The Unforgiven Read Online Free Page A

office and stepped inside. The narrow, stuffy office was filled to bursting with oversize chairs, a sofa, and an assortment of end tables. On one table was a vase filled with dusty plastic geraniums and tulips. At the end of the room was a large desk, piled high with papers and folders. Behind the desk an old man in a sea captain’s cap sat eating a sandwich and studying a chart. He looked up at the sound of the bell and peered at Maggie over his bifocals, wiping yellow mustard off his white mustache with the back of his hand.
    Maggie glanced down at the signs that rested on the edge of his desk. One read, Plan Ahead with the letters dribbling down the margin of the plaque. The other read, Henry Blair.
    “Mr. Blair?” she asked.
    “At your service,” replied the old man jauntily, placing the half-eaten cheese sandwich atop a pile of papers.
    “I’m interrupting your lunch,” she apologized.
    “No problem,” he insisted. “What can I do for you? Sit down, Miss…?”
    “Fraser,” Maggie said, taking a seat. “I’m looking fora place to rent. An apartment. Or a small cottage, here in town.”
    “How long do you want it for?” asked the old man in a gravelly voice.
    Maggie shrugged. “Indefinitely.”
    “You moving here, to the island?” asked Henry Blair.
    “I have a job at the paper,” Maggie admitted.
    “Well, well, okay,” said the realtor, shifting some of his papers around and knocking over his sandwich in the process. “Where you staying now?” he asked.
    “Well, I spent the night at the Four Winds.”
    “So, you need something right away.”
    “As soon as possible,” Maggie replied.
    “Can’t stay in hotels. Too expensive. You need a place.”
    Maggie smiled wanly in agreement.
    The old man stood up and shuffled over to an army green file cabinet in the corner. “You know the island?” he asked.
    Maggie shook her head.
    “Mmmmm,” he murmured, extracting a folder, then resuming his seat. He drummed on the desk top as he squinted at the papers inside. “I haven’t got too much right here in town. Nothing that’s really comfortable, you know.”
    “Nothing?” she asked worriedly.
    The old man made a clicking noise. “Not much. There’s a little apartment above the luncheonette, but that’s not very nice for a lady like you.”
    Maggie glanced mournfully out the front window at the rain, which the wind was sweeping down Main Street. “It might be all right,” she said.
    “You’d do a lot better out of town,” the old man advised her. “Lots of houses sitting empty. There’s folks with homes here who have two or three houses around the country. Only spend a week or two here in the summer. You can rent one of them for a song. Just take your vacation somewhere the same time these folks come back to their houses. Works out perfect. We’ve got a lot of folks here who do that.”
    Maggie sighed. “It sounds very nice, but I imagine you need a car to live out there. I can’t. I don’t have a car.”
    “No car. That’s a problem,” the old man muttered. “You don’t drive, you say?”
    “Oh, I can drive,” Maggie said, wondering to herself how soon the license she had applied for would come through. She also wondered if she still would remember how. “I just don’t have a car.”
    “Wait a minute,” said the old man, tugging on his mustache, “I might just have something for you.” He stood up and shuffled back to the file cabinet, replacing the folder he had and pulling out another. “Just one darn minute here. Aha!” He smiled cheerfully at her, revealing two missing lower teeth.
    “What is it?” Maggie worked her hands in her lap.
    “The Thornhill place,” Blair exulted. “It’s way out there. On Liberty Road. Out past the cemetery. Nice house. Very nice. Not too big, but very comfortable. A lot of property around it, so it’s private. And,” he paused for effect, “there’s an old Buick in the garage which they let with the place.”
    “It sounds