about their surroundings, maybe she could avoid other subjects. Like Griffin. Like how he was likely in No. 8 right this moment, packing her duffel for her imminent departure. "During the wonder years of tiki parties and limbo games?"
Skye shook her head. "Before then. During Prohibition, rumrunners made it a secret drop-off point for contraband liquor. And before that, during the silent film era, my great-great-grandfather used it as a stand-in for a South Seas atoll. He had a movie company, Sunrise Studios, and trucked in all the tropical vegetation that flourishes here."
At the mention of silent films, Jane covered her mouth, then glanced down the beach at the colorful residences spilling from the hillside to the edge of the sand. The ocean breeze shivered through the graceful fronds of the date palms shading their roofs and set the long leaves of the banana plants wagging. The creamy faces of plumeria flowers mingled with brighter splashes of hibiscus in yellow, red and pink. The bougainvillea grew everywhere something else didn't.
She could imagine this place as an exotic backdrop to long-ago movies or as an idyllic vacation getaway. "It really does appear out of another time."
For no more reason than that, a person would be reluctant to leave. It wasn't hard for Jane to picture woody station wagons pulled up behind the cottages. She could see the children of the past playing in the surf, riding inflatable rubber rafts instead of the foam boogie boards the contemporary kids were dragging into the water by leashes attached at their ankles. At five o'clock some sunburned man with a crew cut would blow the conch shell, heralding another idyllic summer evening. "Magic," she murmured.
A foolish notion that she'd always wanted to believe in. Just like love. Her father had detected the weakness in her early on, as clear to him, apparently, as her lack of aptitude in the sciences. "So silly and emotional, Jane," he would say, shaking his head at her. "Just like your mother."
Pushing the memory aside, she tuned back in to Skye's conversation. The crowd had returned to their places, and Jane was forced to lean close to hear over their rowdy chatter. "The earliest houses go back to the 1920s and '30s," the other woman was saying. "My great-great-granddad built some of them, my great-grandfather more, but it wasn't until my mom was pregnant with me that my parents moved here. They live in Provence now, and though I live at the cove full-time, most habitants are seasonal." She paused. "Like the Lowells."
Griffin. Their last moments together replayed in Jane's head, his flattened voice describing what had happened to his colleague Erica in Afghanistan. The neutral tone to his words had been belied by the stiffness of his posture. Even now, Jane could feel the tense muscle of his forearm under her hand and the way he'd wrenched from her hold in order to heave the cookie platter against the wall. It reminded her that she owed Skye a plate...and her client an apology?
Jane didn't think an "I'm sorry" would change his mind about her. By insisting he'd have to touch on that tragedy, she'd become the object of his wrath. She had the very bad feeling he would absolutely refuse to work with her now. On a sigh, she met Skye's gaze. "Did Griffin send you to find me?"
"What? No."
"Oh." The denial eased Jane's worry better than another swallow of wine. "Good."
"But I was looking for you." She hesitated. "Your name rang a bell...and then when I put it together with what you said about helping Griffin with his memoir..."
Jane's belly tightened. How widespread was the smear on her reputation?
"I have all of Ian Stone's novels," Skye said.
Jane nodded, tensing further. "I'm not surprised."
The other woman gave a little smile. "I know, I know, me and everyone else. Number one New York Times bestseller several times over. Many of them were made into movies."
"The last five."
"I'm one of those people who likes to reread books, poring over them from the dedication page up front to the author's note at the back." Skye hesitated, then the question she'd obviously been dying to ask burst out. "What was it like to work with him? Because that's you, isn't it? I figured it had to be when you told me you work with writers. He dedicated Sal's Redemption, The Butterfly Place and Crossroads Corner to you, right?"
"Yes." For three years, she'd worked almost exclusively with him. He'd been the focus of