Forever Grace by Linda Poitevin Page A

did I get here? To the bed, I mean?”
    “Well, it certainly wasn’t piggyback.” With a grunt, she hefted both his feet and tugged them around until his body had no choice but to follow, putting him more or less straight on the mattress…he thought.
    He listened to her come around to the side of the bed. Four of her faces swam into view above him. “And the answer,” they said, “is that you walked.”
    “I don’t remember.”
    Together, the Graces reached down to lift his head and shoulders, and slide a pillow under him.
    “I’d be surprised if you remember any of this tomorrow.” They smiled and brushed the hair back from his forehead. “Now close your eyes and sleep. You’ve had a long couple of days.”
    He caught one of their hands in his and held it to his cheek. “Stay?” he murmured.
    He didn’t stay awake long enough to hear her response.

CHAPTER 12
    ………………
    GRACE STOPPED IN AT THE cottage long enough to collect her cell phone from the top of the fridge and make sure the kids were safe and settled, and then she headed down to the lake shore. Two Adirondack chairs sat on the grass at the edge of the beach. She turned one so she could look out over the water but still see the cottage. Sean McKittrick’s arrival in their lives had resulted in her eyes being off the kids way too many times over the last twenty-four hours. Between that and Sean’s presence itself, her paranoia had reached all-new levels.
    With luck, Luc could put her mind at rest about at least one of those factors. She flipped open the cell phone and auto-dialed her friend and lawyer.
    “Lucien Tremaine,” a deep tenor voice boomed in her ear.
    “Luc, it’s Grace.”
    “What’s wrong?” Luc’s voice turned sharp with concern. “The kids—?”
    “The kids are fine. I’m fine. It’s nothing serious—at least, I’m hoping it’s not.”
    They’d agreed on as little phone contact as possible, she and Luc. The private detective he retained for his law practice had given her a temporary cell phone to use in case of emergency but cautioned her not to call any of her contacts with it. Not her colleagues at the job she’d taken a leave of absence from, not her friends, not even Luc unless absolutely necessary. She was to disappear, completely and utterly, and to stay that way until Barry was found.
    “There’s no such thing as too careful,” Paul Kingsley had told her. “Barry’s smart. He’s been a cop for twenty years, and he knows how to find people. You can’t just lie low; you have to be invisible.”
    “Hold on,” Luc said now.
    Across the connection, Grace heard footsteps, then a door closing. She leaned back in the chair and gazed out over the lake. Fall’s brilliant colors were beginning to fade along the shoreline, and many of the trees now stood bare of leaves. High overhead, a flock of geese winged past in their v-formation, their calls to one another made faint by distance. Grace shivered. As warm as the autumn had been so far, it wouldn’t last forever. The nights had already turned cold enough that she’d taken to stoking the wood stove again most mornings, and snow was likely less than a month off. Then what? If Barry hadn’t been caught—
    Lucien Tremaine came back on the line. “All right. Talk.”
    “Your neighbor turned up.” She didn’t have to specify which neighbor, because Luc and Sean’s cottages were the only ones at this end of the lake. The seclusion had been one of the greatest advantages to holing up here in the first place.
    “McKittrick? I didn’t think he went up there at this time of year.”
    “He’s recuperating from a broken leg.”
    “And he came to see you?”
    “More like I had to go see him.” Grace filled her friend in on the events of the last couple of days, ending with, “I just wanted to know what you and your P.I. thought. Should I sit tight here with the kids, or do I need to worry?”
    “Given that McKittrick is one of our finest, I