1
Amanda Grady had never meant to follow in her father’s footsteps.
Growing up in a small town where your dad is the local police chief isn’t exactly a good time.
Maybe briefly, in grade school, when six- and seven-year-olds were enthralled with shiny badges and commanding uniforms. Come middle school, forget it.
Shereford, by virtue of its limited size, sent its teenagers off to a collective high school two towns over. Sigh of relief. Finally, Mandy could be Mandy.
Nope. First day, her father insisted on dropping her off in his cruiser. Then he stood there in full uniform, giving the dead-man’s stare to anyone who so much as glanced in her direction.
Mandy had cried that night. Possibly every night for most of high school. Then, being the sensible sort, she’d gotten the hell out of Dodge. Fuck small-town life. Fuck nosy neighbors and claustrophobic community. For that matter, fuck her family.
Every teenager has that moment. Mandy took her rebellion all the way to New York City, where she ultimately became a tattoo artist while dating only men with criminal records and women with interesting piercings.
Her father had a conniption, but in his dad-like way, he did an excellent job of radiating disapproval without ever saying a word.
Her mother was much more practical. “Certainly, you must be you. Be as much you as you can handle. And then, when you remember you’re also part us, you know where we’ll be. ”
Mandy returned to the fold seven years and several heartbreaks later. But no real regrets. She stood by that, though her mother took most of the credit. Of course, Mandy had to be a hundred percent Mandy. Then and only then could Mandy grow into the rest of herself. Welcome home, Mandy.
There were times Mandy was definitely grinding her teeth through these exchanges.
But yeah, she returned to Shereford. Bartended in the winter.
Took up landscaping work in the summer. Skied and hiked in between.
Dating scene sucked. Forget there being other twentysomethings.
The outdoor adventurers from her class had long taken off for Colorado or Utah, places with “real mountains,” while the brainiacs had headed for Boston, and everyone else had gone everywhere else.
Basically, no one who grew up in Shereford stayed in Shereford.
And yet, here she was, working three jobs at any given time, while dating online because the local pond was beyond overfished.
Her dad died.
Chief Ian Grady. Bastion of the community.
Not just revered and partially feared—as any good cop should be—but also beloved.
Mandy could never figure out who cried more, her, her mother, or the endless trail of neighbors streaming in and out of their house.
It felt like it went on forever but was probably more like five days.
Massive cardiac event, Mandy learned, was code for one day the person you love most in the world is alive and healthy, and the next instant, he’s not.
And you’ll never be the same again.
Within a matter of months, Mandy had moved back in with her mom, who suddenly couldn’t seem to remember to eat or pay bills or, some days, get out of bed.
In the beginning, Mandy assumed it was due to depression, but then when other troubling symptoms appeared…
Mandy laid her mother to rest next to her father almost exactly one year later.
Twenty-nine years old. No family ties. No personal obligations.
She could go anywhere. Do anything. Be anyone.
Which is why even she questioned her desire to suddenly take night classes in criminal justice, finishing up her on-again, off-again pursuit of a college degree, while also spending time hanging out on the shooting range with the other local cops, many of whom remembered her from when she was “this tall” and spoke of her father with such awe she couldn’t decide if she was honoring his memory or castigating herself.
Maybe she longed for the sense of security she’d always felt in his presence.
Slowly but surely, however, she came to realize she could now find it in herself.
Either way, when her father’s successor, a total misogynistic SOB, was forced to resign due to a criminal indictment (his own), it seemed perfectly logical for Mandy to step up.
Most likely out of respect for her dad, the locals welcomed her with open arms.
She tried very hard not to cry when she was being sworn in. Tried to picture her father and his stiff upper lip. Be their friend, while retaining your objectivity. A good cop is close to his community, but he’s always the outsider looking in.
Five years later, she remained faithful to Chief Grady’s stewardship. Every traffic stop or home visit was an exercise in WWMFD? What would my father do?
She wasn’t quite that dependent anymore, but she’d be lying if she said Ian Grady didn’t cast a long shadow.
Which made the news that the old Dixon property had finally sold particularly interesting.
Not just because the two-hundred-fifty-year-old family homestead was changing hands, but because everyone knew why the expansive Dixon clan, with their dozens of aunts, uncles, and cousins, had all agreed to give it up.
After what had happened thirty years ago to Dave, Janet, and their four kids…
None of the rest of the family had ever been able to step foot on the property again. Which still hadn’t made the sale a slam dunk when it hit the real estate market. The grand home might have a multimillion-dollar view, but it also had an infamous past.
There’d been some lookers in the beginning, but no takers. Then as years had stretched into decades with the property falling further into neglect, then disrepair, then flat-out decay, not to mention becoming the Halloween attraction of choice for local teens…
Town opinions were split between people with nostalgia over their own misspent youths double-dog daring each other to step over the threshold, and those who wanted to tear it down before anyone (one of our kids) got hurt (or pregnant).
Then, lo and behold, five months ago, the estate went under contract in a single afternoon. Cash deal, according to the rumors. One brief inspection later, bada bing, bada boom, the Dixon house had a family again.
Word on the street: Young couple in their thirties.
Bigwigs from Boston. Possibly looking to turn the place into a high-end B and B.
He was an investment guru, she was an interior decorator.
They had to be either positively brilliant at their jobs to have had so much financial success at their modest ages or trust funders to take on such a money pit.
They had only just arrived in person, though an entire hive of contractors—electrical, plumbing, HVAC—had been buzzing around the property for months. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Arrogant Massholes, no doubt about it, claimed some.
Others were simply curious. What kind of couple thought a notorious crime scene (one that still appeared in rotation on the True Crime Network no less!) would be a good home, let alone business model?
Mandy included herself among the genuinely intrigued.
Which was why she was driving up to the old homestead to welcome the newcomers in person.
And check out, one more time, the unsolved mystery that had haunted her father to the grave.
Mandy had to give the couple credit: Stick season in New England—the time from the last autumn leaf falling to the first snowflake flying—wasn’t for just anyone.
Everywhere you looked, brown, brown, hey, more brown.
Compared to the magical white-capped peaks of winter, lush green of summer, and glorious copper hues of fall, stick season was, well, stick season.
If the newbies could handle the frigid temps, stark views, and genuine isolation of a remote tourist town sans tourists, maybe they were cut out for Shereford after all.
Mandy had made enough rounds of the property during her time—especially in October—to know the grounds well.
It was still faintly surprising to see a souped-up black Porsche SUV parked directly outside the tired-looking structure, let alone signs of cleanup around the immediate exterior.
Piles of brush and forest debris, topped with several smaller, chainsawed limbs.
So Mr. and Mrs. Boston had some DIY enthusiasm.
Hard to make a go of it in these parts if you didn’t.
Toward the rear of the property had once stood the original Dixon barn, repurposed by later generations into a garage.
It had collapsed ten years ago after a particularly brutal winter of record snowfalls.
Though again, that was subject to debate.
The old timers claimed anything built by the original settlers was made to last. The size of the support beams, hand-hewn from oak back in the days when the trees were trees and the men were men, blah, blah, blah.
Nah, they liked to postulate, the barn didn’t cave in from yet another New Hampshire winter.
It simply surrendered. Cast off by the Dixon family, it lost its heart.
Or succumbed to the weight of its own failure? Mandy always wondered. Because if it had been built by Dixon hands to safely shelter those of Dixon blood, well, thirty years ago it hadn’t exactly gotten the job done.
She parked behind the Porsche, bracing herself for the early winter bite. First big storm of the season was forecasted for end of week, a true nor’easter, possibly dumping up to eighteen inches. No doubt about it, winter was coming.
Another deep breath, then she popped open her door and stepped out of her vehicle.
And encountered the new couple in person, already waiting for her on the front porch. His smile was broad and welcoming, hers fainter but still polite. While both of them…
Could there be two more beautiful people in the world?
Tall, dark, athletic meets sultry, feminine sex appeal.
He had perfectly chiseled features accented by an artfully cultivated five-o’clock shadow.
She had stunning hazel eyes framed by tumbling locks of russet-colored hair.
Both were clad in Aspen chic: cashmere sweaters, down vests, and form-fitting pants.
Her ensemble was in shades of brown, his in blue, as in earth meets sky.
Mandy actually paused midstep. Wait till the locals get a look at this, she thought.
Followed by, so this is who would buy a fixer-upper with a multimillion-dollar view and blood-soaked past. A couple too rich and pretty to give a damn.
Their funeral, she thought. Then she truly wished she’d picked a different expression.