“You asked yesterday if I had any questions. Well, I do.”

Ava looked up to see Scott standing in the doorway.

“Hi,” he said, not moving into the room. “I didn’t realize this was your studio. I was just walking by and I saw you working. Then I remembered what you’d said about questions.”

“Questions?”

“About the tile-making process.” He took a notebook from his pocket. “How do you actually make them?”

She glanced at him long enough to tell that he wasn’t here to talk about tiles. He wanted to know more about her mother’s disappearance. Fine. If he wasn’t going to come clean, she’d make him pay the price. She launched into a detailed explanation of paint pigments, moved on to glazes and anything else she could think of to throw into her monologue. When she saw his eyes start to glass over, she began a dissertation on firing techniques.

“That’s the short, simplistic answer,” she said twenty minutes later.

“Interesting,” he said.

“You stopped taking notes about fifteen minutes ago,” Ava said. “And interesting is one of those words people use when they can’t think of anything else to say.”

He looked at her for a full five seconds. “Interesting.”

Dear Reader,

I’m sure most of you have felt that tug of nostaglia when you return to places you knew as a child. I know I have. For me, it’s a wistful feeling, a yearning to recapture something that seems as elusive as smoke. I’ve found that it’s equally impossible to explain. No one but me really understands exactly how magical the lights along the seafront in Ramsgate, Kent, seemed when I was fifteen and in love—or imagined I was. Or, except for my sister, the specific taste of ice cream from Stonelees, a dairy that opened only during the summer. A few years ago, I went back to England and took that same walk—the ice cream parlor had long gone. Some things had changed, others were as I remembered them, but the magic wasn’t there. I couldn’t—no matter how hard I tried—feel the way I had at fifteen.

For Ava, the heroine of Suspicion, the childhood that she and her twin sister, Ingrid, spent on the island of Santa Catalina, twenty-two miles off the Southern California coast (didn’t the Beachboys say it was twenty-six?—they were wrong) was an enchanted time full of wonder and promise. After her husband dies early in their marriage, and a few years later her mother mysteriously drowns, Ava begins to wonder how much of her past was truly as idyllic as she recalls, and to what extent her memories have been colored by what she wants to believe….

I love to hear from readers. Please visit my Web site at janicemacdonald.net and let me know how you enjoyed this book.

Janice Macdonald

P.S. If you ever visit Southern California, take the Catalina Express over to Avalon. It truly is a magical place, no matter how old you are.

Suspicion
Janice Macdonald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Carolyn, who always lets me sing “Pineapple Princess.”

Acknowledgments:

I’d like to thank Deanna Shiew of C & S Ceramics & Crafts in Muskogee, Oklahoma, for all the details she provided on the tile-making process. If there are any errors in description, they are mine alone. Deanna was truly a tireless and invaluable source of information.

Thanks also to www.cataromance.com. The e-mail loop and the willingness of its members to offer their expertise on an absolutely amazing range of topics is truly a writer’s boon.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“I KEEP HAVING this dream. I’m looking down into the water and I can see my mother’s face staring up at me….” Ava Lynsky held the fingertips of her left hand in the palm of her right and squeezed hard. Her skin felt numb and icy-cold, her chest hurt. “And then it isn’t her. It’s me or my sister, and every time we come up to the surface, something pushes us down again.”

“Something?” the therapist asked.

“A hand.”

“Do you know whose hand it is?”

Ava didn’t answer. Through the tinted windows she could see the small square structure of Avalon Municipal Hospital through a clearing of eucalyptus trees. Her father was one of two Catalina Island physicians on staff there. She imagined him looking through the windows to see her sitting in a psychologist’s office. Could imagine the mixture of incredulity and contempt on his face. Neurotic, he would say. Can’t stand neurotic women.

“Ava.”

She looked at the therapist. “Hmm?”

“Whose hand is it?”

Ava shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“When did you start having these dreams?”

“They started after my mother…” She couldn’t seem to finish.

“After your mother died,” the therapist said.

The word reverberated in Ava’s head, clanged like a bell, louder and louder. She hugged herself, hands tucked under her arms, pressing down hard. Her heart felt swollen in her chest. “It’s been three months now. I stay up most of the night because I dread going to sleep. I can’t work. I’ve started a dozen different things and they’re all awful and I’ve got this new commission and I’m scared to death.”

“What do you think the dream represents?”

She looked at the therapist, a cool, thin-faced woman from the mainland sitting upright in her chair, hands folded neatly in her lap. She wore brown linen slacks and a cream silk blouse.

“Ava, whose hand is pushing you down?”

Ava shook her head. The silence lengthened, began to feel unbearable. She had an insane urge to scream. An ear-shattering scream like a siren, bouncing off the walls, bringing everyone outside to see what had happened. The therapist had brown hair, cut close to her head. She seemed so… Ava tried to think of a word. Controlled. Yes, that was it. Ava glanced around the room. Two of the plastic slats on the miniblinds were twisted, the framed print on the wall was a Matisse, a bridge and trees, all green and wavery like an underwater scene. God, she couldn’t stand the silence. Her chest was bursting, the scream welling up inside her. Help me.

“Ava, our time’s up.” The therapist stood and moved to her desk. “I’ll be here on the island again next Monday.” She opened a black appointment book and smiled at Ava. “Does this time work for you?”

“Yes,” Ava said, then, “Uh, actually, no.” She smiled so that the therapist wouldn’t take this personally. “I think I just need to figure things out for myself.”

The therapist eyed her for a moment. “Well, you have my number.” She took a business card from a black plastic holder on the desk. “My after-hours number is there, too.”

SCOTT CAMPBELL sat under one of the woven umbrellas at the Descanso Beach Club and tried not to feel irritated that Ava Lynsky was now ten minutes late for their ten-thirty interview. There were worse places to wait for someone to show up. He glanced around the sun-splashed patio just to make sure he hadn’t missed her. He’d never met Ava Lynsky, but she’d described herself when she called to set up the interview. “Long black hair and…” She’d laughed. “Some people say I look kind of like Andie MacDowell.”

Scott glanced at his watch again. Flipped open his notebook, drew a square and then another interlocking square. On the way to interview her, he’d paid a quick visit to the Catalina Historical Society. Back in the mid 1880s the Lynskys had briefly held deed to the island. Later, after it changed hands again, Samuel Lynsky had been partners in the Santa Catalina Island Company. By the time chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley bought the island in 1919, Lynsky and his growing family were involved in just about every aspect of Catalina commerce, from silver and zinc mining to hotel construction and steamship transportation.

Ava Lynsky was an artist. Decorative tiles, she’d told him. His notion of tiles was the type sold in boxes in the flooring department of home-improvement stores; he had no idea what decorative tiles were, but apparently she had a gallery full of them. She’d called to arrange publicity for an upcoming reception. The purpose of today’s interview was to give him some background.

He was more interested in the death of her mother. Three months ago, Diana and Sam Lynsky III had boarded their twenty-six-foot Columbia, Ramblin’ On, and set out for a sail to mark their fortieth wedding anniversary. They’d eaten lunch around noon and then Sam Lynsky, recovering from a bout of flu, had taken a nap in the aft cabin. When he awoke an hour or so later, he told sheriff’s deputies later that day, his wife was gone. A land-and-sea search turned up no sign of the body, and although the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department had not officially closed the case, the consensus was that Diana Lynsky had drowned.

Ava’s father was a local pediatrician, a cofounder of the island’s small municipal hospital and something of a local legend. As the father of a fourteen-year-old daughter, Ellie, whose behavior of late invariably left him scratching his head, Scott was particularly interested in the child-rearing book Lynsky had written. Dr. Sam’s Unorthodox, Iconoclastic and Occasionally Hilarious Guide to Child Raising was prominently displayed in the local bookstore.

Sam Lynsky had offered to take him on a tour of the island that afternoon, and Scott planned to use the opportunity to find out what child-rearing advice the doctor might have. The prospect of Ellie’s upcoming visit filled him with an equal mix of dread and anticipation. Anger at himself, too. Where along the way had he lost touch with what made his daughter tick?

Twelve minutes late now. Scott clasped his hands behind his head and thought about the story he’d written a year or so ago. A honeymoon couple on a Bahamian cruise. A moonlit stroll on the deck, no one else around. She’d lost her balance, the distraught bridegroom said. A week later, the groom was charged with her murder. Such things happened.

He’d had it with crime and grime, though. Ten days ago he’d done his final interview for the Los Angeles Times. A profile of a homeless poet. He’d spent an entire day on skid row getting background. And now he was living on Santa Catalina, the new publisher and editor of the island’s weekly newspaper. A new life for him and, he secretly hoped, for Ellie, although he wasn’t naive enough to suppose his ex-wife would relinquish their daughter without a struggle.

He banished thoughts of Laura to the back of his mind and gazed out at the shimmering horizon. Santa Catalina Island, a submerged mountain range, twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide at its widest point. The island was mostly unpopulated except for the two-square-mile town of Avalon, where three thousand people lived year around and about ten thousand during the summer. Santa Catalina, twenty-two miles off the coast of California and, as the brochures promised, “A world away from the smog, traffic and fast-paced life of the mainland.”

Scott stretched his legs, which still bore the pallor of his former life, led mostly indoors. After two days on Catalina, he’d given up dressing as he had at the Times. The blazers and dress shirts were gone. He wore jeans to the council meetings, and the rest of the time it was Bermuda shorts and one of the ten polo shirts he’d found for fifty cents each at a Salvation Army thrift shop in Glendale.

Out in the harbor one of the high-speed catamarans that traversed the stretch of water between the island and the mainland was churning huge arcs of foaming wake as it plowed past the art deco roof of the Casino carrying yet another boatload of camera-snapping, luggage-toting tourists into Avalon.

“Scott.”

He turned. Ava Lynsky looked more like Snow White than Andie McDowell, he decided. Porcelain skin, red lips and a lot of black curly hair, barely contained by a red bandanna tied peasant-style around her head. She wore a yellow sundress and held the leash of a white poodle the size of a small donkey. The poodle wore a red-and-blue cape.

The dog looked at Scott and growled.

“Henri. Be nice.” Ava Lynsky grabbed the dog’s cape in one hand and pushed at his rump with the other. “Sit, like a good boy.” She smiled at Scott. “Am I late?”

“Fourteen minutes,” he said. “Traffic?”

She stared at him.

“I’m being facetious,” he said. Avalon restricted the number of cars on the island. Golf carts, bicycles and scoot-ers were the preferred means of transportation. His first day on Catalina he’d walked through the entire town in fifteen minutes. “Shall we?” he said.

“Oh, my God, Ava!” A woman in a tropical-colored sarong broke loose from a nearby table to wrap Ava in an enthusiastic embrace. “Sweetie.” She stood back to peer into Ava’s face. “How are you?”

“Peachy.” Ava smiled. “Fantastic.”

“Really?” The woman looked doubtful. “Really, really?”

“Absolutely.” Ava nodded at Scott. “This is Scott Campbell, the Argonaut’s—”

“New editor.” The woman clutched Scott’s arm and beamed at Ava. “This is such a wonderful girl and I just know the sun’s going to start shining for her again. All the stormy weather’s over, sweetie. From now on it’s rainbows and sunshine. And look at that ring.” She grabbed Ava’s left hand. “Have you set the date yet?”

“Probably next summer. After I’ve finished the project I’m working on.”

“And you’re doing better?” Again she peered into Ava’s face. “Doing okay?”

“Have you been ill?” Scott asked after the woman left.

“Of course not.” Her face tinged a pale pink, she removed a pair of sunglasses, a leather-bound portfolio and a bag of potato chips from a red canvas bag. She slipped on the sunglasses, set the portfolio on the table and ripped open the bag of chips. “I could eat my elbow,” she said.

Scott opened his notebook.

“Don’t write that down.” She held out the bag. “Help yourself.”

“No thanks.”

She took a chip, adjusted her sunglasses, glanced down at the dog. Smiled across the table at Scott. “Okay, let’s talk about my work,” she finally said. “What do you know about Catalina tiles?”

“Nothing,” Scott said.

“Well, hand-painted tiles are a Catalina tradition.” She dipped into the bag of chips again. “They’re wonderful. Incredible jewel-like colors. You’ll see them all over Avalon. There’s a beautiful example right in the center of town, the Sombrero Fountain. And the Casino has an exquisite tiled mural of a mermaid in the foyer. You might want to take a look.”

“These are pieces you painted?”

“No.” Her strained expression suggested the stupidity of the question. “Those are historic tiles. The tiles I paint are mostly used in private homes. My theme is the magic and wonder of childhood.” She crossed her legs. “A reflection, you might say, of my own childhood.”

Elbows on the table, Scott regarded her for a moment. She had a tiny fleck of potato chip in the bow of her lip. He debated whether to mention it and decided against it. “Your own childhood was magical?”

“Oh, absolutely.” She smiled. “Idyllic. My twin sister and I had Shetland ponies and our own Boston Whalers to sail around the bay. Ingrid’s was red, mine was blue. My father called us the twin princesses of Catalina. He and my mother were the king and queen. Anything we wanted, we could have by stamping our little feet.”

Scott thought of his own daughter. Pictured her stamping her foot to demand that her parents quit acting like selfish geeks and get over themselves. Pretty much the essence of his last conversation with her.

“It’s hard for mainlanders to understand,” Ava said, “but there’s a magic to life here on the island.”

“And is it still that way for you?” He’d opened her portfolio and now glanced up from a picture of tiles embedded into the low wall of a children’s playground—star-fish and shells, a child’s beach bucket, an ice-cream cone, a bright yellow sun. He waved a hand to take in the picture-postcard views of blue ocean all around them. The impressive diamond on her left hand. “It all looks pretty good to me.”

Eyes hidden behind dark glasses, she smiled again. Her left shoe wobbled precariously from her toe. “Of course it is.”

He glanced down at his notes. “I had a question about your mother’s accident—”

“We’re here to talk about hand-painted tiles,” she said. “Do you have any other questions?”

He didn’t and she replaced her portfolio in the canvas bag, tossed her potato-chip bag in the trash, picked up the dog’s leash and bid him a terse goodbye. Scott watched her until she disappeared behind the Casino. If she’d been any more brittle and uptight, he thought, she’d shatter completely. He briefly considered going after her, then decided that Ava Lynsky’s emotional well-being wasn’t his concern. Besides, his ex-wife had taught him all he needed to know about dealing with neurotic, stressed-out women. It was an exercise in futility.

SOMEHOW SHE’D MADE IT through the interview with Scott Campbell. With blood pulsing in her head, Ava walked around to the back of the Casino, where tourists seldom ventured, and stood against the wall, breathing hard as if she’d just run a race. Henri whimpered at her side, licked her fingers.

“I’ll be okay, Henri. Give me a minute. I’ll be okay.” Her face felt hot and damp her fingertips numb. Her heart was thundering again the way it had in the therapist’s office. She opened her eyes. A man in a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat appeared over by the railing. He stood watching the water. With the back of her hand, she swiped at the tears streaming down her face. “I’m okay,” she told herself. “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Happened again, huh?” Ingrid asked when Ava met her on the narrow strip of town beach ten minutes later. “Did you see the therapist this morning?”

Ava pulled her knees to her chin, wrapped her arms around them. They were sitting on a patch of empty sand amidst the brightly colored towels spread out all around them. The breeze off the ocean blew strands of hair across her mouth; the mingled aromas of coconut oil and waffle cones drifted from Olaf’s ice-cream stand.

“I don’t like her,” Ava said. “Do you want to get an ice cream?”

“I just had an apple.” Ingrid pinched Ava’s arm. “Oink.”

“Thank you,” Ava said. “I needed that.”

“Sorry, that was hateful. I didn’t mean—”

“Forget it. It’s not like I don’t know myself. Every time I squeeze into my jeans, I can hear the way Mom nagged about my avoir du pois. I guess she thought it was more tactful to tell me I was fat in French.”

“What about those antidepressants you were taking after Rob died? Maybe they’d help. Do you still have some?”

“No.” Last night, unable to sleep, she’d torn her bathroom cabinets and drawers apart looking for the pills prescribed after her husband’s death three years ago. She’d stuck the mostly full bottle in the medicine cabinet and pretty much forgotten about it until the dreams started. But the bottle had disappeared, and she had no idea what happened to it. She opened her mouth to tell Ingrid, then found she didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t need them,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“If they stop the panic attacks, Ava—”

“I’m going to move,” Ava said. “I think the problem is living in Dad’s house. When I’m not there, I can kind of imagine that Mom just forgot to call.”

Ingrid sighed.

“I know,” Ava said. “I’m just telling you how it is. Remember how wrapped up she used to get in her projects? Days would go by and then I’d finally call her and she’d have no idea how long it had been. That’s what it seems like now, as long as I’m not up at the house being reminded of everything.”

“Yeah, Mom would give an absentminded professor a run for his money.” Ingrid smiled. “Remember that time she paid for gas and drove off without pumping any? I was there when she called to say she’d run out up by the hospital. Dad just shook his head.”

“Yeah, well…” Ava threw a rock for Henri and watched as he ran down to the water, white floppy ears catching in the breeze. I’m not happy, Diana’s voice said. I haven’t been for some time. She squeezed her eyes shut and the voice went away. “If I just kind of think of her that way…”

“It’s called denial,” Ingrid said.

Ava shrugged. “I only know I feel worse at the house. I can’t walk up the hill without looking up and seeing Mom on the balcony, or lie in bed and not hear her singing downstairs…”

Ingrid laughed. “That alone would be reason enough to move. Mom’s singing, I mean.”

Ava glanced at her sister and they both started laughing. In a sudden rush of feeling, Ava put her arm around Ingrid’s shoulders and pulled her close. They sat there for a moment, toes dug into the sand, united in the bond of shared memories. Two thirty-four-year-old women, slightly built, with blue eyes, pale skin and thick black hair. Ava’s was long and curly, Ingrid wore hers in a spiky bob. They were two parts of a whole, Ava thought. Even if they lived on different continents, she felt sure she would instinctively know if Ingrid was ever in trouble.

“‘Pineapple Princess they call me,’” Ingrid sang in Diana’s off-key voice. “‘Pineapple Princess, I love you, you’re the only girl for me-hee—’”

Ava punched her arm. “Stop.”

“‘Someday we will get married,’” Ingrid warbled, “‘and I’ll be your Pineapple Quee-een.’”

“Ingrid, shut up,” Ava said. “The lifeguard thinks you’re insane.”

“Let him,” Ingrid said. “So where are you going to move? Wait, I already know. Grandma’s old cottage.”

Ava stared at her. “I only saw the For Rent sign this morning.”

Ingrid shrugged. “You’ve only mentioned the cottage a dozen times before. It just figures. What does Ed think of the idea?”

Ava watched the glint of her diamond in the sunlight and realized with a pang of guilt she hadn’t even considered her fiancé’s possible reaction, but since he’d been waging a vigorous campaign to have her move in with him, he was hardly likely to be thrilled about the idea. “I haven’t told him yet.” She dug her toes into the sand. “I’m meeting Lil at two. She’s going to take me up there. Want to go?”

“I can’t. I’m giving a riding lesson to a bunch of Breatheasy kids. Hopefully Dad won’t want to go along to make sure they don’t start wheezing or something.”

“Ingrid,” Ava said reprovingly, “he’s a doctor, for God’s sake. The kids have asthma—of course he’d go along. That’s why parents send their kids to the camp.” She watched a couple of small boys, all coltish limbs and salt-dulled hair, kick sprays of sand into the air. After a moment they settled down to work, faces intent as they arranged pebbles into fantasy castles, held together with wet sand carefully dripped from plastic beach shovels. “You and Dad need to work things out,” she said. “You can’t stay mad at him forever.”

“What’s to work out? I think he’s a two-faced phony and he thinks I’m beyond hope. I can live with it.” She stretched out her legs. “So how’d the interview with the Argonaut guy go? I forget his name.”

“Scott Campbell.” Ava pulled a face. “He didn’t like me, I could tell. Plus, I was a bitch.”

“A bitch.” Ingrid grinned. “You?”

“I couldn’t help it. Something about him just set me off. I know he didn’t give a damn about hand-painted tile. He wanted to talk about Mom.”

“Reporters are like those pigs that sniff out truffles,” Ingrid said. “They get a whiff of something wrong and they keep rooting until they dig it out.”

“But there is nothing wrong,” Ava said. “A boating accident isn’t sexy, that’s all. They’d rather hear that Dad pushed her out of the boat or that she wanted to end it all. They start asking all these casual little questions. ‘Now, your parents were married forty years,’” she said, mimicking a reporter’s impartial tone. “‘Must have been a happy marriage.’ And you know damn well that’s not what they’re thinking.”

“So what’s he like?”

“Mr. L.A. Times?” Ava shrugged. “Kind of preppy-looking. All Gap and Eddie Bauer. Chambray shirt, cotton this and natural fiber that. Wire-rimmed glasses. Condescending.”

“Cute?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Liar.”

“Cute. He kind of looks like Rob.”

“Please say you didn’t tell him the ‘twin princesses’ story,” Ingrid said.

“Of course I did,” Ava said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s so damn misleading.” Ingrid shook her head. “So you told him about the Boston Whalers, too?”

“And the Shetland ponies.”

Ingrid groaned.

“Well, it’s true,” Ava protested.

“It’s also true that Dad was always so busy being St. Sam to everyone on the island that he never had time for us or Mom.”

“Mom didn’t feel that way.” Ava felt her heart speed up. “She was happy. I know she was.”

“You don’t know. No one really knew what was going on in Mom’s head.”

“Ingrid—”

“No, I’m sick of you always painting this fantasy world. Did you tell this reporter that throwing money at us was Dad’s way of making up for all the things he didn’t do? Did you talk about how it was always his family who ended up paying for his generous impulses?”

“That’s your perception,” Ava said. “You’re still angry at Dad because of Quicksilver—”

“Quicksilver.” Ingrid hooted. “God, how could I have thought I was in love with a guy called Quicksilver? He was such a jerk.”

“See?” Ava said, eager to redeem their father in Ingrid’s eyes. “Dad was right.”

“Maybe he was right that the guy was a jerk, but Dad stepped over the line by booting him off the island. Dad’s like some kind of benign dictator. He needs to learn he can’t go around orchestrating everyone’s lives.” Ingrid wrapped her arms around Henri’s neck. “By the way, did you find those papers yet?”

“I tried to look last night,” Ava said. “But you know how Mom’s study is. There’s so much stuff everywhere. Books and magazines all over the place, stacks of papers—”

“She had these diaries,” Ingrid said. “They had red covers—”

“I know, Ingrid.” Ava felt a surge of irritation. “You’ve only mentioned it half a dozen times already. If it’s so damn important, you look for them. Ask Dad to get them for you.”

“Right,” Ingrid said. “The day I ask Dad for anything will be the day I walk to the mainland.”

AN HOUR LATER Ava could still feel Ingrid’s anger, like a blanket weighing her down. She was standing on the deck of the old bougainvillea-draped cottage that had once belonged to her grandmother and taking deep breaths to stay calm. She didn’t want to deal with Ingrid’s anger at their father, or Scott Campbell’s condescending smirk, or her own bad dreams and panic attacks. All she wanted was to feel peaceful again. Peaceful and safe.

“I really want to rent this place, Lil,” she told her friend from Lil’s Lovely Island Real Estate. “Actually, I’d like to buy it. I want to move in today, though. Henri would, too, right, Henri?”

Henri’s tail thumped and he gazed up at Ava in much the same way Ava gazed at pints of rum-raisin ice cream. Liquid-eyed, drooling slightly. Henri had been her mother’s dog and wasn’t coping very well, either. After Diana’s accident, his nonstop howling had driven her father to distraction. Either keep the dog with her, he’d said, or it was going to the pound. Ava felt a very strong bond with Henri.

“What’s your dad going to think about you living here, then?” Lil asked in the Eliza Doolittle accent that thirty years of living on Catalina had done little to change. “He’ll be all alone in that big house of his, won’t he?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” Ava said, already gearing up for her father’s resistance. After Rob died, at her parents’ urging, she’d sold the house she’d bought with Rob and moved back home. “Right after my mother…after the accident, he needed me there, but he’s fine now. Busy. You know my dad, he’s always on the go. Up at the hospital, running the asthma camp. Busy, busy.”

God, she was starting to babble. She took a breath. Henri sat so close to her leg she could feel his warmth, and she reached down to tangle her fingers in the curls on his head. My father’s fine, she thought. I need to save myself. And she felt she could do it up here in this cottage, which nestled like an overgrown shrub in the scrub-covered hillside on Middle Terrace Road. Up here, the sun was soft and filtered, and the breeze from the ocean rustled the leaves of the eucalyptus that sheltered the cottage.

Up here she’d get her life back together again. The dreams would stop and she would be able to work. Up here where, like a bird in a nest, she could see all of Avalon spread out below. The familiar sites that were part of the tapestry of her life: the Casino’s round red roof, the boats in the harbor, the Catalina Express on its daily runs to and from the mainland. The play of light and shadow. Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed. Up here maybe she could make some sense of it all.

Lil seemed dubious about the cottage’s charms.

“Mind that rotted bit in the wood, luv,” she said. “Catch your heel in that and you’ll fall head over teapot into the brambles. Need to replace the whole thing, I should think.”

Ava glanced down at the worn wood. The deck wouldn’t be all she’d have to replace, she suspected. In the twelve years since her grandmother died, the cottage had changed hands a number of times, and with each new owner it looked a little more forlorn. Now it was for rent again, which meant she could move in right away. But she really wanted to buy it and bring it back to life. Mend the house and mend herself and Henri.

“I’m afraid you’ll be buying a headache.” Lil delved into her shoulder bag and pulled out a candy, which she unwrapped and threw to Henri. He caught it in his mouth, dropped it on the deck and barked at it. “All right.” She shot him a reproving look. “Don’t make a song and dance of it—it’s just a sweetie. Honestly, Ava, you don’t want this house.”

Ava smiled. “Honestly I do.”

“There’s a lovely little house on Marilla that I just listed. Let me take you there.”

“I want this one.” She heard herself tell Scott Campbell the Catalina-princess story about stamping her foot to get what she wanted. Now she wished she hadn’t. He didn’t like her. But so what? Scott Campbell was the least of her concerns.

“The Marilla house has a lovely kitchen,” Lil persisted. “All modern. You’d love it.”

“Lil, I want this one,” Ava said again. “Let’s go back in.”

Lil followed her back into the cottage. The living room was small and square, roughly the size of the pantry in her father’s house, half the size of the guest bathroom in her fiancé’s oceanfront condo. For a moment she pictured Ed and her father—the pair tended to see eye to eye about most things—standing in the tiny room, incredulous looks on their faces. She shut out the image, walked over to the fireplace and crouched down in front of it.

“See these?” She traced her finger over the bright, blue-glazed tiles that surrounded the hearth. Every fourth tile was a vividly painted scene of activity. Under yellow suns or silver moons, stick-figure girls and boys played ball, fished, flew kites or lay tucked in bed reading a book. “I was ten when I painted these,” she told Lil. “My grandmother had a wood-burning kiln out back, and I molded the clay, painted the tiles, glazed them, the works. That’s pretty much how I got started.”

Lil bent to take a closer look. “Clever girl. They’re lovely. Like little rays of sunshine.”

“See that one with the kite? Ingrid and I got kites for Christmas one year, and our dad took us down to the beach to fly them. The sky was this brilliant blue the way it gets in December after a rain, and our kites were red, and I think Ingrid was wearing yellow shorts. But we were racing and laughing and watching the kites high up in the sky… I was trying to capture that feeling.”

“You did, luv.” Lil glanced at the door. “Well, then, shall we go?”

“This house has all kinds of good memories,” Ava said, reluctant to leave. “When Ingrid and I were little, our grandma would bring us out here and we’d watch the boats down in the harbor and she’d tell us about steamships and Charlie Chaplin and movie stars who came over. Happy memories.”

“Sometimes it would be nice to go back, wouldn’t it?” Lil’s smile was wistful. “I often think that. And then I say to myself, silly old fool, ’course it wasn’t that much better than it is these days. All you do is remember the good and forget the not-so-good.”

“Maybe.”

“’Course you’re young yet. You probably still remember everything like it was yesterday.” She patted Ava’s arm, then delved into her bag again. “Here, have a sweetie. Make you feel better. Good for your throat, too. Helps my voice, I always say.”

Ava took the candy. When she and Rob were married, Lil had sung “Ave Maria” at the wedding. She’d sung again at Rob’s funeral. “I’ll Remember You.” God, she was going to cry. “Lil, please don’t look at me like that, okay? I’m fine, I really am. If I buy this place, I’ll be so busy fixing it up I won’t have time to be sad.”

“Well, if you’ve made up your mind, I don’t suppose there’s much I can say.”

Ava smiled. “Exactly.”

“On the bright side, though, I looked up your horoscope this morning. I like to do that before I show a house. You’d be surprised how many times it’s steered me into a new direction. Like the time I was showing a gentleman this property up on Chimes Hill Road and his horoscope said, “‘Not a good day for scaling new heights.’ Well, if that isn’t telling you something. I immediately rescheduled for the next day.”

“You sold it?”

“I did. You know what his horoscope said the day we closed escrow? ‘A new start will prove beneficial.’ Listen, love, I just know things are going to start looking up for you. I feel it right here.” She tapped her chest. “The sun’s going to come out again, you’ll see.”

I’d settle for feeling normal again, Ava thought.

“Let me go in and do a bit of exploring,” Lil said when they were back at the real-estate office. “Place has been rented for so long I’m not sure who owns it anymore. I’ll find out though, luv, and give you a ring this afternoon.”

CHAPTER TWO

SCOTT STOOD IN THE cereal aisle at Von’s trying to remember whether Ellie ate Cheerios or Rice Krispies. He picked up the Cheerios, dropped the carton in the basket and then, in a fit of indecision, set it back on the shelf. Maybe she didn’t even eat cereal. Why, he asked himself, hadn’t he paid more attention? His ex-wife’s voice supplied the answer. Because you don’t pay attention, period, Scott. You’ve never been there for me, and you haven’t been there for Ellie for God knows how long.

He dumped both the Cheerios and the Rice Krispies into the basket and moved on down the aisle. Things were about to change. Ellie’s two-week visit wouldn’t be long enough to completely mend the rift in their relationship, but it was a start. He’d spent the morning cleaning and vacuuming his apartment, bought new sheets and a set of dishes and made a list of all the things they would do while she was on Catalina—a glass-bottom-boat ride, snorkeling, horseback riding in the interior. It was going to be a good visit.

His cell phone rang as he wheeled his basket to the cash register. Laura. His ex-wife had called every day since he’d arrived on the island. Some days she called twice. Usually—within earshot of Ellie, he was certain—she’d start with a list of his various transgressions and shortcomings and then she’d put Ellie on the phone. By that time, not surprisingly, his daughter was hostile and surly.

“Ellie, I know you want to go to Spain,” he said now. They’d had this conversation before. “But I don’t have the money to send you. I didn’t go to Europe until I’d graduated from college.”

“You could afford it if you still worked at the Times.” Ellie’s voice was full of indignation. “You didn’t have to quit.”

Phone shoved between his head and shoulder, Scott unloaded the basket.

“It’s not my fault you wanted to go live on some stupid island,” Ellie continued.

“You’re going to love it here, El.” Scott tried to divert her. “It’s really beautiful. We’ll go swimming, snorkeling. I’ve already bought you a bike.”

“I might not come.”

His hand froze around a can of green beans. “What do you mean? It’s all set up.”

“Mom wants me to go to Cleveland with her to see Grandma.”

He took a breath. “Is that what you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “Mom gets kind of lonely. I feel bad for her.”

He finished unloading the groceries, pulled out his bill-fold and waited for the cashier to ring up the total. He recognized Laura’s tactic, but he had little taste for making Ellie a pawn in her parents’ game. Better just to back off.

“Fifty-two fifty,” the cashier said.

He fished out a twenty and a ten, then realized that was all the cash he had. As he wrote out a check, he tried to remember exactly how much he had left in his checking account. The shopping expedition in preparation for Ellie’s visit had pretty much blown his monthly budget.

“Listen, Ellie,” he told his daughter, “I’m going to be disappointed if you don’t come, but I’ll leave it up to you to do what you think is best.”

“Sure, Dad,” she said listlessly. “Whatever.”

After he’d carried the groceries to his apartment, he headed back to the Argonaut and the letter he’d been trying to write to the people of Catalina. His thoughts kept drifting to Ellie and the obscure feeling that by not insisting she come to Catalina, instead of accompanying her mother to Cleveland, he’d somehow let her down.

More trouble still was the vague sense of relief he felt now that the trip was in doubt. While he loved Ellie unreservedly, the fear of not being able to pull things off and failing somehow to make her happy was a weight on his shoulders. He got up from the desk, poured a mug of coffee and sat down again. She’d told him once that he “sucked” as a dad and maybe she was right. Retreat and distance came easily to him, a little too easily. Qualities that probably didn’t do much to reassure his daughter.

He looked up from his musings to see Ava Lynsky standing in the doorway. She looked different, though, her hair or something. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t Ava. Actually, she looked like a less-vivid version of Ava. Same build, same fine bone structure, but her hair was short and choppy, and in contrast to Ava’s Snow White coloring, this woman had the tanned complexion of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. Her feet were clad in hiking boots and she wore jeans and a sleeveless cotton shirt.

She glanced around the cramped offices of the Catalina Island Argonaut, where undelivered stacks of last week’s newspaper vied for space with the mountain bike he’d just acquired, the small brown fridge where the previous publisher had kept her peppermint schnapps and a precarious mountain of boxes still to be unpacked.

“So you’re the new publisher, huh?” She stuck out her hand. “Ingrid Lynsky. You met my sister this morning. My father asked me to pass on a message to you. He’s supposed to give you a tour this afternoon?”

“At four,” Scott said.

“Don’t look for him before five,” Ingrid said. “My father overcommits. If he has enough time in the day to do four things, he’ll try to squeeze in six. Everybody is inconvenienced, but hey, that’s Dr. Sam for you.”

Scott scratched his ear. He could still hear Ellie telling him he sucked. “You’re not a member of the Dr. Sam fan club?” he asked Ingrid. “I thought everyone on Catalina subscribed to it.”

Ingrid laughed. “Oh, did I give you the wrong impression? I’m sorry. Dr. Sam’s a saint. Most people have to take a boat to the mainland. My father can walk.”

Scott looked at her.

Ingrid looked straight back at him, her gaze steady and unflinching. “Anyway,” she said, “just so you know, he’ll be late.”

“HOPE YOU’RE NOT expecting to make any money with that paper,” Sam Lynsky said as he pulled his Jeep back onto the road. He’d breezed into Scott’s office at five-thirty with a convoluted tale about being stopped a dozen times as he tried to get away from the hospital and everyone wanting a minute of his time. “The Argonaut’s never turned a profit in forty years. How come you bought it?”

“Escape,” Scott said before he had time to think about it. “Things on the mainland were getting ugly.”

Dr. Sam rounded the curve of Abalone Point and headed toward Pebbly Beach. “No family?”

“Divorced.” Scott glanced at the doctor, a youthful-looking sixty-year-old with white hair curling from under a red baseball cap, neat mustache and a clear blue steady-eyed gaze. “I have a fourteen-year-old daughter.”

“You going to make enough to get by?”

“I’m counting on the newspaper to provide some revenue.” He’d seen the publisher’s account books. Maybe not much by Lynsky’s standards, but he could get by. “And I’ve got some freelance assignments lined up.”

He rested an arm on the window ledge. If his head weren’t full of Ellie, he’d enjoy this tour, he thought as they turned onto Wrigley Terrace Road. Avalon Bay was behind them now, and the grey-green mountains that ringed Catalina filled the view through the windshield. The wind off the ocean felt bracing.

“That’s the old William Wrigley home up there on your left.” Lynsky waved his arm at a palatial white structure nestled in the hills. “Built in the 1920s as a summer home. Before that the Wrigleys would come over in June and stay at the St. Catherine’s Hotel. The story goes, Mrs. Wrigley woke up one morning and said, ‘I would like to live there.’ It’s a hotel these days, but when I was a boy… Hold on.”

Scott grabbed the Jeep’s roll bar as Lynsky executed a sudden hairpin curve. The doctor’s driving was a tad hair-raising.

Lynsky glanced at Scott and laughed. “You think that’s bad? In my great-grandfather’s days, before the Bannings started building real roads, they’d run stage coaches from Avalon over to the Isthmus. Six horses, galloping down the summit, hooves flying. Wooden wheels.” He shook his head. “We’re too soft these days. Want everything too easy. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the spirit? You said you’re divorced?”

“Right.”

“How long were you married?”

“Fifteen years.”

“I was married,” Dr. Sam said, “nearly forty years. Not a natural state, though, marriage. Society forces you into it, but it’s not natural. Used to have a collection of toilet paper until my wife got rid of it. Toilet paper from every country I ever visited and barf bags, empty, of course, from every flight I ever took. She threw them all out. Sorry I ever got married,” he said.

“Wouldn’t do it again, huh?”

“‘Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure…’” Lynsky steered the Jeep across a stretch of brush-filled terrain. “‘Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.’”

Lynsky careered around a bend, sending Scott slamming into the passenger door. He gave up on trying to take notes. Between the doctor’s driving, his nonstop monologue and conversational threads introduced, then left dangling, he felt disoriented. Now the harbor was a dizzying drop-off to his left and they were hurtling along a mountainous ridge road, then down a canyon and up again to a view of the Pacific spread out like a blue silk sheet far below.

“Congreve.” Lynsky stopped the Jeep and they both climbed out and stood at the edge of the cliff, looking out. “The Old Bachelor. He also wrote, ‘I could find it in my heart to marry thee, purely to be rid of thee.’”

Scott decided to mull that over later. The vista below him was one he’d seen in the postcard racks in town. The glittering ocean, the yellow wildflowers that dotted the steep slopes, the landmark red roof of the Casino and the familiar white bulk of the high-speed Catalina Express. What the postcards didn’t capture was the dusty sun-warmed smell of sage and eucalyptus, the subdued hush of waves, the cries of seabirds.

“Won’t find a more beautiful place anywhere else on earth,” Lynsky said after a while. “You look at the mainland over there—” he gestured at the faint bluish outline of the Southern California coastline “—and feel pretty damn lucky you’re over here.”

Scott nodded. He’d mailed a postcard to Ellie that morning. After he’d dropped it off at the post office, though, it had occurred to him that picturesque scenery was unlikely to be a selling point to a teenage girl whose notion of paradise right now was all about shopping malls and cosmetic counters.

“There’re a lot of good people on the island,” Lynsky said after they were back on the road again. “Most of them, in fact. We’re a fairly law-abiding lot. A tourist now and then who has a few too many Wicky Whackers or Margaritas and starts making a nuisance of himself, that’s about the worst of it.”

“Suits me,” Scott said.

“You’re daughter’s fourteen, you said?” The doctor turned to look at him. “Difficult age. Suddenly you’re not a hero anymore and you can’t do a thing that’s right.”

Scott watched palms and eucalyptus and other low scrubby trees he couldn’t name fly past as the Jeep tore down another canyon. Tell me about it, he thought.

“Of course, I say that and my daughters are thirty-four and we still don’t see eye to eye. Ava’s doing okay.” Lynsky wiggled a hand. “Lost her husband three years ago, but she’s engaged to a fine man now. Attorney here in town. Got a few things in her own life to work out, but Ed’s good for her.”

Scott recalled Ava’s telling him about stamping her foot to get what she wanted and felt a stab of sympathy for the fiancé.

“Ingrid, Ava’s twin, has taken a vow of poverty,” Lynsky was saying. “Doesn’t believe in working for a living. Dropped out of medical school with one year left to go. She’s quite content to live on whatever she grows—lettuce and beets, she tells me, but who knows what else. Lives behind some horse stables on the other side of the island.” He shook his head. “I can’t figure her out.”

Scott felt vaguely defeated. If Dr. Samuel Lynsky living on an idyllic island, loved by everyone—a man who’d actually written a book on raising children—had problematic relationships with his daughters, what were his own odds? He wanted to ask the doctor what went wrong. What would he do differently?

They were headed back into town now, Dr. Sam nimbly maneuvering the Jeep through narrow streets of equally narrow houses that rose in tiers from the harbor, dodging the ubiquitous golf carts, most of them driven by tourists who rented them from stands along the seafront.

“Las Casistas over there—” Lynsky nodded at a development of pink, adobe-style cottages “—used to be housing for the island’s workers.” He leaned an elbow on the window frame. “Don’t get the wrong impression about what I just said. Ingrid’s okay. Ava is, too. Diana’s death hit them both pretty hard.” He looked at Scott. “You know about that?”

“A boating accident, I heard.”

“Three months ago. Took the boat out for a sail. Bad timing all around. I was getting over flu, and Diana had been having dizzy spells. I went below to take a nap, and when I woke up she was gone.” Lynsky pulled off his cap by the brim, replaced it a moment later. “Coast Guard, helicopters. Everyone out there looking for her. Nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott said. The words seemed inadequate, but he’d never been very good at offering condolences. “How are you managing?”

“I’m fine.” Lynsky pinched his midriff. “Overdosed on casseroles for a while. People couldn’t do enough. Still can’t. Lot of talk about creating some kind of garden in Diana’s name, inlaid tiles, that sort of thing. The mayor’s asked Ava to design it.” He glanced at Scott. “You’ve met Ava?”

“This morning. She showed me some of her work.”

“Paints decorative tiles. Catalina tiles are world-famous. Ava refuses to even discuss any kind of memorial. Since Diana died we can’t spend two minutes together without a battle.” He cleared his throat. “Body’s never been found—that’s part of the problem. Good chance it never will, I’ve been told. Meanwhile, life has to go on.”

“Difficult to find closure, I would imagine,” Scott said, then cringed at the words. Closure. One of those pop psychology terms people say that mean absolutely nothing. Tie everything up in a neat little package and then move on. Lynsky pulled up outside the Argonaut office, and Scott grabbed his canvas backpack from the floor behind him and stuck out his hand. “Thanks for the tour, Dr. Lynsky.”

“Got a business deal for you,” Lynsky said. “You might as well accept, because you’re not going to support yourself with that paper, I don’t care what old Aggie Broadbent told you about the thing turning a profit. She just wanted to unload it.”

Scott watched the doctor leaf through a manila folder of papers he’d removed from under the front seat.

“You know much about the Lynsky family?” Sam asked, still riffling through papers.

“Some. I stopped by the Island Historical Society yesterday.”

“So you probably know my family owned this island years ago. Not for long. It changed hands a few times before it was deeded to the state around 1900. Diana was putting everything into a book before she died. I want it finished.” Lynsky stuck the folder back under the seat. “Need to sort through her papers before you see them, but if you’re interested, the book should solve your money problems. What do you think?”

“Sounds interesting,” Scott said. “What do your daughters think about it?”

“They don’t know anything about it,” Lynsky said. “And I don’t know that they need to. They get their hands on Diana’s papers and it’ll be yak-yak-yak. Stirring up things that don’t need to be stirred up, and the book will never get written.”

“Won’t they want to see the papers?”

“You want to write this thing or not?”

“I’m just asking,” Scott said.

“You let me deal with my daughters,” Sam said. “You do a good job with the book, they’ll be thrilled. A year from now, they’ll have forgotten all about the papers.” He fished under the seat, produced another file. “I’m going to give you a check right now,” he said. “Just to get things going.”

“Hold on a minute, Dr. Lynsky.” Things were moving a little too fast. “You don’t want to talk about this some more, see some samples of my writing?”

“Nah.” Lynsky was scrawling his name across the check in a bold black hand. “And it’s Sam.” He held out the check. “You worked for the L.A. Times. That’s good enough for me.”

Scott ignored the check. “I’d like to think things over first.”

“Suit yourself.” Lynsky dropped the check on Scott’s knee. “Might as well deposit this while you’re doing your thinking. It’ll tide you over when the advertising drops off. Meet me for breakfast at the Beehive tomorrow. Around eight-thirty. I’ll bring some things to get you started.”

“YOU SITTING DOWN?” Lil asked Ava later that afternoon when she called with the information on the cottage. “Guess who the owner turned out to be?”

“No idea,” Ava said.

“Your dad,” Lil said. “Seems he bought it back a few years ago, no idea what he intended to do with it. It’ll make things easier for you, I should think.”

Not necessarily, Ava thought as she walked up to the hospital to see her father. A volunteer in a pink smock was sorting through a stack of National Geographic magazines when Ava poked her head around the door of the hospital auxiliary office.

“Your father?” she said. “Let me think a minute. I saw him early this morning making rounds and then…” She paused and smiled. “You know your dad—doing ten things at the same time. Now what was it he said he had to do? Something about dropping by the Argonaut…”

“If he comes back in the next hour or so, please tell him I need to talk to him. I’ve got some things to do in town, so I’ll meet him back here.”

“All right, honey, I’ll tell him.” The volunteer peered at Ava. “You doing better?”

“Fine, thanks,” Ava said. Maybe she’d just get a billboard made up. Don’t ask. I’m fine. Fantastic. Never been better.

“Keep busy. That’s the best thing you can do.”

“Absolutely,” Ava agreed.

“Bring that dog of yours back. Everyone got such a kick out of him in that cape. It’s so heartwarming to see how animals raise people’s spirits.”

Ava smiled. Henri was a participant in the Pets Are Therapy program. For an hour every week Henri was stroked, petted and fussed over by the half a dozen or so hospice patients. They fed him treats, rolled balls across the floor and laughed at his shameless grandstanding. At the end of the hour, the patients looked happy, Henri seemed happy, and as Ava walked him back into town, she always felt…well, happier.

“How’s your sister?” The volunteer’s smile had cooled slightly. “Still living out by the horse stables?”

“Ingrid’s fine, too.” Tomorrow, she would try to go through the whole day without using the word fine. “She’s happy working with the horses, not dealing with people all the time. Listen, I need to get going.”

“Sure, honey.” The volunteer gave Ava a quick hug. “Take care, sweetie.”

As she left the hospital and walked down Avalon Canyon Road into town, Ava considered the merits of Ingrid’s solitary existence. No need for constant reassurance or pretending to be something you weren’t. If Ingrid felt morose or out of sorts, she just dug in her garden or rode horses until she was in the mood for human contact again.

Hands in the pockets of her denim jacket, Ava turned onto Sumner—past the tiny house and summer rentals that had once been tent sites owned by her grandfather—and onto Crescent, now thronged with tourists disembarking from the Catalina Express.

She stopped to look at a dress in the window of Island Fashions, a clingy pistachio-colored shift that would look great if she could lose the ten pounds she’d gained in the past two months. A minute on the lips, forever on the hips. Diana’s voice, taunting her. You should see me now, Mom, she thought. In the window she could see the reflected parade of passersby. A small stout man separated himself from the rest. He’d spotted her.

Too late to pretend she hadn’t seen him, she turned to smile at the mayor of Avalon. A sixtyish man in a tropical shirt, with a bald head and plump pink face and chins that dissolved into his neck. A sweetheart, but she couldn’t look at him without thinking of a melting ice-cream cone.

“…so hard for you,” he was saying now. “The council thought that one of your beautiful art pieces would be a fitting tribute to your mother.” He patted her arm and made room for a couple of straw-hatted tourists. “No pressure, though. We’d never want to do that. How you doing, anyway, honey?”

“Fine. Busy of course.”

“Well, that’s good.” His eyes lingered on her for a moment. “You know Muriel was just saying this morning—she runs the grief-counseling program at the hospital, you know—anyway, she was saying that all most people really need is someone to listen to them.”

Ava kept smiling. “It’s great that they have someone as dedicated as Muriel.”

“She’s a good listener,” the mayor said. “A real good listener.”

“Tell her I said hi,” Ava said.

“Will do. And, Ava, you take care now. And when you’re ready to think about that piece for your mother, bless her soul, you just give me a call.”

“Right,” Ava said. She crossed the road and walked along the seafront, killing time until she returned to the hospital to meet her father. A crowd of little girls in pigtails and Crayola-colored clothes were giggling and hitting each other with their backpacks. She caught the eye of one of them and winked. She kept walking, past the signs hawking rides in glass-bottom boats, past Olaf’s ice-cream store, past the guides hawking tours of the Casino and Jeep excursions into the interior. It was hard to walk through Avalon without running into someone she knew, but she’d discovered that if she kept her head down people were sometimes reluctant to approach her.

Which suited her just fine. Anything to avoid The Look. People had started treating her differently after Rob died. They’d smile and chat, but there was a new solicitousness in their voices. A caution, as though they were dealing with a convalescent who might relapse. They’d peer into her eyes as though to make sure someone was really there. Now, since her mother’s death, it was happening again.

She hated it. They meant well, but she hated it. Either she avoided people completely or, when that wasn’t possible, she became so impossibly bright and chipper that she was always expecting someone to rap her on the head and say, “Knock it off. We know you’re hurting. Just admit it.”

But she couldn’t. Instead, she’d breeze around doing her happier-than-thou schtick until she couldn’t stand herself anymore. Then she’d go home, wrap herself up in an old afghan her grandmother had knitted, pig out on whatever was on hand—amazingly, ice cream was always on hand—and fall asleep watching a cheesy movie on late-night TV. Then wake up hours later, screaming because she’d seen her mother’s face again staring up at her from beneath the water. I’m not happy, Ava. I haven’t been for some time.

BACK AT THE HOSPITAL, she found her father in his small office, just off the main corridor, waiting for the next patient. Dr. Sam Lynsky III wore a gold paper crown and a white lab coat over jeans.

“That place was falling apart when your grandmother had it,” he said after she told him about the cottage. “It needs to be torn down.”

“I can fix it up.” Ava folded her arms over her chest, ready to do battle. “Don’t give me a hard time about it, Dad. What’s it to you if I want to live there?”

“Ava, I am rattling around in a two-million-dollar property that was and still is your home. It’s lonely and unwelcoming and far too large, and I’d like nothing more than to come home in the evening to my daughter’s company—both my daughters, but I realize that’s asking too much. I can’t imagine how it could be a question of privacy, but—”

“It’s full of Mom,” Ava blurted, exactly the kind of reasoning she hadn’t intended to use. “Maybe it doesn’t bother you, Dad. Maybe you’re getting on just fine without her, but I can’t take it.”

“Ava.” Sam leaned back in his chair. “Your inability to deal with your mother’s death is hardly a plausible reason to buy a ramshackle piece of property. At some point, you’ll need to accept what happened. In the meantime, there are any number of other houses on the island.”

“Maybe so,” Ava said. “But I want that one.”

“Jerry the pharmacist is going to sell his place.” Sam had emptied a canvas briefcase onto the consulting-room floor. “Got the information in here somewhere… Oh, here’s something you might be interested in.” He tossed a brochure at Ava.

Ava glanced at the glossy ad for a Los Angeles gallery. “Dad, what does this have to do with Grandma’s cottage?”

“Nothing. Just pointing out the sort of marketing you need to do. Never going to get anywhere painting three tiles a week. Need to think big.”

Ava fumed inwardly. Her father kept digging, papers flying all around him. He wasn’t a large man, but with his extravagant gestures and nonstop barrage of words, he always seemed to make a room feel too small.

“Jerry’s house would be a smart buy,” he said. “Now where did I put that piece of paper?”

He continued to shuffle through papers as he told her what a wise investment the pharmacist’s house would be. Her father had bought and sold plenty of real estate in his life, and he could be quite persuasive on financial matters. In fact, as she listened to him, she found herself thinking that maybe the pharmacist’s house was indeed the way to go. On the verge of saying she’d take a look, she stopped herself. Sam eventually wore everyone down. This time he wouldn’t prevail.

“Dad, just give me an answer on the cottage. I don’t feel like sitting here while you turn everything upside down. Lil said I could move in—”

“Hold on a minute.” He stopped to examine a piece of paper. “Asthma Foundation holding some fancy-schmancy conference in L.A. Waste of time and money. What they should do—”

“I don’t give a damn what they should do.” In one move Ava scooped up all his papers and shoved them back in the bag. “I want Grandma’s cottage.”

“How are you going to pay for it?”

“I have money.” She felt her face color. She knew, as her father certainly did, that she had money from Rob’s insurance and in her trust fund. Although work was picking up, her commissions were by no means steady and she barely scraped by on what she made.

“Big commission?”

“Dammit, Dad, why do you have to make everything so difficult? The place is empty, I could move in tonight and rent it until the buy closes.” She saw him wavering. “Come on. I really want the cottage.”

“A lesson in life,” her father said, “is that we don’t always get what we want.”

The intercom on his desk buzzed to indicate a patient was waiting. “I’ll let you know,” he said. “I might decide to tear the place down.”

Ava left, slamming the door behind her, and walked back down the hill into town. He’d let her have the place, she knew that, but not before he’d made a huge and unnecessary production of it. Not so long ago she’d loved him so unreservedly it frightened her. Lately everything he did irritated her. And then she’d feel guilty. Guilt and irritation, an endless seesaw. And the irony was that all he was doing, all he’d ever done, was be himself. How her mother had stood it for forty years, she had no idea.

CHAPTER THREE

“DR. SAM?” The waitress at the Beehive smiled at Scott. “No, haven’t seen him this morning. Kind of early yet. He doesn’t usually come in till later.”

Scott glanced at his watch. Lynsky had said eight-thirty, and it was now nearly nine. He ordered coffee and decided to give the doctor another fifteen minutes. The check Lynsky had given him the day before was still on his desk, but Ellie had asked him again about the school trip to Spain. When he called her tonight, it would be terrific to tell her she could go.

“Here you are.” The waitress set a cup down in front of him. “The thing with Dr. Sam is, you never know from one minute to the next what he’s going to do.” She chuckled. “Just part of the guy’s charm, I guess.”

By nine-fifteen, the doctor still hadn’t arrived, and Scott walked back to the Argonaut and began writing a piece about an upcoming fishing tournament. He’d just finished it when his phone rang.

“You can run but you can’t hide,” Mark, his former colleague from the Times said. “Listen, Carolyn and I had a big bust-up—”

“Jeez, let me alert the national media.” Scott’s younger sister, Carolyn had been dating Mark for a year, most of it marked by big bust-ups. The surprise was that they’d even gotten together in the first place. Carolyn, whose favorite color was black, was deep into the club scene. Mark, when he wasn’t chasing a story or reading a book, was writing a police-procedural novel, which he hoped to sell for enough money to allow him to leave the Times. He was an introvert; Carolyn craved excitement. They fought about everything. “So what was it this time? She got a tattoo you didn’t like?”

“Close. She’s dyed her hair orange. God, I tell you. I thought burgundy was bad. Listen, I could use a change of scenery. Feel like having a house guest for a day or so?”

MARK CAUGHT THE ten-fifteen Catalina Express from Long Beach, and Scott met him at the pier; by noon, they were eating fried fish and chips at a white plastic table on the patio of the Casino Dock Café, looking out at a scene that Ava might have painted. To their left the terra-cotta roof of the Casino; below them Avalon’s version of a traffic jam—kayaks, dinghies and fishing boats, leaving, arriving, or just tooling around.

“Well, sure, I’d rather be stuck in traffic on the Golden State Freeway, stressed out because I was late for the mayor’s press briefing.” Scott emptied the rest of a pitcher of beer into their glasses. “I mean, this is pretty damn hard to take.”

It was all impossibly picturesque. The wheeling gulls, the sparkling blue ocean and, just for a touch of color, a chugging red Harbor Patrol boat. So beautiful that, although he couldn’t drop the note of mockery when he spoke to Mark about his new life, he suspected deep down that he’d already succumbed to the island’s legendary spell. Now if he could just work things out with Ellie.

“So has your brain turned to mush yet?” Mark asked. “I mean, this is idyllic and all that, but…where’s the grit?”

“It’s everywhere,” Scott said. “Garden club chicanery. A tourist in a gorilla suit terrorizing women on the pier. Graffiti-covered golf carts outside Von’s. Lobster poaching. I tell you, I can’t keep up with it.”

“Seriously.”

Scott drank some beer, pushed his chair back from the table and thought about Sam Lynsky’s proposal. Any number of reasons could have prevented the doctor from keeping their appointment, but he was beginning to wonder if Lynsky might just have been spewing a bunch of hot air. He frowned down at the food on his plate and decided to run the whole thing past Mark.

“A few months before I came here, a woman drowned, or at least it looked like a drowning, out on the bay,” he said. “Her husband’s family is old and well connected—at one time they practically owned Catalina. The husband is a pediatrician to just about every kid on the island. Eccentric, but the town practically worships him. I’ve never heard a critical word.”

Mark grinned. “And God knows, you’ve tried to find one.”

“That’s the old me,” he said. “The new me yearns for truth, justice, beauty and goodness. Not necessarily in that order.” A joke, so he’d seem less serious about it than he really was. It came easy, the role of cynical observer. “Anyway, this is apparently a golden family. Beautiful daughters—twins. One’s a local artist. The other one manages a riding stable on the other side of the island.”

Mark’s grin broadened. “Available?”

Scott looked at him. “The artist’s engaged. I don’t know about the other one. The artist’s—” he hesitated “—a princess. High-strung, high-maintenance. Some poor guy’s locked himself into a lifetime of trouble. Kind of like Laura, only with money.”

“I take it you’ve met her.”

“Yep. And immediately got off on the wrong foot.” He shook his head, remembering. “Anyway, moving on, Lynsky and his wife had gone for a sail around the island. While Lynsky was taking a nap belowdecks, his wife apparently fell overboard.”

“And the husband didn’t hear anything?”

“He says he woke up and found her gone. There was a massive search, but the body hasn’t been found. All the usual angles were checked out. No recent insurance policies, no domestic disharmony. Nothing to suggest it was anything but an accident.”

Mark drank some beer. “And?”

“I don’t know. There’s something about Lynsky. A little too jocular when he talks about his wife, maybe. Which wouldn’t matter, except he’s asked me to write his family history.” A waitress in red shorts dropped a check on the table, smiled and sashayed off. Scott watched until she’d disappeared into the restaurant. “He’s offered me access to his wife’s papers. Diaries, letters, that sort of thing. Offered me more to write it than I made in a year at the Times, and frankly, I could use the money.”

“So…what? You’re conflicted?”

“Kind of. Maybe it’s all this.” He nodded out at the sparkling bay. “Okay, maybe I’m just perverse. Maybe there’s something about perfection I can’t deal with, but I just have this gut feeling that there’s something…ugly beneath the surface.”

His expression skeptical, Mark grabbed the check from under Scott’s credit card. “Too much time on your hands, pal. It doesn’t sound like anything to me. If no-one else sees anything suspicious about it, I wouldn’t go around turning over rocks. Take the money and do the damn book. You’re over here in paradise. Don’t screw with it.”

“DAD’S JUST DOING his power trip,” Ingrid said after she’d called Ava to find out what was happening with the cottage and learned that Sam still hadn’t decided about selling it. “What you need to do is pretend you don’t want it, then he’ll lose interest because he doesn’t have anything to hold over you.”

“I know.” Ava was sitting at the worktable in her studio, doing what she’d done every day for the past two months—putting in time without actually producing anything. Hours passed spent in blank staring. And then at night, the dreams. “I just hate playing his damn game. Why is it so hard for him to understand that the cottage might help me get myself together?”

“He understands okay. That’s the whole point. But what you need is less important to him than his power trip.”

Ava wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It disturbed her that Ingrid could make their father sound so Machiavellian. To anyone but Ingrid she’d vigorously defend him and, even to Ingrid, her first inclination was always to rush to his defense, but Ingrid’s words were like moths nibbling away at the fabric of what she believed her life to be. Holes kept appearing. She’d patch them with denial, weave the cloth together with words and smiles until no one else could see the holes, but she knew they were there. I’m not happy, Ava. I haven’t been for some time.

“Maybe I’ll just tell him I’ve found something else.” She leafed through a book of sketches, searching for inspiration. When she looked up, Scott Campbell was standing in the doorway. “I’ve got to go,” she told Ingrid. “I’ll call you later.”

“Hi.” Scott hadn’t moved from the doorway. “I didn’t realize this was your studio. I was just walking by and I saw you working.”

“Trying to work.”

“Am I interrupting?”

“Not really.” She got up from the stool and then couldn’t think of what to do, so she sat back down again. Something about him made her feel awkward. Mostly, she suspected, because she’d always been drawn to the type. Average height and weight, a touch on the scrawny side, perhaps. Slightly bookish with his round rimless glasses and blue chambray shirt. Fine, even features. Curly dark hair. Quizzical, sardonic, probably given to brooding silences. Probably subscribed to the New York Times—delivery cost more in California, but the book supplement was worth it—preferred merlot to chardonnay, listened to NPR and thought American Beauty was a brilliant film. He really did look like Rob.

“Is it distracting working here?” he asked. “Being visible from the street?”

“I can usually block out distractions.” She glanced around the storefront studio she’d worked in for the past year. “When people see me working, they don’t just drop in.”

“I can leave.”

“I didn’t mean you.”

“Well, I know how it is to be interrupted in the middle of a thought.”

“I haven’t had a whole lot of thoughts lately.” Her face went warm. Why the hell had she said that? “About work, I mean. I’m…I’ve had other things on my mind. Actually, I’ll be moving soon. I’m buying my grandmother’s cottage and there’s a porch in the back that will make a perfect studio. I can just stumble out of bed and start working.”

“Pretty convenient,” he said.

He looked genuinely interested, as though she’d actually said something, not babbled like an idiot. She folded her arms, unfolded them. Stuck an elbow on the worktable, propped her head in her hand and tried to look bored. Better than looking flustered and awkward. Coffee. Did she have any? No. He had an athlete’s body. Not an ounce of fat. Unlike her own fleshy roll constricted now by the waistband of her jeans. Her hand was going numb.

“Anyway,” he said, “you asked yesterday if I had any questions and now I realize I do.”

“Questions?”

“About the tile-making process.” He took a notebook from his pocket, flipped the through the pages. “How do you actually make tiles?”

She glanced at him briefly, long enough to tell her that he wasn’t really here to talk about tiles. Fine, if he wasn’t going to come clean, she’d make him pay the price. “The short answer is, you mix the clay, roll it out, mold it, fire it in one of those kilns over there, dry it for a few days, then glaze it several times and fire it again,” she said. “Painting them is another process.”

“So—”

“Exactly.” She launched into a detailed explanation of paint pigments, moved on to glazes and firing techniques and anything else she could think of to throw into the monologue. When she saw his eyes begin to glass over, she began a dissertation on paint pigments. “That’s a very short and simplistic answer,” she said some twenty minutes later, “and I’m sure you must have dozens of questions.”

“What I—”

“Did I mention that the tiles are mixed with two different kinds of clay?”

“Twice.”

Only a touch embarrassed, she plowed on, anyway. “But I probably didn’t explain that it’s the glazing that gives them the really brilliant colors. Glazing and firing and more glazing and the heat’s turned up and they develop this hard brilliance.”

“My daughter would find this interesting,” he said.

“Unlike her father?”

“On the contrary.” He had his back to the shop window, a hand casually resting on the edge of her worktable. “I’ve been following your advice and checking out the installations around town. Right outside my office, there’s a tiled mural of a girl riding a whale.”

“Designed after a 1950s-era postcard made to advertise the big tuna that used to be caught in Catalina,” Ava said in the tour-guide voice she used during the weekly art walks she conducted. “Three children commissioned it to celebrate the anniversary of their mother’s birth.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“You stopped taking notes about twenty minutes ago,” she said. “And interesting is one of those words people use when they can’t think of anything else to say.”

He looked at her for a full five seconds. “Interesting.”

HOURS LATER HER FACE STILL burned every time she replayed the exchange. Screw him, she finally decided. It wasn’t as if she didn’t already have enough on her mind. Like her father still giving her the runaround on the cottage. That night, she packed an overnight bag, put Henri in her Land Rover and drove across the island to Ingrid’s. The following morning, she called Sam on her cell phone. When he continued to waffle, she left Henri at Ingrid’s, drove back to Avalon and tried to work. Thursday night she checked into the Bay View Hotel. Friday morning she ran into her father when she stopped at Von’s to pick up food for Henri.

“About the cottage, Dad,” she began.

“We’ll go and have a look at it. Don’t even know if it’s safe for you to live there. Deck’s rotting, roof leaks.”

“I told you, I’ll get it fixed.”

“I want to see it first,” he said. “Come on. Jeep’s outside. Just have a couple of things to do and we’ll go look at the place.”

Two hours later they were barreling across the interior, Sam rambling on about a species of cactus he wanted to show her. “Never seen anything like it growing here before,” he said. “You’ll be amazed. Just can’t remember exactly where I saw it.”

Eventually he gave up searching and they headed back into town. The wind pressed her back into the seat as Sam whipped the Jeep around the curve of Pebbly Beach Road. Maybe Ingrid was right. Maybe the cottage wasn’t worth the headache of dealing with Sam. Maybe she should have Lil show her the place on Marilla. Sam was driving and gesticulating and rambling on about this and that. You don’t listen to Sam, she reflected. He’s background noise.

“The purpose of this little expedition,” she reminded him, “was to see the cottage. If we’re not going to do that, just let me off in town. I’ve got Henri locked up in the studio. I need to get back to feed him.”

“Aaah.” Sam waved her protest away. “That dog’s not going to starve. Do him good to lose a few pounds, anyway. Damn.” He looked across Ava at the blue waters of the bay. “I’d like to get another Catalina marathon organized next year. No reason why it couldn’t be done again. The English Channel at its narrowest point is the same width as the Catalina Channel. Twenty-two miles. I could see reinstating the George Young Spirit of Catalina Award. He’s the guy—”

“Who swam it in 1927,” Ava interrupted. “Do you have any idea how many times you’ve told me that?”

“What was his time?”

“Fifteen hours and forty-six minutes.” She’d committed the facts to memory when she was about ten. “And in 1952 Florence Chadwick beat his time by nearly two hours. I need to get back, Dad. Forget about the cottage, okay? I’m not interested anymore—”

“Sure you are. You’ve always wanted that place. There’s a Dumpster around here somewhere.” He drove slowly, checking the side of the road. “I saw it this morning. Someone dumped a whole load of lumber. Just what I need for the deck.”

“So I can have the cottage?”

“Makes no sense, but if that’s what you want to do… Need to fix that deck, though.”

“I can buy the damn wood.”

“Why waste good money?” He brought the Jeep to a screeching halt in the middle of the street. “There it is. See the wood sticking out?”

“Dad, you can’t stop here,” Ava protested, but he was out of the car, the top half of his body already disappearing into the Dumpster. Through the sideview mirror, she could see a white van, and behind that a golf cart. Neither vehicle could move until the Jeep made way. Drivers would recognize her father’s car, though, and wait patiently, because that was Dr. Sam for you. She glanced again at the mirror—four cars behind them now. Over at the Dumpster, she could see her father’s tanned legs beneath a pair of tattered paisley Bermuda shorts. She slid over to the driver’s seat and drove the Jeep to the side of the road.

The other cars trickled past, the drivers sending jaunty waves. Through the windshield, to her left, the Bay View Hotel and, next to it, the Argonaut office, where Scott Campbell was probably sitting at his computer making condescending observations about small-town life.

Her father yelled something from the Dumpster.

Ava glanced at her watch. Five. She tipped her head back against the seat rest, closed her eyes. Her head was a giant gourdlike thing, crammed to the bursting point with…stuff. One tap and it would all come pouring out. Orange emotional goo, seeds of doubt, stringy bits of memory…

“Ava.” Her father appeared at the passenger window. “Are you deaf or something? How come you moved the car? I need you to help me haul out the wood. It’s good stuff. I’ll be able to do the whole deck and the handrail.” He started back toward the Dumpster. “Come on.”

Ava sighed and got out of the car. Somehow it always ended up being Sam’s agenda. “Five minutes, Dad, and then I’m going to walk.”

“This won’t take five minutes.” He gestured at the Dumpster. “Okay, we can do this two ways. I’ll help you climb in and you can hand the wood to me, or I’ll get in there, but you’ll have to give me a boost—”

“Dad…” Ava held her hands to her face for a moment. Her heart was hammering so hard she felt dizzy. She took a deep breath and eyed the rusty Dumpster, brimming over with mattresses and cardboard cartons. “I don’t want to go climbing in Dumpsters.”

“Fine, I’ll do it.” He started shimmying up the side. “While we’re standing here yakking, we might as well unload it.” He threw a piece of wood at her. “Here, you start stacking it as I hand it to you.”

Exasperated, she took the wood, set it on the sidewalk and reached for the piece he held out to her. “It doesn’t matter what I have to do or what anyone else wants to do. It’s always your damn agenda first, isn’t it?”

“Fine.” He slid down to the sidewalk, brushed dust off his shorts. “Go feed the dog or whatever it is you have to do that’s so important. I’ll do this by myself. It didn’t seem like a whole lot to ask, but obviously I was wrong.”

“Dad…” He’d started walking toward the Jeep with an armful of wood and she grabbed his arm. “Why does it have to be this way?”

He pulled away, tossed the bundle of wood in the back of the Jeep and started back to the Dumpster. “Go. Leave.”

“No.” She stood in the middle of the sidewalk glaring at him. “Why, Dad? Why does everything always have to be so damn black and white? Why just for once, can’t you compromise?”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “I don’t want to stand here debating it.”

“Dad.” She watched him climb into the Jeep and start stacking the wood. “Just talk to me. Please.”

“Leave me alone,” he said. “You sound just like your mother.”

EVEN FROM A FEW YARDS distant, Scott could see that Ava Lynsky was not happy. He’d finished his beer on the hotel patio and was heading to the Argonaut office when he glanced up the road to see a Jeep blocking traffic. He thought he recognized the Jeep and the driver. By the time he reached it, the Jeep was on the side of the road, and Ava, in an oversize white T-shirt, black leggings and running shoes, seemed close to tears.

“Can I help?” he asked.

She looked at him. “Oh, no, we’re fine.” She pushed her hair back with her hand. “Dumpster diving is a Lynsky family favorite. Promotes bonding and understanding. I could be home working, feeding my dog, anything. But no…” Her voice cracked. “Sorry.” She flashed him a bright smile. “Enthusiasm. Sometimes it just carries me away.”

“Hey, Scott,” Sam Lynsky called from the Jeep. “Just in time. All kinds of good wood in here that’s just what I need to rebuild Ava’s deck. She doesn’t want to get her clothes dirty, but—”

“Go to hell, Dad.” Hands fisted at her sides, Ava glared at Sam. “Just go to hell. I don’t need you to rebuild my deck. I don’t need you for anything.”

Scott stood rooted on the spot for a minute. Ava had stormed off down the road and Sam was back at the Dumpster for more wood. It took him less than ten minutes to help Sam, now all cheery affability, load the rest of the wood into the Jeep and inquire casually about Ava’s address. “Need to get together to talk about that book,” Lynsky said as he drove off. “Remind me the next time you see me.”

Ava hadn’t gone far. As he started back to the Argonaut office, Scott glanced over his shoulder at the small triangular park squeezed into a piece of land between the St. Catherine’s Hotel and the newspaper office. Last week he’d taken his laptop out there to write, inspired by the views of the bay just across the road. Now Ava sat on a bench there, her back to the street, shoulders hunched. He stood at the edge of the park for a moment, then walked the few yards across the grass.

“Ava.”

She turned. Her eyes were red, her lips dry and chapped. Behind her, steep cliffs brushed clear blue sky.

“Hi,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“I can leave you alone. If I’m intruding—”

“It depends,” she said. “You have this sympathetic look on your face. If that’s why you’re here, then yes, you are intruding. Sympathy is not an acceptable reason for you being here.”

“Being unsympathetic is my specialty.” He sat on the bench. “Ask my ex-wife.”

Her eyes flickered over his face as though she was assimilating this new information. “About my father,” she said after a moment. “Pay no attention to what you just saw. Contrary to how it may look, I’m not mad at him. He’s—” she spread her hands “—very determined. He doesn’t trust anybody’s work but his own. That’s what he was getting the lumber for.”

“Must keep him quite busy. Do-it-yourself projects. A medical practice. And he has an asthma camp, too, right? I think I read something about it in a back issue.”

“Camp Breatheasy. Kids from all over the country come here to participate. You should do a story on it.”

“I will.” He watched her face. “You must be quite proud of your father.”

She looked directly at him. “I am.”

He felt reproved somehow, as if she’d just told him that she knew why he’d really come over to talk to her and he’d disappointed her by showing his cards. He cast around for something to say and found it in the bench they were sitting on. A tiled inset in the back of the bench was painted with a scene of young woman playing a piano amidst a setting of vibrantly colored tropical plants. “Come and Celebrate with the Girl of Our Dreams,” the painted inscription said.

“By the way,” he told Ava. “I’m still checking out examples of hand-painted tiles. I noticed this one a few days ago.”

Ava traced a brilliant red hibiscus on the corner of the mural. “Commissioned by a man to celebrate his marriage. They came to Avalon on a visit and married a few years later at the Wrigley Memorial. She died several years ago.”

“You probably know everything there is to know about this island,” he said.

“Maybe not everything. It’s a small island, though. I’ve spent thirty-four years on it.”

“Ever lived anywhere else?”

“Nope.”

“Ever wanted to?”

“Not really. It would be like leaving a house you’ve lived in forever. Everywhere I go, there’s an association or a memory.”

“A Pollyanna Princess living on her enchanted island.”

Her expression darkened. “A cynical outsider, determined to turn over stones.”

He’d offended her again. He drew a breath. “What I meant was that even though I haven’t lived here very long, I appreciate the island’s appeal. This morning when I was walking to the office, I looked out at the water and I could see the mainland. It did seem like another world. I can imagine it would be easy to feel as though fate had blessed you somehow. Although I know your personal loss—”

“Which is really what you’re here to talk about, isn’t it?”

“Not at all.”

“Of course it is. Just like you casually dropped by the studio to talk about tile-making. Please. Okay, get your notebook out. My mother didn’t accidentally fall overboard and drown. My father pushed her. At least, I think that’s what happened. It could be suicide, of course. Or maybe she staged her disappearance—”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did mean. You’re exactly like everyone else in the damn media. You sit there thinking that I’ll fall for your fake friendliness, that I’m just going to pour my heart out. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not my day for pouring.”

IF SCOTT USED too much force to open the front door, which he tended to do because it frequently stuck, it would fly open and hit an ugly green velour chair. It was a bad location for the chair, but the room was little larger than a closet and already crammed with an orange sofa. Tonight, the sofa was occupied by his sister, Carolyn, who was curled like a pretzel around Mark. They both sprung apart like characters in a sitcom when Scott burst in. Carolyn wore black combat boots and the kind of cotton housedress his mother used to wear. Her hair, shorter than his, was the approximate color of a tangerine. The last time Scott saw her it had been lime-green.

“Surprise,” she said. “I got fired.”

Scott picked up the day’s mail from the coffee table. “The surprise would be if you managed not to get fired.” Until now she’d worked—for brief periods—at vintage-clothing stores in Pasadena and Los Angeles while she majored in theater at Glendale Community College. Carolyn was twenty-four and always just on the verge of getting her act together. Sometimes Scott felt as though he had two daughters.

“Since Mark’s staying with you,” Carolyn said, “I figured I might as well be here, too. Don’t look so horrified. I can cook and clean and if you just happen to get any action, I’ll make myself scarce. ’Course, Mark has to come with me.”

Later, as they sat around the table eating the enchiladas Carolyn fixed, Scott described his exchange with Ava Lynsky. After managing to offend her yet again, he’d ambled back to the office. But he’d thought about Ava on and off for the rest of the day. He still felt mostly sympathy for the fiancé, but something about her intrigued him.

Carolyn wasn’t impressed. “If you want my opinion, she’s hiding something. No one would get that bent out of shape if everything was okay.”

“Nah.” Mark shook his head. “Sounds to me like she’s just a brat.” He looked at Scott. “Didn’t you say the daughters were princesses? That’s probably how she is with anyone who isn’t in her social class. She probably got a bunch of media calls after the mother died, and reporters are just part of the unwashed masses.”

“Okay, I’ve got it.” Carolyn leaned forward, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe she killed her mother. And she’s trying to pass it off as an accident. Next she’ll off the father, then the sister. And then, ta-da, the princess collects all the money.”

Scott and Mark both grinned. Scott tossed a tortilla chip at his sister.

“Bet you,” she said. “Three hundred dollars says I’m right.”

“Three hundred dollars would pay half of what you owe me for the clunker you conned me into buying for you,” Scott said. “And then there’s the fifty-dollar phone bill I paid—”

“I’ll wash dishes.” She climbed onto Mark’s lap, put her arm around his neck. “Seriously, can’t you see it? Murder on Catalina,” she said. “Tune in tomorrow to learn who gets snuffed next.”

“Carolyn missed her calling, don’t you think?” Mark asked Scott. “She should be writing movie scripts.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU LOOK A LITTLE TIRED tonight, sweetheart,” Ava’s fiancé, Ed Wynn, told her as they dined on trout amadine at the Catalina Yacht Club. “Are you feeling under the weather?”

“No, Ed.” She smiled brightly. “I’m fine. Fine, fine, fine.” A week now since she’d first seen the cottage and her father was still holding out. A week of alternating nights at Ingrid’s and the Bay View. But she was fine. Fine, peachy-keen, Jim Dandy fine. Tomorrow, she decided, she would spend the entire day without using the word.

Ed did not seem reassured. “Are you taking the multi-vitamins I bought you?”

“Religiously. I just have a bunch of things to do. In fact, maybe we could make this an early night.”

“Absolutely.” He helped her on with her coat and they waved and smiled to all the people they knew who were also dining at the yacht club. “I’m concerned about you,” he said as they walked out into the night. “What you need is a little TLC. A back rub, a warm fire. A little brandy.”

She felt a pang of guilt. She hadn’t told Ed about the cottage yet. Either he’d be disappointed that she wanted to move into a place of her own, instead of into his luxurious home, or recognize how much she wanted the place and offer to intervene with Sam. Both prospects filled her with a dull sense of resignation. Ed was a truly good man, she was always telling herself—and then she’d wonder why she was always telling herself.

“It sounds wonderful,” she told him, “but I think I need an early night.”

“Suit yourself,” he said amiably. “By the way, I meant to ask you. What do you think of the new Argonaut editor? You’ve met him, I assume.”

“A couple of times.” She willed herself not to blush at the mention of Scott Campbell’s name. Since the last embarrassing interlude at the park, she’d taken an alternative route into town to avoid walking past the newspaper office. “I doubt he’ll last long.”

“My thoughts exactly. I met him at the Conservancy board meeting yesterday. A mainlander with an attitude.” He reached to adjust the coat she’d thrown over her shoulders. “Will your father be home, do you think?”

“I don’t know.” She stopped walking. “I’m not staying there tonight, Ed. I’ve been staying at the Bay View for the last few days.”

His brow furrowed. “What on earth for?”

“It’s just temporary…”

“How does your father feel about that?”

Her shoulders tensed under his arm. “It’s my decision. I was going to wait until I knew for sure before I told you, but I want to buy my grandmother’s cottage. My dad still owns it and…we’re just working out the details.” She could see Ed gearing up for a discussion and she cut it short. “Look, I really am tired. Thanks for dinner. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“WHAT TIME DID DAD SAY he’d be here?” Ingrid asked Ava the next day over a plate of chili fries at the Beehive. “Just so I can leave before he arrives.”

“Noon,” Ava said. “Which means one at the earliest.”

They were sitting in the Beehive’s window booth, which everyone on Catalina knew was Dr. Sam’s unofficial consulting room. Three or four days a week, he dispensed medical advice, scribbled prescriptions and offered up political opinion and social commentary over the luncheon special. It didn’t seem that long ago, Ava reflected, since the days when Diana would send her or Ingrid down to the Beehive to remind their father he had patients in his real office. “I guess I should be glad he’s not sitting in a bar somewhere,” Diana used to say, “but just once in a while, couldn’t he even pretend to be conventional?”

“All right, girls. More tea?” Shirley, the Beehive owner, poured from a plastic pitcher, molded to look like cut glass. “Your dad joining you?”

“Supposed to be,” Ava said.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Ingrid said.

Shirley stuck a pen into her henna-red beehive and fixed Ingrid with a look. “When you going back to medical school?”

“Never.”

“You’re breaking your father’s heart. All those plans he had for you. Going into practice together…”

“Those were his plans.” Ingrid dipped a French fry in the chili and bit into it. “I’m happy with my life.”

With a shake of her head at Ingrid, Shirley addressed Ava. “How you doin’ hon?”

Ava smiled brightly. “Fine. Terrific.”

She watched Shirley make her way to the row of chrome and red-vinyl stools that lined the counter, stopping at the end stool to whisper in the ear of a gray-haired woman whose face took on the rapt look of someone receiving juicy gossip. Shirley and the Beehive were inextricably linked. Years ago Shirley had been a HeeHaw Honey. Black-and-white photos of her on the HeeHaw set, in pigtails and gingham, her front tooth blacked out, hung on the wall above the cash register.

“So what’s going on with the cottage?” Ingrid asked.

“Same old, same old. Dad’s going to let me have it, but first he has to do his thing with it. I’m about ready to say to hell with it.”

“Which is why I won’t play his game.” Ingrid shook her head. “I’d love to use some of my trust fund to buy the stables, but I’d burn the whole place down before I asked Dad about it.” With her fork, she poked at the diced onion on the chili. “Do you ever think how weird it is that no one ever picks up on the difference between the lovable, eccentric Dr. Sam and the stubborn, contentious—”

“Dogmatic,” Ava said. She’d heard Ingrid ask the question a dozen times. “Don’t forget dogmatic.”

“I’m serious. No one has any idea what he’s really like.”

Ava leaned her head back against the booth. She didn’t feel like talking about Sam. In truth, he was somewhere between both versions.

“I mean nothing’s changed for him since Mom died,” Ingrid said. “Nothing about her being gone stops him from chopping wood up at the camp, or seeing patients, or tearing around in the Jeep, or doing whatever he damn well feels like doing. Sometimes I want to tap him on the shoulder and ask if he’s aware Mom’s not around anymore.”

“Tomorrow’s her birthday,” Ava said. Would have been. Referring to Diana in the past tense was something she hadn’t quite mastered. She drank some water, set the glass down.

“Hey.” Ingrid tapped a French fry against Ava’s hand. “Where are you?”

“Right here. I’m fine,” she said when Ingrid kept peering at her. “I was just thinking about the birthday cake we made her last year.”

“Coconut,” Ingrid said.

“No, lemon. We squeezed fresh lemon into the frosting. You don’t remember that?”

“I remember coconut,” Ingrid said. “And I remember she had a headache.”

“She always got a headache when we had birthdays and celebrations,” Ava said. “Like when Rob and I got engaged. Mom wanted that big party and I just knew she’d get a migraine.”

Ingrid laughed. “I even remember filling a plastic bag with ice to take in to her. Uh-oh,” she suddenly said. “Did Mr. L.A. Times just walk in?”

“Did he?” Ava ducked her head. “I don’t want to talk to him. Pretend you didn’t see him.”

“He’s with some girl. Oh, my God, you should see her hair. It’s orange, bright orange. And she’s wearing army boots.”

Ava picked up the menu and raised her eyes just long enough to see Scott smile at the orange-haired girl. She returned to the menu, the image of him burned into her brain. Neat, preppy, controlled. Khakis and a greenish-gray polo shirt. He probably looked neat, preppy and controlled in bed stark naked.

“Not that I give a damn,” she told Ingrid. “But the Tangerine Temptress doesn’t exactly seem like his type.” She downed a glass of water, ate the last French fry and glanced at her watch. “Look’s like Dad flaked out. Maybe what I should really do is take the next boat back to the mainland and start a new life.”

“Before you do,” Ingrid said, “be sure to ask Dad about Mom’s diaries. I want to see them.”

ON THE EVENING OF Ava Lynsky’s exhibit, Scott stood with Carolyn in a corner of the gallery watching guests in summery clothes chat and mill about while juggling glasses of white wine and paper plates. The music wafting softly over the subdued buzz of talk and laughter was classical—Chopin maybe, but he wouldn’t bet money on it. Spring flowers in straw baskets and raffia-tied mason jars bloomed on every surface, including a white-covered buffet table at the end of the room.

He hadn’t seen Ava since their conversation in the park and would have forgotten about the event altogether if the waitress at the Beehive hadn’t mentioned it when he stopped in for breakfast that morning. He hadn’t seen Sam Lynsky, either, or heard anything more about the book. He’d told Ellie the trip to Spain was a no-go. She’d told him she hated him.

“I don’t know about you,” Carolyn whispered now, “but I feel about as conspicuous as a stripper in church.”

“You wanted to come.”

“Yeah, well, there was nothing on TV.”

He shot her a glance. Mark had returned to L.A. and Carolyn was decked out in full club-scene regalia. Ring in her left nostril, short flouncy black skirt, bomber jacket, black fishnet stockings and combat boots. She’d also furnished his ensemble for the evening: a shirt the approximate color of cow dung, khaki-olive according to Carolyn, and some pants that made him feel like a gangster from a 1920s movie, but that, Carolyn assured him, looked “very West Side.”

Possibly not the appropriate sartorial note for a Catalina soirée, but assimilation didn’t happen overnight.

Carolyn tapped a black-painted finger against her arm. “I swear to God, if that old bag in the pink muumuu gives me one more look, I’m going to go over and rip that damn flowerpot thing off her head.”

“Ignore her. She’s—” Scott hesitated, already anticipating his sister’s reaction “—president of the Catalina Chow Chatters,” he said sotto voce. Carolyn’s predictable hoot drew a few glances in their direction and he shot her a warning look. “Keep it down. She’ll think we’re laughing at her.”

“Hey, I am laughing at her. This whole scene’s hilarious, I swear to God.” Her usual expression of terminal ennui, an essential club-scene accessory was gone, in its place a broad grin. “Catalina Chow Chatters. What the hell is that all about?”

“They meet once a week to chat about their chows,” he said, straight-faced. “She has two chows, Charley and Charmaine.” He elbowed Carolyn in the ribs. “Behave yourself. I did a story on her last week. She was quite…charming.”

“Oh, God, Scott.” Carolyn shook her head. “Please don’t tell me they serve chow mein.”

“Chocolate-chip cupcakes.” He felt himself losing the battle not to grin. “Okay, knock it off. Everybody is looking at us.”

“The hell with them,” Carolyn said. “You know what? I was never a huge fan of your ex-wife, but she was right about one thing. You were crazy to give up your job at the Times. I mean seriously, how long can you get up every morning and write this kind of garbage? You’re going to go stark-raving nuts.”

“Well, it’s not all like that. There are…meatier stories.”

“Name one.”

He thought of Diana Lynsky. “I can’t.”

“I give it six months.”

“We’ll see.”

Carolyn went off to browse the buffet table and he went off to browse Ava Lynsky’s artwork, two dozen or so tile installations, hung at eye-level and illuminated by recessed ceiling lights: several views of Avalon Harbor, white yachts and blue water; an elaborate dwelling with a cone-shaped roof, nestled into a green hillside—the caption beneath it read The Holly Hill House; renderings of brown seals on white rocks, smiling kids in yellow kayaks, a shaggy-headed buffalo traipsing through long grass.

“Did you know there were buffalo on Catalina?” he asked Carolyn when they’d returned to their corner, Carolyn with a yellow paper plate of deviled eggs and small open-face sandwiches.

“Buffalo?” With her teeth, she removed an olive from whipped golden yolk, swallowed it and shrugged. “I can’t honestly say I’ve stayed awake nights wondering.”

“I didn’t know until last week.” Scott took one of the sandwiches, paper-thin cucumber slices artistically aligned with strips of red pepper. “Someone from the Conservancy called the paper to suggest I do a piece about the buffalo. I thought it was a joke.”

“Speaking of meatier stories,” Carolyn said.

Scott ignored her. “Years ago some Hollywood types doing a film about Zane Grey brought over fourteen of them. Now the offspring roam through the interior, doing…whatever buffaloes do.”

“So did you write about them?”

“Not yet. Too many other hot stories going on. The garden club’s electing a new president tomorrow.” He let a moment pass. “Daisy Summers, I kid you not.”

“Like I said, I give you six months. Maybe three.”

Scott said nothing. He’d just spotted Ava again, talking now to the president of the Catalina Island Improvement Association, a woman he’d been introduced to his first day here and who had immediately listed the articles she wanted to see in the Argonaut. At that moment he’d had his first serious doubt about leaving L.A. He watched Ava. Her white sundress seemed to gleam against her tanned arms and shoulders.

“So is that the artist?” Carolyn asked. “The one with the black curls?”

“Yep.”

Carolyn smiled. “Ah.”

Scott shot her a look, “Ah, what?”

Carolyn kept smiling. “Just, ah.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I just figured out the real reason we’re hanging out with a bunch of yahoos drinking cheap wine and chowing down on egg salad.”

“The real reason we’re here,” Scott said, still watching Ava Lynsky and wondering whether the tall geek with the crewcut in whose ear she was whispering was the fiancé, “is…” The geek had just whirled Ava around and was lifting the hair off the back off her neck, fiddling with something back there and causing Scott to lose his train of thought.

“Quit drooling,” Carolyn said.

“Don’t be absurd,” Scott said.

“Actually, I think she’s kind of witchy-looking,” Carolyn said.

“Exotic,” Scott said.

“If you’re going to go put the make on her, do it now,” Carolyn said. “I’m getting bored.”

“I’m not going to put the make on her,” Scott said. “I just need to talk to her.”

“Whatever,” Carolyn said.

Scott shot her another look, composed his features as he headed over to talk to Ava Lynsky, who was listening to the island-improvement woman but watching him as he moved through the crowd. He tried not to notice that his pulse had sped up.

“MY GOODNESS,” AVA SMILED at Scott. “A representative from the fourth estate. This must be a bigger occasion than I thought.”

“You summoned me,” he reminded her. “I’d be remiss in my duties if I neglected to cover Avalon’s cultural scene. Particularly one as glittering as this.”

“That is so kind of you,” Ava said. “I can’t tell you how flattered I am.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” he said.

“You’ve taken a look around?” she asked. “Tried some of our delicious refreshments?”

“Made an absolute pig of myself,” he said. “Everything’s…divine.”

Jerk, Ava thought, and turned to the president of the Catalina Island Improvement Association who had been shooting glances like Ping-Pong balls between herself and Scott. “You’ve met Scott Campbell, haven’t you? Aren’t you just thrilled to have a former L.A. Times reporter over here in Avalon covering our little goings-on?”

“Yes, well—” Doris gave him a measured look “—we’ll see. I’m sure you’ll find no shortage of exciting things to write about,” she said with a frosty smile. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get a little plate of goodies for my husband. He’s over there just salivating for some of those scrumptious-looking Swedish meatballs.”

Ava watched Doris head for the buffet table and wished Scott Campbell would just go away. She’d spotted him as soon as he walked into the gallery—all urban and hip with his orange-haired girlfriend—and tried to ignore him. Tried unsuccessfully to ignore him. What really irritated her was the way the two of them had just kept to themselves, off in the corner, whispering and laughing as though they found the whole scene quaint and amusing.

“Well—” she tried to remember where she’d left her wineglass “—are you finding plenty to write about?”

“Still finding my way around. Meeting people, that sort of thing. I met your sister a few days ago. And your father was kind enough to give me a tour of the island.”

“How nice.” Reminded of her father, whose latest delaying tactic was the cottage’s leaking roof, Ava felt her cordial mask slip. Her head was aching, and while she hadn’t expected Ingrid to show up for the reception, she was a little hurt that her father hadn’t put in an appearance. She felt surly, tired and not in the mood for social chitchat.

“We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot,” he said, “and I wanted to suggest we start over.”

“But you’re on the trail of a story, right? Driven, dogged, persistent. That’s the way reporters are, isn’t it? Not that I’ve had a lot of experience with hard-bitten reporters, of course, here in my sunny island paradise.”

“Look, could we knock this off?”

“Knock what off?”

“Come on.” He nodded toward the bar, where glasses of white and red wine were arranged in little rows. “Let me get you a drink.”

“I have one.” She glanced around. “Somewhere.”

“Have another one.”

“No, thank you. One glass is my limit.”

“Talk to me while I have one.”

“Talk to you about what?”

“Anything.”

“Look.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I really can’t think of anything I want to say to you. But thank you so much for attending my humble little event. I didn’t prepare any press kits, but if you’d like one, I can pull something together.” She touched his arm. “And now I really need to go and mingle.”

An hour later Ava checked in for another night at the Bay View. She was still annoyed at Sam and his newest delaying tactic. It was late April and the island probably wouldn’t see rain again till November at the earliest. She’d figured out his strategy. If he inconvenienced her enough, she’d give up and return home. The strategy would fail; she could hold out for as long as he could. When hotel living got too expensive, there was always Ingrid’s couch and the campground at Two Harbors on the other side of the island. She ignored the curious glance from the clerk at the front desk—a weekend busboy at Camp Breatheasy—signed the register and went up to her room.

The following morning she was eating breakfast in the hotel dining room when Scott Campbell walked in. A decent night’s sleep, coffee and a well-made omelet could do wonders for the disposition, and feeling slightly embarrassed by her churlish behavior the night before, she smiled at him. He came over to her table.

“Okay, I’m here,” he said, “because the hotel manager gives me a deal on breakfast.” He nodded in the direction of the Argonaut office, a few yards down the street. “It’s convenient and a whole lot better than what I would make for myself.”

“Which would be?”

He grinned. “What would I make for breakfast? Nothing that required cooking, I can assure you of that.”

“If you’d like to join me…” Divorced, definitely. Used to a wife cooking for him. Orange-haired girlfriend was his first foray into dating. He’d learn to become more discriminating. “By the way, I apologize for my…bratty behavior last night. And while I’m dishing out apologies, I might as well add one for that little scene in the park.”

“Forget it,” he said. “I just figured that was the way princesses behaved. Not having had a whole lot of experience with them myself.”

“Can we drop the princess stuff?”

“The p-word will never pass my lips again.”

She smiled, but suddenly felt very conscious of the two of them sitting across the table from each other. Outside the window, boats were moored in the harbor. Early-morning sunlight glinted off the water, and the small square of beach was filling with towels and umbrellas. It occurred to her that anyone seeing them sitting here might assume they’d spent the night together.

“So what brought you to Catalina?” she asked. “And don’t say the boat—it’s an old joke.”

“Your father asked me the same thing.” He glanced around for a waiter, then looked at Ava. “Hold on a second, I’ll go tell Benjamin I’m here. I eat the same thing every day.”

Ava drank some coffee and watched Scott as he went off to look for the hotel manager. Cute, definitely cute. Ed’s face swam into view and she felt a stab of guilt. Just looking. No harm in that, right?

“So where were we?” Scott asked after the waiter had set down a plate of scrambled eggs and ham. “You were telling me about your work.”

She’d been stirring creamer into her coffee and she glanced up at him. “No, we weren’t, but it’s sweet of you pretend you’re interested.”

“Let’s cut this stuff out, okay? I am interested. I just don’t know very much about—”

“Tiles.” She smiled. “I lead an art tour every week from the Casino. I discuss some of the tile installations around town. It’s quite informative. You should come by.”

“I’ll do that,” he said.

“So why are you here in Catalina?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Escape from reality.”

“Meaning?”

Obviously uncomfortable, he frowned down at his coffee. “It’s kind of hard to explain. I was at the Times for twelve years, nearly thirteen, and I guess I’d grown pretty cynical. Not a whole lot of illusions anymore. I didn’t think much could shock me.” He looked up, met her eyes for a moment. “This probably isn’t very good breakfast conversation.”

Ava glanced around at the almost empty dining room. It was still early for most tourists. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

“A horrible crime happened in the house right next door to mine. An elderly widow—my daughter thought of her as her grandmother—was raped and murdered in her bedroom. Ellie was devastated, of course. After that, she had all kinds of behavior problems.”

“Is she here with you now?”

“Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way. I thought it would be a good thing to move her to a different environment, but my wife disagreed. And since she’s a whole lot closer to Ellie than I am…no one’s fault but my own. I’m here and she’s not.” He paused. “I haven’t given up, though. Ultimately I hope Ellie will decide to come over.”

“You like it here?”

He smiled. “What’s not to like? I’d been covering crime and living in traffic. Now I write about fishing tournaments and swim in the ocean every day.” He buttered a slice of toast. “It’s more than that, though. I guess the joy seemed to go out of life. I couldn’t shake my depression. I could work, but there was this insidious gloom. I started to feel that I’d never be happy again or have any reason to hope.”

Ava had stopped eating as he spoke. She’d almost stopped breathing. She understood so completely what he’d described that she felt herself almost gaping. She drank some water, pushed her plate aside. When she looked up, he was watching her. “It’s sounds trite to say I know what you mean,” she said. “But I do.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I imagine you do.”

“It always seemed like we led this magical existence. My mother used to say how fortunate we were. Telling us we were the luckiest people alive to be living here in all this beauty.”

“You thought so, too?”

“Absolutely. One year for Christmas, she’d had one of those glass balls—you know the kind you turn over to make the snow fall?—specially made with four tiny figures inside. Ava and Ingrid and Diana and Sam. All palm trees and sunshine and sparkle. After her accident I felt as if the island had…betrayed me. It’s so beautiful, but it’s as though something dark and horrible is lurking beneath the surface and…” Embarrassed, she stopped. “I’m sorry. I hate people who can’t wait to plunge in with their own stories.”

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