They say you can't go home again and when it comes to someone with an old score to settle, sometimes you'd better not. That's what Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree discovers when the past she thought she'd laid to rest comes calling at her lovingly restored 1823 Federal -style house in Eastport, Maine. Unfortunately, her old life and her new one are about to collide with deadly consequences. Praise for Sarah Graves and the Home Repair Is Homicide series   “Think Diane Mott Davidson with a tool belt instead of recipes.”— The Denver Post   “Like a runaway home renovation project, the appeal for her books keeps getting larger." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   “Just hearing her list the ways you can kill yourself fixing up an old house . . . is a hoot.”— The New York Times Book Review   “What distinguishes the novel are its likable, no-nonsense protagonist-narrator, her references to home repair that the author cleverly fits tongue-and-groove into the story and, especially, the detailed descriptions of the town.” — Los Angeles Times   “Graves makes rehabbing shutters and other chores suspenseful.” — The Boston Globe   “Nail-biting suspense that ensnares the reader . . . full of courageous women and compelling action. Highly recommended.”— Library Journal "Memorable characters and helpful household tips enhance a dark cozy that will keep the reader turning the pages until the surprising and dramatic conclusion." -PW Sarah Graves lives with her husband in an 1823 Federal-style house in Eastport, Maine, where her mystery novels are set. When she is not scraping, painting, glazing, sanding, hammering, or otherwise repairing (or failing to repair!) the old house, she is working on her next Home Repair Is Homicide novel. Chapter 1 Remove dark stains from wooden floors by dabbing the stained area only with half-strength bleach. Rinse and repeat until the stain is gone, then recolor the lightened spot, if necessary, with wood stain and an artist's brush. --Tiptree's Tips HER NAME WAS JACOBIA TIPTREE--JAKE, TO HER FRIENDS--and on that bright day in July twelve years after the Manhattan meeting, she was scraping loose paint off the porch steps of her big old house in Eastport, Maine, when the guy on the bike went by again. Or she'd thought the paint would be loose, anyway. But as her son Sam always said, hope springs infernal, and the reality was something else again. Meanwhile: Pedaling slowly, looking right at her, the guy on the bike frowned as if he'd just sniffed a spoiled carton of milk. He was decent enough looking otherwise, clean-shaven and neatly dressed. But this was his third trip past her home in the last half-hour. And each time he went by, he'd been staring at her in that same unpleasant, almost accusing way. Still holding the scraper, she got up, trying to recall where she'd seen his sour expression before. That she had seen it she felt certain, but on somebody else's face. A similar face. The guy turned the corner, not looking back. She stood there another moment, wondering. But then with a mental shrug she knelt by the steps once more and returned to work. After all, it was nearly the Fourth of July, and the remote island town of Eastport--three hours from Bangor, light-years from anywhere else--was full of tourists. No doubt the bicyclist was one of them, and she really had seen him around, somewhere. As for his riding by so often, maybe he liked the house. She had when, upon finding Eastport over a decade ago, she'd fallen instantly in love with the old place. Now from the porch steps she pictured it as she'd first seen it: An 1823 white clapboard Federal with three stories plus an attic, it had three red-brick chimneys and forty-eight windows, each with a pair of green shutters. Among its other selling points were a huge yard, a fireplace in every room, and original hardwood floors. Unfortunately, it had also been a wreck. Under nearly two hundred years' worth of charm lay nearly as many of neglect; she'd had to get the wiring redone and the chimneys rebuilt, and it had needed painting. All of which she'd had done, for an amount slightly less than it would've cost to bulldoze the place and start over. Back then, she'd known no better; nowadays, mostly from necessity, she was a halfway decent home-repair enthusiast. But it wasn't only about money. Scrape off enough old paint, patch enough plaster, sand the wood floors and rehabilitate half a hundred antique windows plus shutters, and you too could begin feeling that maybe--just maybe--you'd rehabilitated yourself. Too bad the half she was any good at was so rarely the half that needed doing. This time, she'd decided to paint all the parts of the house that she could reach and farm out the high work. The plan had seemed reasonable as she was formulating it. But for one thing, the porch was massive. So there was a lot of old paint to scrape off before the new could go on. Also, the peeling bits clung like barnacles. Wielding th