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Sophie left sandwich makings and a large bowl of fruit and avocado salad on the kitchen counter so the housemates could help themselves to lunch.
With everyone sitting around the living room, plates on their knees, the two new housemates became the center of attention. Given everything that had happened the night before, and with the sheriff ordering everyone out that morning, no one had seen fit to welcome them appropriately. Jessica asked Ruth to tell them about her writing.
“Oh dear, I’m afraid I haven’t got anything actually published yet,” Ruth said, nervously fiddling with the wet napkin around her glass of tea.
“No problem,” Sophie said. “Coming to a retreat like this one is a great way to start.”
“Daniel? What about you?” Jessica said.
“I don’t write. Well, I do write, in a way. I’m a programmer. I mostly write and revise computer games,” he said, “but I couldn’t begin to write a book. I’m only here as Mama’s driver.”
Alex said that writing computer games was, indeed, writing. “These games today tell a story.”
Daniel looked around the room and his gaze fell on Philip. “We’re so sorry to have burst in like this and at the worst possible time. Is there any news from the hospital today?” As if realizing this was a poor question he added, “Are they sure it wasn’t just—I mean are they sure someone else did it? That it was actually homicide?”
Jessica did not believe the Harlows were telling the truth. They had told her they were from Alexandria, Virginia. Had they driven more than two hundred miles just to spend a weekend with writers they did not know? There were plenty of writers’ groups in Northern Virginia. Ruth had joined the group and applied to attend the weekend retreat only a week earlier. They had arrived shortly after Olivia.
Philip said, “There’s no doubt. All we need to know is who. But we aren’t going to get much out of the sheriff until he decides to tell us.”
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After lunch, Jessica returned to her beach chair under their portable tent and knocked the sand off her yellow legal pad. Alex joined her. Ashley had gone to their room. Alex seemed unconcerned about his wife. Jessica had seen him laugh at himself while eating a huge sandwich with slippery avocado slices falling out as he bit down. But Ashley’s refusal to read, the migraine. Unstable, Jessica thought. Or maybe she was a terrible writer and knew it so she was avoiding embarrassment. Had Ashley ever talked about her writing in their regular club meetings? She had told them she wrote modern cozies, but if she had said any more than that, Jessica didn’t remember. Maybe she didn’t actually have anything. Maybe she was only here to keep an eye on Alex. Or perhaps she was just a drama queen, Jessica thought. That was probably it.
Jessica hoped Alex wouldn’t want to talk and keep her from her writing.
“Working on a deadline?” Alex asked, adjusting his sunglasses.
“Not really, I’m starting a new story. Long way to go.”
“And I’m waiting to get a manuscript back from my editor,” Alex said. “I’m sure he’ll want me to make changes that will keep me busy for a month.” He scuffed his bare toes in the sand. “Michael Pacifico. Great editor.”
“His name sounds familiar, but I don’t think I know him. A good editor is important, isn’t he?”
Jessica’s words were drowned out by Ashley’s voice, calling down from a porch at the house. “Where are the car keys? I need to get into the trunk.” Alex left to help his wife find the keys and Jessica returned to her legal pad. Michael Pacifico. I remember now. She had met him at a writer’s conference a year or two ago. Big guy. About fifty. And something else, but Jessica couldn’t remember what it was.
“Mind if I join you?” Sheriff Bo Deane crunched across the sand and turned the chair Alex had just vacated toward Jessica. He sat heavily, and the chair sank deeper into the sand. “Trying to get all these folks straight. Who’s who. Normally there’s not more than one or two people that we have to vet. But we have to know how y’all are connected to Ms. Bradley and it was you that swapped emails with her before y’all came here.”
“Excuse me. Who did you say?” Jessica wondered if the sheriff was getting two cases mixed up.
“Ms. Bradley,” he said. “Joyce Bradley. That was her real name.”
Jessica mentally slapped her own face. A pseudonym! She hadn’t even considered the possibility that Olivia Sands was not her real name. “I did not know that. But to answer your question, I am the one who emailed back and forth with her but I didn’t know her personally.”
“Explain.”
Jessica told him about attending the conference where Olivia was the featured speaker and she herself was a member of the audience. The story sounded fishy when she told it to the sheriff, but it was the truth. She helped him with the spelling of all the residents of the house and told him if he wanted to interview Philip Carr next, he could likely be found at the house.
As soon as the sheriff vacated Alex’s chair, Alex himself returned and sat. He wanted to know what she and the lawman had talked about and Jessica told him. “Pseudonym, eh? I did not know that.” He looked over Jessica’s shoulder and grinned. Ashley, now wearing only the tropical print bikini, walked past them and stood facing the shoreline. As she walked past, Jessica had caught a glimpse of Ashley’s gloomy face. Her shoulders were tense and her hands clenched.
“I’m going in for a swim,” she said.
“Watch it. There’s a bit of a rip current out past the jetty,” Alex said. He stood and pointed to the remains of an old breakwater, now submerged and useless. From the beach the surf zone looked normal.
Ashley paid no attention but walked into the water, oblivious of the next incoming wave. She may have stepped into a trough because she suddenly fell in up to her neck. The next few events happened, as far as Jessica could tell, simultaneously.
Ashley floundered, her head disappearing completely. Alex jumped up and ran, not toward the water, but toward the house. Trey appeared out of nowhere and flew into the surf.
Jessica jumped up and screamed. She knew what was happening. Tiny Trey was trying to save Ashley. She flashed on a scene from last summer when she had put Trey in a swimming pool and he sank. Like all dogs he had paddled with his legs but it wasn’t enough. “He can’t swim!” Jessica screamed.
Close behind Trey came Atlas. The huge dog bred for sheep herding was also a determined protector of sheep in trouble. Trey was in trouble. His little legs flailing lamely as water filled his dense fur and weighted him down, his head could not stay up. Jessica began pulling off clothes. Alex reappeared, now carrying a surfboard from the house. He jumped in and paddled the board over an incoming wave and toward the churning water. He reached over and managed somehow to get an arm around the midsection of a coughing, spluttering, Ashley. He heaved her onto the board and held her there. With no paddle to assist him, he was forced to slip into the water himself while holding Ashley, still draped across the board.
Jessica noticed that she was down to bra and shorts and wondered why she had thought it necessary to strip. She plowed forward, frantic to spot a little white lump under the water. No little white lump. Then she saw Atlas. The big, galumphing dog was paddling toward shore with a sopping wet rider on his back. For once in his life, Trey was not in charge. Atlas had saved him.
Jessica grabbed her shirt and ran to the house for towels while the others fell, exhausted, on the sand.
Alex sat on the sand, staring at his wife, still clinging to the surfboard. “I told you. Didn’t I tell you? But you didn’t listen!”
Philip picked his way across the sand and found Atlas. “You did good, my man.” He patted the dog on his wet back.
Ashley lay across the board, sobbing.
