“The keys take a westward turn right around Marathon,” her mother said with one eye on the map that she’d pulled, accordion-like, out of one of the guidebooks. “And right after that is the famous Seven Mile Bridge.”

“Bitch!” Dustin exclaimed, the teething ring forgotten for the time being.

Both of them turned their heads around.

“I think we’re going to have to work on his pronunciation,” Maddie said.

“Are you kidding? I think we should record it for playback the next time we hear from Tonja Kay.” Kyra couldn’t help smiling at the thought. “What did you say, Dustin?”

“Bitch!” Dustin gurgled.

Kyra’s ponytail whipped in the warm breeze as all three of them laughed.

The sun glinted off the water and Kyra folded the sun visor down in an attempt to cut the glare. They’d lowered all the windows so that they could catch the ocean and Gulf breezes. Perhaps it was time for someone to design a convertible-topped minivan. That, too, made Kyra smile.

“The railroad and hundreds of people, many of them World War One vets working on a road project and who were in the process of being evacuated, were wiped out by a massive hurricane with two-hundred-mile-per-hour winds and an eighteen-foot tidal wave in 1935. There’s a monument right around Mile Marker 82, where we’re supposed to check in.” Maddie looked around tentatively. “How could they evacuate even today? I mean, this is the only way in and out.” She snapped the guidebook shut.

“It’s May. If we’re lucky we’ll be in and out before August, when hurricane season gets serious,” Kyra said, though all of them knew that the network wouldn’t object to the ratings bonanza that another hurricane like the one that had menaced Bella Flora would provide.

“Do you want me to text and see if Nikki or Avery and Deirdre have heard anything yet?” Maddie asked.

Kyra looked at her mother. “Um, no. Thanks.” Maddie had sent autocorrected texts requesting “dick measurements” and revealing plans to serve meals composed of “baby black bugs.” One slip of either thumb could launch a search-and-rescue mission.

At Mile Marker 83 they passed Whale Harbor Marina—a complex of wooden buildings and docks on the Atlantic side. The fly bridges of fishing boats poked up into the sky, and signs advertised charters for fishing as well as a watering hole and restaurant called Wahoo’s.

The urge to spoil Maddie’s fun had passed, but now that they were almost at the appointed rendezvous point, Kyra was ready to see the house they’d be working on or at least find out where in the Keys they’d be.

A text dinged in. “Can you see who it’s from?” Kyra asked.

“It’s from the network,” her mother said. “Rendezvous point adjusted to Mile Marker 79.5,” she read. “Bud N’ Mary’s.”

“What’s a Bud N’ Mary’s?” Kyra asked.

Maddie leafed through her guidebooks. “I’m not sure. It could be a restaurant or a bar. Or a hotel. Or . . .”

Kyra’s eyes scanned from right to left, bay side to Atlantic. A strip mall with a visitors’ center/Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of small buildings slid by. An angular sign straight out of the fifties announced the Islander Resort across the road on the left. A large wooden mermaid marked the entrance to a place called the Lorelei on the right. She slowed down as they passed what she thought might be the Hurricane Monument.

Along this stretch of the Overseas Highway new and shiny rubbed elbows with old and funky. Her mother appeared spellbound. “Oh, look, there’s the Cheeca Lodge and the Green Turtle Inn. They’re in my guidebook.”

“We just passed Mile Marker 81.”

Another text dinged in. Maddie squinted down at her screen. “This one’s from Avery. It says, ‘Brace yourself . . .’” Her thumb moved. “Oh, no!”

“What? What is it?” Kyra’s stomach dropped as she looked over at her mother. “Have they met the owner?” Ever since she’d found out that Daniel Deranian was the mystery buyer of Bella Flora she’d been afraid that he would somehow be tied to the Keys house, too. Or worse, that the network might have chosen a home that belonged to Tonja Kay in an effort to boost ratings. “Does she say anything about the house?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know,” Maddie said. She looked at Kyra. “I was trying to ask that when I accidentally hit ‘delete.’”

A green mile marker on the right-hand shoulder snagged Kyra’s attention. “Oh, my God! We’re already at . . . Hang on!” She turned the wheel sharply. “There’s Bud N’ Mary’s on the left!”

Chapter Four

Avery pocketed her cell phone, climbed out of the Mini Cooper, and stood beside Deirdre in the parking lot of Bud N’ Mary’s Marina. The paved lot was dusty with a mixture of rock, shell, and sand. The breeze off the water was hot and heavy; the smell of fish mixed with salt air strong. The structures fronting and framing the docks were of various sizes, all of them utilitarian. There was high-and-dry boat storage on one end, open and covered boat slips, a store and a restaurant, and what looked like a marina/charter office. A grid of docks angled outward. Men sat around tables in the shade drinking beer, their attention split between the Lifetime camera crew, who stood on the nearest dock, and Deirdre and Avery, at whom their camera and boom microphone were aimed.

Tires crunched on shell and rock as Nicole Grant pulled into a parking spot beside them, the convertible top down on her bottle-green Jaguar. The Lifetime crew moved closer. The beer drinkers perked up.

Nicole emerged from the classic convertible like a movie star arriving on set. She wore what looked like a vintage halter sundress, most likely designer, and retro strappy sandals. She unwrapped a brightly patterned silk scarf from around her head and let it fall to her shoulders as she shook out her thick auburn hair.

She looked like an exotic bird plunked down in the middle of an asphalt jungle.

“The woman knows how to make an entrance.” Deirdre sighed and looked her daughter up and down. “I’m consoling myself with the fact that you wore underclothing this time.” This had not been the case when they’d arrived in South Beach last spring.

Network videographer Troy Matthews, whose broad shoulder held the video camera as if it were a toy, shook his shaggy blond hair and laughed. Avery speared Deirdre with a look. She hoped the microphone that Anthony, the teddy bear–shaped soundman, held over their heads wasn’t sensitive enough to pick up the comment.

“I came to renovate, not model resort wear,” Avery said, running a hand down her cutoff shorts. She used the other to mash at the wrinkles in her Life Is Good T-shirt.

“Humph.” Deirdre’s hair was decidedly windblown, but the wrinkles in her linen slacks and summer jacket just made them look more expensive.

“Anyone who can drive a convertible down the Overseas Highway on a day like today and not put the top down doesn’t deserve to be here,” Avery said. “And we’re not wrinkled from the fresh air and sunshine. We’re wrinkled from being crammed in by all your . . . stuff.”

After a brief scan of the docks, the camera crew, and the watching men, Nicole hugged Avery and Deirdre. Together, the three of them turned their backs on the camera and the men.

“Any idea why we’re in a marina?” Nicole asked quietly.

“Nope.” Avery shook her head. “Not a clue. Just the text that told us to turn in here.”

“Well, I hope we’re just stopping for a drink,” Nicole said, “and not an impromptu fishing trip.” Her nose wrinkled. “They can’t make us fish, can they?”

“Only if you forgot to add a ‘no fishing’ clause in your contract,” Avery said.

“Very funny,” Nicole said. They’d all been too desperate to negotiate much of anything. At least nothing favorable to them. “Fishing is a lot like watching paint dry. I don’t do it. Not even for Joe.”

“Well, then I guess we have to hope we’re just stopping for a potty break or the next set of directions because that sign over there says we’re in the Sportfishing Capital of the World,” Deirdre said.

There were shouts and the sound of boat engines and churning water. Some of the men left the shade and ambled out to the docks, where they waited as fishing boats began to disgorge sunburned tourists clutching coolers and fishing rods.

Pelicans and seagulls circled overhead with sharp-eyed anticipation while the guides, whose steps were far springier than their clients’, began to clean and fillet their customers’ catches. The remains, presumably inedible, were tossed into the water for whatever hovered below or swooped down from above. An occasional morsel was tossed to the pelicans that had commandeered the surrounding pilings.

As they watched, really big fish that had apparently not gotten away were hung from hooks under different charter captains’ signs. Photos of the slain and the slayer were snapped.

“It seems unfair to photograph them when they’re dead like that,” Nicole said.

“Yeah, well, I hear it’s a lot harder to get them to hang still when they’re alive,” Avery said drily. “I know I wouldn’t.”

The gulls cawed insistently as they swooped and dove. The line for beers grew.

A horn tapped behind them and they turned to see Madeline Singer’s minivan. Kyra was at the wheel while Maddie held down the passenger seat. Dustin sat in his car seat in the back. “What are we doing here?” Kyra called out the window.

“No idea, but there’s a parking spot over there.” Avery pointed toward the covered storage. “I guess now that we’re all here someone will tell us . . . something.”

With a frown for the camera crew, Kyra zipped the minivan into the spot and lifted Dustin out of his car seat. Maddie took his hand while Kyra drew her video camera out of its case and slung it over her shoulder. Troy’s camera and Anthony’s microphone were already aimed down toward Dustin. The little boy smiled and gave Troy a high five with his free hand. Kyra gave the crew a curt nod. There was a small hugfest with Nicole, whom they hadn’t seen since Christmas at Bella Flora.