Suspicion

“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.”