Page 5

R ory rolled into Hazard in a nondescript black rental sedan…

on purpose. He didn’t want to attract any attention, so he had left his classic restored Chevy Cordair in storage.

As he pulled onto Main Street in the town he had once called home, he glanced around.

Yep, place looked the same. He took a spin around the town green, the leaves on the maples in the square beginning to turn myriad shades from bright yellow to vibrant red to crispy brown.

He did love autumn. And his bandmates were right—this was the season when he wrote most of their new songs. But a love ballad was the last choice he would make right now. Stalker-girl had him turned off at any idea of romance.

It had started innocently enough, with her sending him love letters like she was a teenager with a crush.

Then, she had sent him letters that were, well, a bit more suggestive—so obviously not a teenager—and then the letters got just plain weird.

She knew stuff about his life that she shouldn’t know, like how he frequented the noodle place around the corner from his apartment and the location of the parking garage where he paid to store his car.

That was not stuff she should have been able to figure out.

Not unless she was living in New York, in his neighborhood, and was seriously devoted to watching him.

At first, he had tried to figure out if it was one of his neighbors.

He’d quit going to the noodle shop and started studying everyone in line when he picked up coffee in the morning.

He didn’t look the same as he did on stage.

He wore rock star black leather with stylishly ripped plain black T-shirts on stage.

In real life, he wore blue jeans and graphic tees.

And who really looked at the keyboardist in the band? Nolan had a point.

Stalker-girl had materialized out of nowhere.

First just a regular fan, asking for an autographed picture.

How she managed to reach out to him directly hadn’t been an immediate red flag.

It just happened. He’d directed her to Nolan to handle.

He had staff to deal with that nonsense.

And if it made the fans happy, so be it.

He preferred fans who appreciated his music, his art—not his appearance.

He’d never considered himself much to look at anyway.

He’d spent most of his childhood here in Hazard on the sidelines.

Staying indoors taking the piano lessons his mother had insisted on.

She was old school in that respect, believing musical training would improve his school grades.

It had. His mom had that right, up until the day she’d deserted his dad and him and taken off with an aging concert pianist to Vienna.

She’d never come back. And even though Rory associated his hated piano lessons with his mom, right after she left everything had clicked, turning the lessons he’d detested into his favorite escape.

Those lessons had quickly transformed into a way to avoid his unhappiness and the cruelty of schoolmates.

Red hair had made him different, and different was bad.

Plus, he’d been gangly and not good at sports until he reached his twenties.

A late bloomer, he guessed. He’d spent his youth on the outside looking in.

He’d started working at the hardware store at sixteen and saved his money.

By nineteen, he’d scrambled his way out of this podunk nowhere town.

So what was he doing back here?

He turned from Main to Worthy, to Endeavor to Hazard.

All still looked the same, mostly. His granddad’s grocery was on Worthy Street next to the thrift store.

Across the way, it looked as if someone had taken the Hazard Inn on as a project.

It was freshly painted a soft yellow, with amber trim, and…

wow. Beautiful. Its tiny half circle of brick steps invited unwary guests to enter.

That was an improvement. In high school, it had been a dare to stay the night in the haunted inn. The three-story colonial had been downright weird. Rumors abounded of strange noises, creaking and groaning and moaning, like the voice of a wind god announcing displeasure at being disturbed.

“Oh, it’s just the breeze,” the adults had said, but he’d known better. The old inn had a seriously eerie vibe. It had creeped him out and nearly destroyed him.

Had someone from the community actually sought to bring the place back to life? It seemed unlikely. The spooky stories had been too prevalent. It was probably an unsuspecting dupe from out of the area tricked into purchasing the inn with dreams of grandeur. Well, good luck with that.

Rory hit the gas and headed out to visit his granddad at his fancy mansion, Agate Point, soon to be open for tours.

When it rose into view just past the gazebo in Cliffside Park, he stopped the car and let it idle.

He gazed out at the impressive mansion. Built in 1920 at the end of the Beaux-Arts era of architecture, it was a typical specimen of art deco.

He had spent afternoons there growing up.

That was where the honest-to-goodness full-sized grand piano was, where his lessons had been.

His fingers twitched at the thought of running them over those ivory and ebony keys again.

The sound that came from the Steinway the paneling shone in exquisite detail.

Even the wallpaper looked fresh, and he suspected it was original to the house.

How had that been accomplished? Newly painted walls throughout the hallways still had that odor of freshness.

And the rugs were all cleaned and thick and gorgeous under his feet.

He could see why he wouldn’t be allowed to hang out on the first two floors.

They were now showcased as authentic to the era.