Page 60 of The Summer Guests

“But you haven’t been entirely honest either. About where you went after you left Zoe Conover at the pond. You told me you planned to kill a man.”

He broke off his gaze and looked instead at the window. “I didn’t mean it. It’s just something I said. Anyway, it’s not relevant.”

“It’s relevant to me. You haven’t given me a straight answer. You’ve even lied to your own granddaughter about where you went. If you won’t be straight about this, how can I believe anything you tell me?”

He let out a breath, heavy with regret. At that moment, he appeared older, wearier, than she’d ever seen him. “Really, Maggie? After everything we’ve been through, you don’t trust me?”

“You told the police you drove to Augusta to look at tractor parts. That’s what you told Callie too. But my friends and I checked every farm equipment store in the area, and no one remembers seeing you that day.”

He was silent.

“The police know you drove straight through Augusta and continued to Lewiston. What was in Lewiston?”

“There’s a man there. I owe him money.”

“Why not just mail him a check?”

“I don’t want it to show up in my bank records.”

“You pay him in cash?”

“Yes.”

“Who is he?”

“It’s not important.”

“Tell me his name, Luther.”

He stared at the table. At his hands, mottled and worn from years of farmwork and harsh weather. “His name is Jesse Bass.”

“What does this man have on you?”

“On me? Nothing.”

“If it looks like blackmail and it quacks like blackmail—”

“It’s not blackmail! It’s ...” He sighed. “It’s to make him stay away. To keep him from ruining our lives.”

“How can he ruin your lives?”

“He’s Callie’s father.”

Maggie stared back at him in shock. “Herfather?”

“Sometimes, I think it reallywouldbe easier just to kill him,” said Luther. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. Ever since he showed up on my doorstep in Boston, demanding money. It was the year after my daughter died. He’d just gotten out of prison for dealing drugs. The same drugs that killed my Daphne. Callie was only three years old then. She was my whole life, and here was this piece of—offilththreatening to take her from me.”

“The courts would never give him custody.”

“That’s what you would think, but heisher father. He could have caused no end of trouble. He’s the reason I lost my daughter, and I didn’t want him anywhere near Callie. So I paid him off and told him to stay away.”

“And then you moved to Maine.”

He nodded. “I walked away from the university. Bought this property, built this cabin. Made it a home. I thought we’d made our escape. I thought that was it, we were done with him. Then last year, he found us again. He wanted more money, of course.”

“He can’t take her, Luther, not now. She’s old enough to decide where she wants to live.”

“But she’s still too young to deal with the truth about who her father is.Whathe is. Maybe when she turns eighteen, when she’s ready to handle the truth, I’ll tell her. But not now. Now I have to keep him away from her.”