Page 12 of Beachfront Pages

Her breath caught in her throat. "Maxwell?"

"Mystery writer. Very popular. Very efficient." He said efficient the way some people said adequate. "Hal swears by the series. Fifteen books. His wife got him started."

"I've heard of them." She kept her voice level. "The Hank Carson books."

"That's the ones. You've read them?"

"A few." All fifteen. She'd written all fifteen. In hotel rooms, on red-eyes, at the kitchen table while Drake slept upstairs. And this man had just called her life's work a well-built machine. "They're good. Clean plotting. The detective's solid."

"The detective's fine. He's functional." He shrugged. "But you'll forget him in a year. You won't forget Elizabeth Bennet. You won't forget Gatsby standing on that dock."

"People remember Hank Carson," Fiona said, and heard the edge in her own voice and dialed it back. "I mean. I've heard people say that. That they remember him."

"People remember lots of things. That doesn't make them literature."

She let it go. She had to. One more sentence and she'd be defending Hank Carson with the specific fury of the woman who'd created him, and the game would be up. She turned back to the shelf and breathed.

The local history section was small but well curated. Florida shipwrecks. A pictorial history of the Gulf Coast that looked like it had been self-published by someone's uncle. And there, tucked between two oversized volumes, a slim book with a cloth cover the color of sand. Sentinels of the Shore.

She pulled it out. The spine cracked softly when she opened it. It was filled with old photographs and technical drawings. A whole chapter on the Lockhart Lighthouse, she could see from the table of contents.

"That one's good," Marty said from behind her. She hadn't heard him come closer. "Local press, out of print. The chapter on Lockhart is the most thorough account I've seen outside of Winnie's own memory."

"I'll take it."

"You haven't looked at the price."

"I don't need to." She brought it to the counter. "How much?"

"Twelve dollars. I could charge more. It's scarce." He rang it up on the mechanical register, which made a satisfying chunk when the drawer opened. "But I'd rather it get read than sit there being valuable."

"A man of principle."

"A man of poor business instincts. There's a difference, though I'll grant you it's a fine one." He put the book in a paper bag and slid it across. "I also have a rare collection in the back room. Old journals, academic papers, and maritime documents. If you're interested in the lighthouse history, there's material you won't find anywhere else."

"Maybe next time."

"Sure. Next time." He held the bag out and their hands didn't touch, but the space between them felt smaller than it had been five minutes ago. "For what it's worth, your professor was right. Genre does the heavy lifting. I just think it could lift heavier."

"And I think literary fiction could bother to be readable."

"Now you sound like Hal."

"Hal sounds like a smart man."

"Don't tell him that. He's insufferable enough." But the almost-smile was back. A little closer to real this time. "Enjoy the lighthouse book, Fiona."

"Enjoy your Hungarian novelist nobody's going to buy."

He laughed. Short and surprised, like he hadn't planned on it. She'd caught him off guard. It changed his whole face. The stoop in his shoulders straightened half an inch. The laugh lines deepened. For one beat he looked like a totally different man.

"Come back when you've read it," he said. "I'll argue with you about that too."

"I'm sure you will."

She walked out into the sun with the paper bag against her chest. The morning opened up around her, bright and sunny. She turned left toward the harbor road and started back.

Halfway home she realized she was replaying the argument.