Olivia wasn’t buying it, judging by her lingering look. He ordered himself to be cool, but heat traveled up his neck.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asked by way of diversion. There was a hardcore group of four town elders who congregated at the store every morning for coffee. They all owned or were retired from local businesses and had been sharing coffee and conversation every morning for as long as Sawyer could remember. But only two were in attendance this morning—Karl, the proprietor of Lakeside Hardware, and Pearl, who got up early to get the baking started at Pie with Pearl, then stopped in at Lakeside after handing things off to an employee.

“Eiko’s out looking at a crop circle near Hensall.”

Eiko Anzai owned the Moonflower Bay Monitor, and though she was constantly professing a desire to retire and hand the newspaper off to a new editor, she was often out chasing down the news—or, when there wasn’t any, inventing it.

“It’s just kids pulling a prank,” Sawyer said. “The Ontario Provincial Police looked into it last week.” Not that facts would stop Eiko from putting it on the front page.

“And Art is checking in on Carol Dyson,” Pearl said, accounting for Art Ramsey, the other missing member of their quartet.

Right. Carol had just had hip surgery. He made a mental note to check in with her daughter, who cut hair at Curl Up and Dye, the beauty salon Carol owned, to see if she needed anything.

“I brought her a lemon meringue yesterday,” Pearl said.

Olivia, who had been listening silently to the conversation, took a step back, judging—correctly—that the chatter was ramping up and that she’d better escape while she could. When she reached the car door, she raised one hand in a sign-off salute to Sawyer. He nodded, relieved. Not that he wanted to get rid of her per se, but his immediate aim was to try to figure out how the hell he was going to survive this coming year.

“Carol says the recovery is steady but slower than it was with her other hip.” Pearl blew out a breath. “Getting old sucks.”

“It’s better than getting dead,” Karl said.

“Hear, hear.” Pearl lifted her coffee mug and clinked it against Karl’s. “Speaking of getting dead, I saw Eve Abbott driving into town on my way over. She has a sporty little red car, but it looks like it’s about to fall apart.”

A spike of panic pierced Sawyer’s gut. “How do you get from ‘getting dead’ to Eve Abbott?” He forced his voice to be calm. Surely if something had actually happened to Evie between when his sister saw her and now, Pearl would have led with that.

“Because Eve Abbott is here because Lucille Abbott is dead,” Pearl said with her characteristic forthrightness.