Page 35 of Beachfront Pages

She thought of Emily's eight paintings and Grant counting them. She thought of Bryan, who never sat down because feeding people was how he loved them. She thought of how she'd had a husband for twenty-six years and couldn't, right this second, name one thing she'd done that matched the certainty in Grant's voice when he told Emily she'd fill that wall.

She'd written Drake into a book once. The fourth Hank Carson. She'd given a character his way of going quiet when he was angry, his habit of straightening things that were already straight. She'd thought it was a kind of love letter, putting him in there.

When he read it, he'd said, "So that's what I am to you. Material."

Maybe he'd been right about that too.

Then she caught herself.

"When did you turn into this?" she said to the dark.

Because that was the real question. Somewhere in the last six months she'd become a woman who sat alone in borrowed rooms feeling sorry for herself because other people had managed to be happy. She'd written fifteen detectives with more spine than that. Hank Carson wouldn't have lasted five minutes on this couch.

The thought almost made her smile. Almost.

Her phone buzzed in her bag.

She dug it out. The screen was too bright in the dark, and she squinted at it. A text from Emily.

Get home okay? You looked a little wrecked. The grouper does that to people. Come see the paintings whenever. No pressure. xo

Fiona stared at it longer than a one-line text deserved.

Home safe, she typed back. Thank you for tonight. I'd love to see them.

She almost added, I'm not actually fine. Her thumb hovered over it.

She deleted it and sent the safe version instead.

"Coward," she told the room.

The phone stayed lit in her hand, and her thumb found the voicemail before she'd thought it through. Rachel's name, three days old. She pressed play and let it run in the dark.

"Hi, it's me, calling again, which you know, because this is the part where I pretend I'm not worried." Rachel's voice filled the dark cottage, brisk but tinged with fondness, and a thousand miles away. "Call me back. The offer's still on the table and it's a good one, Fiona. They want you. The real you. I keep telling them they have no idea what they're asking for." A pause. "Just tell me you're okay. That's all I need. One word."

The message ended. The beam came around again. Silver, then gone.

She pulled her knees up onto the couch, the way she hadn't done since she was a girl, and wrapped her arms around them. A few feet away her phone went dark on the couch. Across the courtyard, somebody's porch light came on.

She looked at it for a long time and didn't get up.

Chapter 12

The fan over the register had been losing to the heat since the middle of the day, and Marty had stopped expecting it to win. He'd propped the front door open for whatever breeze the harbor felt like sending, which so far was none. The afternoon light had gone long and gold across the floorboards. Closing time, more or less. He was thinking about the kettle and the quiet when Hal Gardner came in out of the glare.

"Marty." Hal had his hat off already, fanning himself with it. "Lord, it's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Donna tried it once. Years ago. Made a mess and a point both."

"Hal." Marty set down the stack he'd been shelving. "I'd about given you up."

"I know it. I know it." Hal came to the counter looking sheepish, which was not his usual look. "I owe you an apology on that. You ordered me the Maxwell and I never came for it. We were up in the Carolinas the whole month. Donna's sister. You can't say no to Donna's sister."

"The book's been under the counter waiting on you." Marty bent and found it, the Maxwell book in its slick paper jacket, a rain-dark alley and a single lit window on the front. He set it down between them. "Number fifteen. The last one out, anyway."

"You're a saint." Hal patted the cover. "I told Donna, I said, Marty'll have held it. He holds things. It's about the one nice thing about him."

"It's the deposit, mostly. You paid half up front."

"See, there he is." Hal pointed at him, delighted. "There's the man I know."