Grave Risk

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Epilogue

Discussion Questions

Chapter One

Fingers marched across Jill Cooper’s cheekbones like the legs of a stalking tarantula. She stiffened, eyes shut tight.

She wanted to retreat from the intrusion or jump up from this table and escape. What horrors lay behind the other doors? What had she allowed herself to be talked into? Moral support was one thing, but this—

“Too rough?”

Jill opened her eyes and looked into the upside-down face of twenty-two-year-old Sheena Marshall. “No.”

Sheena had an uncommonly bright, perky grin that matched her bright, perky voice. All the employees of this spa seemed to be infected with terminal optimism, except for Sheena’s mother, Mary Marshall, who had always been on the opposite end of that spectrum, even when Jill had graduated from high school with her twenty-seven years ago.

Today, Mary’s daughter was actually perkier than usual.

“It’s fine.” Jill wanted to ask when the sheets had last been washed on this massage table, but the question could eventually reach the ears of the owner of this establishment.

Jill was here to provide the owner—her baby sister—moral support for this venture, not to irritate her. Noelle Trask ran a tight ship, and these sheets would be pristine. She would not take kindly to having her employees verbally abused, or even questioned by a client with a few…interesting…hang-ups. Especially if that client just happened to be her bossy older sister.

Who would have thought Noelle, the wild child of Hideaway High, would have matured so well?

In fact, Noelle would be a mother before long.

That meant Jill would be an aunt. She felt her tension ease as she smiled at the thought. Aunt Jill. What a wonderful—

A sharp jab on her chin startled her. “Ouch!”

“It’s okay. Just relax,” Sheena said. “You have a few blemishes here. We can take care of that right—”

“I didn’t come here to have my pimples treated.” Noelle had warned Jill that the young masseuse tended to try to fix anything that wasn’t just right. The young woman obviously had delusions of grandeur and saw herself becoming the makeover queen. Jill refused to be her first experiment.

“I just want a nice, painless massage,” Jill said. Actually, she hadn’t even wanted that.

“Jill Cooper,” came a firm, commanding voice from another cubicle in the large, cedar-lined spa, “you agreed to do this. So do it.”

“I agreed to a massage, not to have my face poked and prodded like a—”

“Settle down and let the girl do her job.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jill replied, then muttered under her breath, “Noelle needs to get these walls soundproofed.”

“What’s that?” Edith Potts called again.

“Nothing. Sorry. I’ll be good. I’m having a simply magnificent time.” Could Edith hear the sarcasm?

“That’s my girl.”

Nope. Edith had never understood the subtleties of irony. The lady simply said what she thought.

Sheena returned to her massaging, distracted from her makeover project. “Will wonders never cease. Edith Potts must be the only person in town you can’t boss around.”

Jill scowled up at her, and Sheena smiled back, wagging her blond eyebrows, which had been plucked to the point that she looked permanently surprised.

The twit was right, of course. Jill would do anything for Edith. Eighty-three-year-old Edith Potts, retired principal of Hideaway High, could claim friendship with the majority of Hideaway’s residents as well as a few of the flocks of tourists who escaped to this tiny lakeside village every year.

To Jill, her elderly friend epitomized courage. Since Jill often felt as if she, herself, epitomized the exact opposite, she had always been drawn to Edith’s independent, nurturing spirit. It was Edith who had found a school nurse position for Jill here in Hideaway when tragedy necessitated that Jill would have to return home and stay nearby for the family business.

Once again closing her eyes, Jill tried to give herself over to the relaxation Sheena had promised. “This honey and almond cream smells heavenly.”