You Don't Want To Know - By Lisa Jackson Page 0,15

safe, was always wary.

“Comes with the territory,” he reminded himself as he extracted the Internet connection device and the data stick from their hiding spots. After checking the dead bolt, he opened his laptop and connected to the Internet, ready to write his notes on what he’d discovered on his first day under the employ of Ava Garrison.

Unfortunately, at this point, he had more questions than he had answers.

But that would change.

The dog let out a long sigh and closed his eyes.

Dern glanced at the smelly shepherd.

He figured the beast might just be his only friend on the island.

Then again, that suited him just fine.

CHAPTER 4

She awoke alone.

Again.

Wyatt’s side of the bed was cold, as if he’d never joined her.

“Good,” she whispered, then made a face at the sound of her relief. It was just wrong. She’d already lost her son and, it seemed, her own identity, so she should be holding fast to her husband and her marriage. But she was seriously in danger of losing both and all she felt was relief.

When had that started?

At first, after Noah’s death, she and Wyatt had clung together, holding each other, tasting each other’s tears. There had been a tenderness and a desperation to their lovemaking that had evaporated over the months with the realization that he wasn’t returning, that their boy was gone forever.

Wyatt began staying on the mainland, and when he returned, they rarely slept together.

Despite her need for another baby.

One child cannot replace another. She knew that. But she wanted another child. Someone to love.

Through the closed door, she heard the sound of Jewel-Anne’s wheelchair whirring outside her door. Had her invalid cousin been spying again? Jewel-Anne was getting creepier by the minute, and Ava found her patience with her cousin wearing thin. And why the hell would Jewel-Anne be hiding and watching her, eavesdropping on her conversations? Was her cousin that bored? It just didn’t make a helluva lot of sense.

Again, Ava’s headache raged, and again she felt as if the world were collapsing around her. She was groggy, the remnants of deep sleep dragging her down, but she fought it. She’d always been a light sleeper, but lately . . .

You were drugged. Obviously. Since you have been ignoring the sleeping pills Dr. McPherson prescribed, she probably slipped them into that damned cocoa you sipped so greedily last night. Hadn’t she been in the kitchen with Demetria?

She drew a breath. Don’t go there. Evelyn McPherson is a well-respected doctor, a psychologist trying to help.

Closing her eyes for a quick second, Ava tried to force herself out of bed, to face the day, but it seemed daunting.

You can’t just lie here and feel sorry for yourself, can’t feed the paranoia that everyone’s against you. Get out of bed and do something. Anything!

Throwing off the covers, she forced herself to roll off the mattress and hunt for her slippers. The cozy, rumpled bed beckoned, but she ignored the temptation of dropping back onto the mussed covers, laying her pounding head on the pillow and closing her eyes again to block out the world. What good would that do?

Slippers on her feet, she paused to stretch, listening to her spine pop, feeling a yawn coming on.

Coffee, that’s what you need. Two, maybe three cups of Italian roast or any blend with a crazy lot of caffeine.

At the window facing Anchorville, she winced a little as a slim shaft of sunlight pierced through the opening between the nearly closed curtains and cut through her brain like a hot knife. God, her head hurt. But then it always did in the morning.

She flung the heavy drapes aside and stared outside to a day already begun. The sun was up in the east, shafts of bright light hitting the water and sparkling so brightly she had to squint to make out the ferry, just churning away from the shoreline of the town of Monroe—a hamlet, really—on this side of the bay. Little more than a general store with a post office, a café that was open on the whim of its owner, a small inn, and a coffee kiosk surrounded by a smattering of houses, Monroe boasted seventy-eight full-time residents. The few children who lived there caught the ferry to school in Anchorville, and most of Monroe’s residents were employed on the mainland as well or worked at the old hotel, which was now a bed-and-breakfast, the only lodging on the island.

Now the ferry was churning away from the island, gliding across