a speeding ticket even as we speak."
"This is Benny Gilpin. Benny, this is my boss, Sarah Quilliam. And my other boss, John Raintree."
"Yo," Benny said. He had a bushy gray beard and watery gray eyes. He didn't look like a person from Los Angeles at all. He looked like a farmer from Tompkins County. Quill smiled at him. He gave a dismissive snort. "Hey. I could use a hand in here." Farmers from Tompkins County were a lot more courteous. She set a smile firmly in place.
Quill, John, and Dina followed Benny into the foyer. There were too many people in it. There was a gray-faced, cadaverous man with a bald head, a cigarette hanging from his lip, and an ash-covered denim shirt. The man next to him was pudgy, with bleached-blonde hair drawn back in a ponytail and f
urtive little eyes. A third figure hung back by the staircase, under the stairwell.
All of them were dominated by a tall broad-shouldered figure in uniform.
"Hello, Myles."
"Quill." He nodded equably at John. His eyes were steel-colored and his hair dark, with a streak of gray
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through the forelock. He'd recently resumed his job as the sheriff of Tompkins County after a yearlong stint as an investigator for an internationally based security firm. Before that, he'd been a lieutenant in the NYPD. For the past six years Quill had loved him. She didn't anymore.
All of this was written in his face, and more.
Quill didn't look at him directly. She glanced at his chin, with that big, insincere smile on her face. She faced the group of incoming guests with that same smile, and wished she were in Detroit. Or Tuscaloosa for that matter. Anywhere but smack in the middle of an incipient brouhaha with a former lover as the pivot.
She swung into innkeeper mode: professional, capable, and competent. She'd had a lot of practice over the years. "Now, how can I help you all?"
A tall, slender man removed himself from the stairwell and joined the group clustered by the cobblestone fireplace. Quill cataloged the suit: olive-green Armani. The haircut: extensions, with gray dye at the temples. The sunglasses: French. The attitude: ain't I cute. His gaze slid over her. "Hey," he said, which Quill surmised was the L.A. version of "How do you do?" "I'm Neil Strickland. And you are?" His violet-blue eyes crinkled at the corners.
"Sarah Quilliam."
"Well, Sarah, it's like this." One corner of his mouth quirked upward in a smile. He put his hand on her bare arm and ducked his head so that his mouth was near her ear. "You see our Benny?" He cocked his eyebrow at the khaki-shirted guy. "We're in this rental car, and Benny's maybe going a leetle bit faster than our back-
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woods boy here"—he nodded in Myles's direction— "can tolerate. Miss Dina, there, tried her cute little best to talk our boy out of giving us a ticket, but..." He shrugged. "She thought you'd have a better shot at it." He smiled. His teeth were capped. His eyes roved over her again. "I believe it."
Quill's dog trotted in the open front door before Quill could give in to the almost uncontrollable impulse to break the innkeeper's first commandment. (Don't Belt the Guests.) There was general revulsion at the dog's appearance. Wherever Max had been, he'd been out rolling in it. Just what he'd been rolling in, Quill couldn't determine; it was gluey, redolent of carrion, and very brown. It was all over him.
Max had gained quite a bit of weight since Quill had rescued him from starvation earlier in the year. Dina estimated him at close to a hundred pounds, although even Quill couldn't get him to stand on the bathroom scale, so no one knew for sure.
Max stopped short and surveyed the assembled party with his head cocked to one side. He saw Myles, whom he liked, and his tail started to wag.
Max pattered farther into the lobby. Everyone moved back, like a herd of ducks avoiding an oil spill. Dina started to call a futile "here, boy, here boy." Two of the scriptwriters—the smoker and the aged adolescent—made for the stairs. Benny of the khaki shirt stood on the couch. Strickland stepped nervously behind Quill.
Max extended his forepaws, stretched, and gave Quill an idiotic grin. Tail wagging furiously, he trotted
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happily around the foyer, sniffing furiously. Dina made a dive for his collar. Max skipped aside.
Quill considered her dog for a long moment. Then she turned and whispered into Neil's ear, "That's the sheriff's dog."
"Jesus. What a piece of shit."
Quill widened her eyes. "Don't let him hear you say that! Keep your voice down! He thinks the world of that dog. A man like you should be great with dogs and kids. If you gave Dina a hand in catching him, then pet him a bit, it'd go a long way toward brightening the sheriff's mood. He's got a soft spot for anyone who likes dogs. And I'll do the rest."
Neil didn't look directly at Max. His face was twisted into the sort of expression kids had when they said, "eeeww." "Thing is," Quill confided, "the last speeder Sheriff McHale caught gave him a little grief and ..." She shrugged.
"And what?"
"No one's seen him since." She narrowed her eyes in Myles's direction. "I've heard the sheriff is heavily into the survivalists. Happens up here, you know. There's supposed to be quite a large group of them back in the woods. No one knows for sure."
Meanwhile Dina had successfully backed Max into the umbrella stand by the front door, then tried to shoo him out without getting her hands on him. Max's tail thwacked against the pottery stand with a thump-thump-thump. Brown goo flew into the air with each thump. He looked very pleased with himself.
Neil took an umbrella out of the stand and gingerly poked at Max with the handle, which, although the act
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itself was not what Quill had anticipated, delivered impressive results. Later Quill was to reflect on two things: first, most people would have approached the dog courteously. They would have crouched down and said something along the lines of "here, doggie, good dog." Max was a genial creature. He would have assumed such pleasantries were an invitation to a doggie hug. This would have cost Quill a dry-cleaning bill, but she would have paid three times that to see the smarmy Neil Strickland in his Armani suit covered with crud. And it would have made Myles laugh.
Second, in her own defense, she had no idea that Max's mysterious past must have included afl unpleasant encounter with an umbrella.
The dog went straight for Strickland's throat. It was a head-on, no-foolin' leap that knocked Strickland backward over the leather couch and into Benny. The eeriest part was the dog's silence. His jaws closed around Strickland's shirt collar with no warning growl at all.
Strickland screamed. It was a high, pure squeal of terror that made Quill's skin crawl.
Myles and John reacted simultaneously. Myles grabbed the dog's throat. John, who was quick, put both hands around Max's muzzle and held it shut. Quill found her voice and shouted, "Max! Down.*"
Max stopped wriggling. John and Myles held him fast. Quill ran to the couch. She heard Dina dialing for an ambulance and called out, "He's fine. No blood."
"Shocky," Myles commented, and he was right. Strickland's face was pale under his bottled tan. His eyes rolled up, showing the whites. He gasped for
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breath. "You might give Andy Bishop a call, Dina."
"He's in the kitchen with Meg."
"Then get him, please."
Quill looked into Max's eyes. Whatever rage had possessed him was gone. "He's okay," she said.
Myles nodded toalohn. They released their hold on Max. He leaped away, then whined and bumped Quill's knee with his head.
"Jesus," Strickland moaned.
Max growled.
"John," Quill said. "Could you take him out? Ask Doreen if she'll bathe him."
John grabbed the dog's collar and led him out of the foyer. Quill looked guiltily at Myles. "Strickland's fine, you know. His shirt's torn. But there's not a mark on him. He doesn't need Andy."
"You might, if Strickland decides to sue."
Quill bit her lip. "You're right. Thanks. Appreciate you looking out for me."
Myles smiled a little. "Us survivalists take care of our wimmin."
"You heard me!"
"As you say, I appreciate the gesture." He glanced at the couch. Benny hauled Strickland to a sitting position and began to pat his face. "Slimy sort of fellow, Quill. But isn't there an innkeeper's rule about setting the dogs on the guests?"
"Yes," Quill said, shamefaced, "but I had no idea Max would leap on him. He's never done that before, Myles. You don't think he'll really sue us, do you?"
"Strickland?" Myles shrugged slightly. "We'll work something out. Maybe before I leave to bury the body
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of the unfortunate speeder I caught before him."
"Myles, you don't have to bend any principles for me." She knew this was the wrong thing to say. She'd known it before it was halfway out of her mouth. Myles's frown was immediate.
Andy came in, followed by Meg. Quill explained briefly, then left, ostensibly in search of Mort and Eddie, who had prudently disappeared the moment Strickland screamed. There wasn't anyone in the lobby she wanted to talk to. Not Myles, not Meg. Especially not the even-tempered, perfectly nice doctor who was going to many her sister in a week.
She went out to the rose garden. The Tavern Bar would be the first destination of any scriptwriter worth his salt. But she needed time to think. So she walked restlessly around the koi pond, kicking idly at the roses.
Marge had allowed some Texas Longhom cattle to take up residence in a makeshift corral there. She'd been practical enough to transplant the more valuable of the bushes to the south side of the herb garden out back. Some of these Doreen and Dina had already brought back. Those that had remained in place were the Princess roses and the climbers such as Blaze. Texas Longhorn cattle would eat anything, and they had thrived on the thorny branches. But the climbers were tough, and the stunted bushes would be fully recovered next spring.
Next spring. Where would she be next spring? And with whom? Would Meg and Andy visit on holidays? Would Myles turn to one of the endless parade of sin-
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gle women from Cornell who thought his laconic style a cover for...
What, exactly? A man who could look at a painting and see the allusions to earlier works in it? A man who found shades in color—not absolutes? Who had a sense of place, this place, the Inn.
Is that what she wanted in Myles? Qualities he didn't have?
Quill walked to the gazebo overlooking Hemlock Gorge and went inside. She turned the rocking chair around and faced the Inn. It was a huge, sprawling building, with a copper roof and slate terraces. There were twenty-seven rooms, two suites, and a dining room, which could handle one hundred and forty. The dark green wood shakes had to be painted, repaired, attended to, every year.
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