Do you ever see your grandparents?"

"Three times a year. Oh, God, Aunt Amabel, I hated him. But now-''

"Now you're afraid the police are looking for you. Don't worry, baby. No one would know you in that disguise."

He would, Sally thought. In a flash. "I hope not," she said. “Do you think I should keep wearing the black wig here?"

"No, I wouldn't worry. You're my niece, nothing more, nothing less. No one watches TV except for Thelma Nettro, who owns the bed-and-breakfast, and she's so old I don't even know if she can see the screen. She can hear, though. I know that for a fact.

"No, don't bother with the wig-and leave those contacts in a drawer. Not to worry. We'll just use your married name. Here you'll be Sally Brainerd."

"I can't use that name anymore, Amabel."

"All right then. We'll use your maiden name-Sally St. John. No, don't worry that anyone would ever tie you to your dead papa. Like I said, no one here pays any attention to what goes on outside the town limits. As for anyone else, why no one ever comes here-"

"Except for people who want to eat the World's Greatest Ice Cream. I like the sign out at the junction with that huge chocolate ice cream cone painted on it. You can see it a mile away, and by the time you Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

get to it, your mouth is watering. You painted the sign, didn't-you, Amabel?"

"I sure did. And you're right. People tell us they see that sign and by the time they get to the junction their car just turns toward The Cove. It's Helen Keaton's recipe, handed down from her granny. The ice cream shop used to be the chapel in the front of Ralph Keaton's mortuary. We all decided that since we had Reverend Vorhees's church, we didn't need Ralph's little chapel too." She paused, looking into a memory, and smiled. "In the beginning we stored the ice cream in caskets packed full of ice. It took every freezer in every refrigerator in this town to make that much ice."