"Go back to the hotel. The airport here has probably shut down already."

"That's not a problem. I was planning to fly to Logan and get down in the morning if I had to. Till I had a brainstorm."

"What's that?" I smiled, pulling a throw over my legs and stirring the ice cubes in the glass with my finger.

"I'm about a concourse away from the row of rental booths. I figure I'll get a car, turn the music up loud, drive up to Woods Hole-even if it takes the better part of the night-and be there in time for the first ferry. Nothing cozier than a great storm. We can stay the whole weekend and-"

I sat bolt upright and swung my legs to the floor, tangling myself in the mohair blanket. I shrieked into the receiver, "You can't do that, Jake. Please don't do that."

Didn't he remember what had happened to Adam Nyman, my fiancé, on the night before we were supposed to be married? Driving to the Vineyard from Manhattan, he'd been killed when his car had been sideswiped on the turnpike and had crashed down onto a riverbed below.

Jake clearly didn't connect the urgency in my voice to that tragedy. "Darling, either Mike's right about the fact that you're entirely too controlling," he joked, "or you're stowed away up there with some other foul-weather aficionado who doesn't want me in the neighborhood. C'mon, babe, the all-night drive'll make me feel like I'm in college again."

The static on his phone was masking the panic that had seized me.

"No, no, no, no, no," I kept repeating, until I could break into his response. "Don't you understand, Jake? It's-it's about Adam. It's too painful to bear. Ten hours of highway driving, half of it bound to be in a blinding storm?"

"It's not raining yet, Alex. The roads are-"

"You're missing the point. I'm begging you not to do this, Jake. I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to you on your way here. Wait till the front passes and fly up if you want, for the weekend. Just swear to me you won't try to drive it."

His tone chilled. "There's probably a good reason you don't want me up there with you. I'm sure you'll tell me when you're ready."

I tried again to make him see it from my perspective, but he was still clipped when we said our good nights.

I picked up my glass and wandered into the bedroom. I felt more alone than I had in a very long time. I turned the steam unit on in the shower and set the temperature at ninety-nine degrees, letting it warm up while I undressed.

The phone rang but I ignored it. There was no point in arguing with Jake, so I opted to let the machine record the message while I listened.

"You there, Coop? You outside baying at the moon?"

"Just screening, Mike," I said, grabbing the receiver from its dock. "You forget to tell me to have pleasant dreams?"

"Val's a whiz with the computer. Got me onto the website for Lisi and Lisi, the husband-and-wife law firm, so I'd have a head start in the morning."

"I didn't mean to get you riled up on Val's time, Mike. Tomorrow is fine."

"Forget Helena. What do you know about Jimmy Lisi?"

"Former Legal Aid. Pretty decent guy."

"Interesting bio, Coop. Born on the other side. Very proud of his roots."

"Why not?" I could see the steam misting on the glass door of the shower, and I ached to get inside and relax.

"Generalissimo Lisi, Jimmy's pop. Know anything about him?"

"Tell me."

"Jimmy was born in Rome. His old man rose through the ranks, wound up as head goombah in the Italian Secret Service. Puts him right near the kitchen where they cooked up some potent pasta e fagiòli for Farouk the night he croaked back in sixty-five."

"I like it," I said, putting down the scotch and picking up a pen and pad.

"So I did the same kind of check for the other lawyers in the case. Unfortunately, the law firms that those guys are with don't do the same kind of family sagas on-line, like the Lisis. Just have their fancy degrees and the alma maters listed."

"C'mon, Mike. I can tell you found something else that tweaked you."

"So Jimmy Lisi gets to college-Yale, by the way-and ends up in the same frat as a guy whose old man was also a spook in Rome, for the Brits, at the very same time Lisi's dad was doing spy work."

"I see where this is going. Forget about Josh Braydon and his shadow counsel role. We need to find out who's pulling the strings behind Helena Lisi."

"Maybe," Mike said, "the man Tiffany Gatts is afraid of is actually Peter Robelon."

33

The view from my bedroom's French doors out over the lawn that sloped down to the pond was a muted palette of grays and greens, moistened by a steady rainfall. Trees and tall grasses seemed colored by a dull assortment of Crayolas, and the pale sky hung heavily overhead. Only the whitecaps in the distance suggested that this calm before the storm would kick up and show its stuff within a few hours.

I drove to the Chilmark Store for coffee and the Times, and to reassure myself that there were plenty of people I knew who wouldn't be all that far away if Hurricane Gretchen packed her anticipated wallop.

"I'm running low on candles and flashlight batteries," Primo said. The owner was restocking his shelves with storm supplies. "Better take plenty while you're here, Alex. I'm closing early."

I picked up a fistful of C batteries, extra matches, boxes of candles, and rolls of masking tape and took them to the checkout counter. "Can you put this on my tab?"

"Sure. Need a hand with anything out your way?" Primo asked.

"I'm all set, thanks. This should do it. Would you save me a newspaper in the morning?"

"If they get to the island, Alex. Steamship Authority's gonna stop the ferries if the swells get real big."

"Of course," I said, embarrassed about forgetting how these self-sufficient islanders were cut off from all normal services whenever Mother Nature got angry.

I was back in the house at eight-thirty, and tried to find Jake, to apologize. Voice mail answered at his home, his cell phone, and the office. Maybe he was mimicking my habit of screening calls, or maybe he was paying me back for last night. Could he have really thought I was keeping him away because I was settled in here with someone else?

"Hey, it's me. Horatio Hornblower," I told his recorded message. Jake loved to make fun of my bright yellow foul-weather gear, and here I was pulling the rubberized hood back up over my head to go out and haul the deck furniture into the barn. "Call me when you get a chance, okay? I'm trying to hunker down for the storm. Miss you."

I went through the old summer kitchen, refitted as an office, and out the side entrance that led to the sheep barn, built more than a century ago. I pulled open the door and surveyed the space. The Gravely and mower took up a third of it, while the workbench and Adam's antique tool collection stretched along two complete walls. I shuffled around some of the gardening equipment to make room for everything that needed to come inside.

I spent the next two hours ferrying recliners, chairs, and tables from the rear decks around the building into the barn. I had been here for too many storms to risk chancing the results of Hurricane Gretchen's fury-chairs lifted and blown hundreds of yards away, and tables hurled against the side of the house, shattering windows and spreading glass all over the interior floors.

At eleven o'clock, I paused to make a cup of hot chocolate and sit at the kitchen table to dry out and listen to the radio. The marine forecast issued alerts for gale-force winds, and news bulletins tracked the eye of the storm as it buffeted the Connecticut coastline. Flooding and downed electrical lines had already caused five deaths in the New York area.