After five weeks in the cottage, it was time to get away for a few days. Connie and her husband and two teenage girls were on the way for their annual two-week vacation at the beach. Connie had politely, almost dutifully, invited Mercer to join them, but there was no way. Mercer knew the girls would do nothing but stare at their phones all day, and the husband would talk of nothing but his frozen yogurt shops. Though he was modest about his success he worked nonstop. Mercer knew he would be up by five each morning, slugging down coffee as he fired off e-mails and checked shipments and such, and would probably never get his feet wet in the ocean. Connie had joked that he had never lasted the full two weeks. Some crisis would always intervene and he would rush back to Nashville to save his company.
Writing would be out of the question, though at her current pace she couldn’t fall much farther behind.
As for Connie, who was nine years older, the two had never been close. With their mother away and their father too self-absorbed, the girls practically raised themselves. Connie fled home at the age of eighteen for college at SMU and never returned. She had spent one summer at the beach with Tessa and Mercer, but by then she was boy crazy and bored with the beach walking and turtle watching and nonstop reading. She left when Tessa caught her smoking pot.
Now the sisters e-mailed once a week; chatted by phone once a month; kept things civil and upbeat. Mercer dropped by occasionally when she was near Nashville, often at a different address. They moved a lot, and always to larger homes in nicer neighborhoods. They were chasing something, a vague dream, and Mercer often wondered where they would be when they found it. The more money they made the more they spent, and Mercer, living in poverty, marveled at their consumption.
There was a backstory that had never been discussed, primarily because a discussion would lead to nothing but hard feelings. Connie had the good fortune of receiving four years of private college education without incurring a dime in student debt, courtesy of their father, Herbert, and his Ford business. However, by the time Mercer enrolled at Sewanee, the old boy was losing his shirt and staring at bankruptcy. For years she had resented her sister’s luck, and it was not worth mentioning that Connie had never offered a dime of support. Now that her student debt had miraculously vanished, Mercer was determined to get past the resentment. It might be a challenge, though, with Connie’s homes getting grander by the year while Mercer wasn’t sure where she’d be sleeping in a few months.
The truth was that Mercer did not want to spend time with her sister. They were living in different worlds and growing farther apart. So she had thanked Connie for the invitation to stay with her family, and both were relieved when Mercer said no. She said she might be leaving the island for a few days, needed a break and all that, might go here or there to see a friend. Elaine arranged a small suite in a bed-and-breakfast on the beach two miles north of the cottage because Mercer had no plans to go anywhere. The next move was Cable’s, and she could not afford to be off the island.
On Friday of July Fourth weekend, Mercer tidied up the cottage and stuffed two canvas bags with her clothes, toiletries, and a few books. As she walked through, turning off lights, she thought of Tessa, and how far she, Mercer, had come in the past five weeks. She had stayed away from the place for eleven years and returned with great trepidation, but in short order she had managed to put aside the awfulness of Tessa’s death and dwell on the memories she cherished. She was leaving now, and for good reason, but she would be back in two weeks and again have the place to herself. For how long, no one seemed to know for sure. That would depend on Mr. Cable.
She drove five minutes along Fernando Street to the bed-and-breakfast, a place called the Lighthouse Inn. There was a tall fake lighthouse in the center of the courtyard, one that she remembered well from her childhood. The inn was a rambling Cape Cod–style building with twenty rooms to rent and an all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast. The holiday crowd was descending on the island. A “No Vacancy” sign warned others to stay away.
With a room of her own and some money in her pocket, perhaps she could settle in and write some fiction.
3.
Late Saturday morning, as Main Street was busy with its weekly farmers’ market and throngs of vacationers clogged the sidewalks looking for fudge and ice cream and perhaps a table for lunch, Denny entered Bay Books for the third time in a week and browsed through the mystery section. With his flip-flops, camouflage cap, cargo shorts, and torn T-shirt, he easily passed for another badly dressed visitor, one certain to attract the attention of no one else. He and Rooker had been in town for a week, scoping out the points of interest and watching Cable, a little surveillance that hardly posed a challenge. If the book dealer wasn’t in his store, he was either somewhere downtown doing lunch or running errands, or he was at his fine home, usually alone. They were being careful, though, because Cable loved security. His store and house were loaded with cameras and sensors and who knew what else. A false move could mean disaster.
They were waiting and watching, reminding themselves to be patient, though their patience was running thin. Torturing information out of Joel Ribikoff, as well as threatening Oscar Stein in Boston, had been easy work compared with what they were facing now. The violence that had worked before might not work so well now. Back then, they needed only a couple of names. Now they wanted the goods. An assault on Cable or his wife or someone he cared for could easily trigger a reaction that could ruin everything.
4.
Tuesday, July 5. The crowds were gone, the beaches empty again. The island woke up slowly, and under a glaring sun tried to shake off the hangover of a long holiday weekend. Mercer was on the narrow sofa, reading a book called The Paris Wife, when an e-mail beeped through. It was from Bruce and it read, “Stop by the store next time you’re in town.”
She replied, “Okay. Anything going on?”
“Always. I have something for you. A little gift.”