Suspicion

“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.”