"It's important work," Richard said, as if guessing what she was thinking.

"I know it is, Richard. I'll do anything I can."

He nodded. "I've never doubted I can count on you."

"Go on. Enjoy your paper. The dogs and I will go for a walk."

He was out the door before she'd finished her sentence. Lauren dumped her coffee in the sink. The cavernous kitchen, with its tall ceilings and white cabinets, needed renovating, but she had no appetite for it. Lately, her house seemed more like a sprawling, empty inn. Maybe a new kitchen would perk her up. She could talk to Andrew about it.

Her spirits sank, and she moved into the front hall, ignoring the poodles scampering at her feet. She ran outside into a stiff, steady breeze off the water. The house stood on a cliff above Cape Ann, with dramatic views of the shoreline, rocks, the glistening horizon. The tide and waves, the brutal winter storms, were slowly eroding the sandy cliff, until, eventually, the house would either have to be moved or would be lost to the sea.

Lauren blinked back tears, blaming them on the wind. She didn't care what happened to the house. Let the Atlantic take it. Let its loss be her penance for not doing more to rein in her brother's excesses.

She shook off any thought of him, descended the porch steps so quickly she almost tripped.

She ran down a narrow dirt path, moving automatically, having gone this way so many times in her forty years. A gust of wind nearly knocked her over, and her breath came in gasps. She realized she'd been running, and slowed her pace. If only Richard had come with her. If only they'd held hands, laughed, talked. She wanted to confide in him. She wanted him to tell her everything would be all right.

When she got back to the house, Richard had left a note for her on the counter:

Muriel called. Tess Haviland is staying at the carriage house.????

The question marks meant he didn't know about Tess.

Lauren felt sick to her stomach.

She walked out through the back door, down the porch steps to her gardens. The house blocked the wind. She ran her fingertips over a deep orange daylily, just in bloom. Then she started picking flowers, one after another, at random, without thinking, without feeling.

Tess would never have found the hardware store on her own. It was tucked behind a diner on a dead-end side street a block from the village center, a mom-and-pop operation stacked from floor to ceiling with every imaginable item a woman with an 1868 carriage house could need. She bought glass and putty for her cellar window and took a look at starter tool kits. If she kept the carriage house and intended to do any of the work herself, she'd need her own tools. She'd worked as a carpenter's helper through college with a string of her father's pals, but she had no illusions about her capabilities. She was a designer, not a carpenter. She'd need tools, books, advice, borrowed brawn. And luck. Certainly better luck than she'd had so far.

This was all provided she didn't call Beacon-by-the-Sea quits the first chance she got.

Her gaze drifted to a row of gleaming garden spades. She could rebury the skeleton and pretend she'd never found it. It was tempting. But wrong. She needed to verify what she'd found, then call in the proper authorities to have the remains identified and suitably buried…and determine how they'd ended up in Jedidiah Thorne's carriage house.

Maybe the skeleton was properly buried. Maybe whoever it belonged to had wanted the cellar to be his final resting place. Or hers.

Tess shuddered, turning her attention back to tool kits.

Andrew joined her in the narrow aisle. He was relaxed, at home amidst tools, nails, cans of turpentine, fifty different kinds of nuts and bolts. The service people all knew him and called him by his first name.

She regarded him with sudden suspicion. "You aren't a plumber or something, are you?"

"Architect." He had a five-pound bag of kitty litter comfortably under one arm. "More or less. You look relieved. Why? Do you have something against plumbers?"

"No. It's nothing. Never mind." But she was smiling, because Jim Haviland, Davey Ahearn and their pals in construction had no use for architects. "I suppose we should get Tippy Tail an extra cat dish. One for your house, one for mine."

Andrew shrugged. "I just use an old margarine tub."

Dolly darted up the aisle. Not one to be left out, she'd hopped in Tess's back seat, her father up front. She was just as at home in the hardware store as he was. She tugged on Tess's sleeve. "I know the dish Tippy Tail wants!"

"I guarantee," her father said wryly, "it will be fit for a princess's cat."

Tess laughed. "Anything's a step up from a margarine tub."

Dolly lobbied for engraving and heavy porcelain, but Tess prevailed when she found a heart-shaped red plastic dish and suggested it matched the sparkly red hearts in Dolly's crown.

"You're quick, Tess."

Andrew had slipped in behind them, not making a sound. His voice was low, resonating in places she didn't want to think about while picking out cat dishes. She'd needed more sleep. A lot more sleep. She turned, her arm brushing his, sending a current right through her. "I have clients. I've learned the art of negotiation."

"I think you and Dolly are kindred souls." He smiled, but didn't move back out of her space. "You both like to have your way."

They dumped everything in her car, and Dolly jumped up and down, wanting chowder on the pier. "I like that idea myself," Tess said. "It's a beautiful day. We can walk." She glanced at Andrew, who hadn't said a word. "Unless you have something else you need to do."

"No." His daughter slipped her hand into his, and Tess couldn't tell what he was thinking, something she found unsettling as she was usually good at reading people. He was especially difficult because he was so self-contained. "Nothing important."

Dolly giggled, slipping her free hand into Tess's. "I like you, Tess."

"I like you, too, Princess Dolly."

They walked over to the pier, lined with cedar-shingled buildings that had been converted into upscale shops. With the beautiful May weather, tourists and locals were out in droves, fishing boats, sailboats and yachts setting out across the picturesque harbor. Dolly wasn't here to sightsee. She wanted chowder and dragged Tess and her father to a cozy, cheerful restaurant. They got a small table overlooking the water. Father and daughter sat on one side of a booth, Tess on the other.

The sun sparkled on the water, bright-colored buoys bobbing in the light surf. Tess smiled at the view. "It must have been wonderful growing up here."

"Dolly seems to like it," Andrew said.

"What about you? Did you grow up in Beacon?"

"Gloucester."

He wasn't the most talkative man she'd ever met. "Your family's been in this area for generations-"

"The Thornes have. They settled on the East Coast in the 1600s."

"Tell me about them," Tess said, eager for a distraction.

"What's to tell? Jedidiah's the only one in the history books. You know what happened. The rest of the lot were the usual mix of bums and heroes. Sea captains, revolutionaries, privateers, fishermen, a few solid citizens." He broke open a crusty roll. "The old cemeteries around here all have a Thorne or two in them."

"What happened to Jedidiah after he killed Benjamin Morse?"

"Prison."

Tess sighed. "I meant after prison. I know he headed west."

"He made it out to San Francisco. As the story goes, though, he couldn't stay away. He came home, called by the ocean, supposedly broke. He worked in the shipyards, got married, had a couple of kids. People had mostly forgotten about the duel. Benjamin Morse, they'd decided, was a man who'd needed killing."