Delaney adjusted the backpack on her shoulder, feeling the strap gnaw into her skin. Thousands of dollars in paper money was physically heavy, and heavier still when you considered the possibility that you might be making the biggest mistake of your whole, stupid, irrelevant twenty-seven-year life.
Mrs. Beckett wiped her palms again and glanced at the backpack. “Well, I suppose if you pay it all up front, it would be OK, but I will need you to sign a lease before you bring anything in. And I’d still like a copy of your driver’s license just as soon as you have it.”
Relief washed over Delaney at the apparent ease of this transaction. She was in, and she could stall on producing a license indefinitely. With any luck, by the time she finally offered it to the landlady, she’d have the woman thoroughly convinced she was not that Delaney Masterson.
“Sure thing. No problem.” Hiccup.
Mrs. Beckett smiled. “I guess we have a deal, then, but I should mention that my husband, Carl, will be doing some repairs over here in the next few days. He needs to fix the leaky showerhead in the bathroom. And the back door doesn’t always lock. You need to give it a little extra tug, not that you have to worry much about locking doors in this town. Bell Harbor is the safest place around.”
Safest place around? Good. Delaney sincerely hoped that was true. She also hoped it was a place where people minded their own business and wouldn’t butt into hers. Privacy was what she craved above all else. The chance to be completely and totally unobserved, with no one snapping a photo or sifting through her trash. It was time for her to fade into the mist like . . . well, like mist.
Fifteen minutes later Delaney scrawled an illegible signature on the leasing contract in front of her. She and Mrs. Beckett had moved into the linoleum-floored kitchen and were now seated at the square dinette table. Its dingy white-and-gray-speckled top was surrounded by a scarred metal rim. The chairs were metal too, with cracked red seat cushions. Old enough to be retro but so dinged up they just looked old.
Delaney slid the papers back to her new landlord, her pulse thrumming right under her skin. “Here you go, Mrs. Beckett.”
“Oh, you can call me Donna,” she said, picking up the lease agreement and bringing it close to her face. Her eyes narrowed, her gaze directed at the spot where Delaney had signed. Donna’s cheeks flushed a little, and the paper crackled as she gripped it tighter.
Delaney held her breath. This jig might be up. Her fingers tapped restlessly on her thighs as she wondered if she should have just thrown herself on the mercy of this manatee-loving woman and admitted who she was.
Five seconds stretched into an endless ten.
At last Donna chuckled and shook her head. “This is awkward. I should have brought my reading glasses because I can’t quite make out your signature and I’m afraid I never asked your name. Does this say . . . Elaine Masters?”
Elaine Masters?
Delaney’s heart skipped a beat. The jig was still firmly in place—and here was her chance. Her chance to remain anonymous. Her chance to create a whole new her, even if it was only temporary. She’d never thought of using an alias, but the idea was brilliant. Irresistible.
The decision took no longer than a blink.
“Yes, it does,” she said, offering up the first genuine smile she’d shared with anyone in weeks. “My name is Elaine Masters.”
For an adventure-show cameraman like Grant Connelly, home was a campsite near the Ucayali River in Peru, or at the base of an active volcano like Tinakula, or maybe some ramshackle motel in Katmandu if he decided to splurge on having a solid roof over his head, but now it was time to head home to Bell Harbor because his younger brother was about to do something irretrievably stupid.
“Stupid,” Grant murmured.
Assistant producer Jake Simmons didn’t bother to look Grant’s way. Instead he leaned closer to the video monitor in front of them and adjusted a few dials. The two men were inside a makeshift editing room, their office for the past two months, although it was really nothing more than an oversized canvas tent full of high-tech equipment powered by a big-ass generator—a generator that had been a bitch and a half to haul through the Philippine jungle to their current location. Jake tapped the monitor with his index finger, pointing at the image of a man dangling over a rocky precipice several yards from where they sat.
“Who’s stupid?” Jake asked. “Surely you’re not referring to the star of One Man, One Planet, are you?” His voice was commercial-grade enthusiasm, but Grant knew he shared the same low opinion of the man on-screen. Blake Rockstone. Their idiot boss.
Blake turned his face toward the camera lens as if he could hear their criticism. He couldn’t, of course. He was too far away and too busy pretending to be in a precarious predicament. Exaggerated facial expressions and clever camera angles made it look as if he were high in the air, when in reality, a mere six feet separated him from a soft, mossy landing. Six feet and a protective harness hidden under his clothes, the gutless coward.