“Wow, look at all the boats,” Maddie said, scooping Dustin up into her arms. “And the birds. Oh, my gosh! Look at the size of those fish, Dustin. Some of them are as big as you.” She carried him onto the closest dock and pointed at the hanging trophies. The network camera and microphone followed.

“Ish!” Dustin cried, leaning and reaching out toward the water beneath the docks.

Maddie held tight but peered into the water. “He’s right. Oh, my gosh.” She peered closer. “What kind of fish are those?” she asked the man, whose hands never stopped moving as he cleaned and wrapped fish.

“Those are tarpon. If you look close you can see a whole school of them down there.

“You see that round head over there?” the man asked with a nod. His fingers and the knife they clutched were still flying. “Right next to that skiff.” He nodded toward a small open boat tied up nearby. “That’s a green turtle.”

They watched in silence for a while as the crowd began to disperse. Deckhands swabbed down boats; garbage was hauled off. Some of the men headed to the bar, where they stood around, presumably swapping fish stories.

Kyra shot the activity, the men, the birds, the fish. Troy shot Dustin and them, in that order.

“Good God, that’s enough,” Kyra said, taking Dustin from Maddie and angling him away from the network camera.

“Not nearly. Not according to my boss,” Troy replied. “In fact, I have a daily Dustin Deranian quota to maintain and at the moment I’ve only got about three hours before his bedtime.”

Kyra closed her eyes briefly, shook her head. “I thought we had an understanding.”

“We did. But Lisa Hogan didn’t sign on to it. Believe me, if I’m off this shoot for failing to deliver enough footage, they’ll send somebody else who’ll be all over Dustin and won’t care how any of you look.”

“Unlike you.”

His tone cooled, matching hers. “Unlike me.”

The women formed a loose ring around Kyra and Dustin as people brushed by and the parking lot emptied. An open boat with a console and steering wheel in the center glided into the marina and eased into a vacant boat slip. A wiry man with a deeply tanned face and a long-limbed stride jumped out and tied up the boat then headed toward them. He wore mirrored wraparound sunglasses held on by a cord, like 99.9 percent of the beer drinkers and fishermen to whom he waved. His nose was slathered with zinc oxide. When he removed his cap and nodded his head in greeting, Avery saw it was shaved and shiny and almost as tanned as his face.

“I’m Hudson Power,” he said with an easy smile. “I’m here to pick you up.”

“Pick us up?” Nicole asked.

“Yes,” he said. “If you get your things I’ll load them on the boat.”

If Avery’s mind had wandered briefly, it was back now. “We’re supposed to put all of our things on that boat?” She looked at the open skiff he’d tied up to the dock. It looked to be about twenty to twenty-two feet long.

“Mm-hm. Well, except for your cars.” A dimple creased his cheek. “You’ll have to leave them here.”

Troy and Anthony smirked, but she noticed they didn’t look surprised.

“But where are we going? And why can’t we just drive there?” Maddie asked.

Hudson pointed out over the docks, past the boats tied up to them, and across a slice of sparkling blue ocean.

“I’m taking you over there.” He waited patiently for their eyes to focus on the roundish piece of land. It was covered with mangroves and stands of tall, skinny palm trees and it sat in the Atlantic Ocean. Unattached to anything. “And you can’t drive there because it’s . . . well, it’s . . .”

“An island,” Kyra said quietly. “And, God, I hope it doesn’t belong to Tonja Kay.” She frowned at Troy, who was in the process of panning from the island to them.

For once the close-up wasn’t of Dustin. He panned the camera across all of their faces, lingering a bit on each of their stunned, slack-jawed expressions. “We’re going to an island?” Avery asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Although we refer to them as keys down here.”

There was silence as they all processed this.

“And we’re going there to . . . stay?” Deirdre asked. Avery had never heard her mother sound so tentative.

“So that’s where we’re doing the renovation? On that island?” Avery went up on her tiptoes but she still didn’t see anything but mangroves, palm trees, overgrowth, and sand. Only the barest hint of what might be a roof showed through the scrim.

“Yes, ma’am,” Hudson said again. Avery couldn’t tell if he always spoke so slowly or was simply worried about their comprehension level. “Do you need help with your things?”

Avery snorted. “I’m not even sure there’s enough room on that whole island for all of Deirdre’s stuff.”

“Well, we’ll take everything that fits,” he said. “And we’ll put the rest on the film crew’s boat. The water’s smooth as glass at the moment and we’re not going far.”

“How will we leave? I mean, how do we get off the island when we want to?” Nicole asked.

“Well, you can always swim. But it’s a little far for that.” Hudson rubbed his chin, considering. “Someone could come pick you up. Or you might be able to borrow a skiff or a dinghy.”

The beer drinkers had fallen silent. Now they edged closer. A good number of them appeared to be fighting smiles.

But then, they didn’t have to worry about getting materials and workmen on and off the island on a daily basis. Assuming Avery could even find people who wanted to work in the Sportfishing Capital of the World.

“The island used to be called Tea Table, because of the shape and all. It’s got a really interesting history to it. But Will . . . the owner renamed it Mermaid Point when he bought it back in the early eighties.”

All of them went still as they stared at Hudson.

“Who did you say the owner was?” Avery asked as casually as she could manage.

Hudson looked at Troy and Anthony. Troy gave a small shake of his head.

“Sorry,” Hudson said on a wince. “I forgot I’m not supposed to say.” He gave the beer-drinking eavesdroppers a warning look.

Avery turned to the beer drinkers. They were grown men. Many of them were tattooed with pictures of fish, or possibly their mothers. But they looked down into their beers as if there was something urgent to be seen there.

Kyra lowered her camera to glare at Troy.

“Seriously?” Nicole asked. “Not one of you is willing to tell us who lives on that island?”

There were shrugs. Large boat-shoe-covered feet shuffled.

“Good God,” Avery said. “I really can’t believe this.”

“They could have at least given us fair warning,” Nicole added.

“Sorry, ladies,” Troy said, his tone making it clear he wasn’t. “But we wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise, now would we?”

Chapter Five

Maddie felt a little bit like George Washington crossing the Delaware sitting in the bow of the boat. Except for all the luggage piled around them. And the motor. And the life-vest-jacketed grandchild in her lap.

She only hoped they weren’t headed to war.

Dustin’s dark curls blew in the breeze. The sky’s blue paled in comparison to the turquoise water. Pulled cotton clouds hovered high above them. He laughed happily. The network camera crew paced them in a small boat, which Anthony drove so that Troy could shoot. His camera moved occasionally but it always came back to Daniel Deranian’s golden child. Kyra had her video camera on her shoulder and was shooting the receding marina, the birds wheeling in the sky, the approaching mangrove-shrouded island, Captain Hudson Power at the wheel, along with everyone’s reactions. Maddie could see the wariness in all of their faces as they waited to see the house they’d be working on and the person or persons who owned it.

Avery looked decidedly pained as the marina faded behind them into the distance. “I can’t believe we’re going to be working on an island.”

“It definitely presents a few unexpected logistical challenges,” Deirdre said.

“No shit,” Avery said. “I thought the worst part was going to be finding workmen and materials. It never occurred to me I was going to have to worry about how to get them on and off the work site.”

“Well, people must be used to that here. You’re probably not even allowed to live here if you don’t own a boat,” Maddie pointed out. “I think it’s kind of cool. Maybe they just drive their boats over and park . . . I mean, dock.”

“Yeah, unless they’ve all hung out their Gone Fishin’ signs,” Avery said.

“I can’t wait to see whose island it is,” Nicole said. “You have to have money to own an entire island. I kind of wish I hadn’t turned down Joe’s offer of a list of possible candidates. Maybe the owner is lonely and single and just waiting for me to find him a spouse.”

“Maybe the owner is antisocial and hiding from the spouse he already has,” Deirdre said. “You don’t usually decide to live on an island if you don’t like to be alone.”

The network camera tilted up to what Maddie assumed was her face. Her newly layered hair whipped around, stinging her cheeks, a feeling she liked but which would undoubtedly leave her looking like Medusa. Nicole had her scarf, Avery’s hair was short, and Deirdre’s wouldn’t dare budge even out on the water. Kyra’s long dark hair was twisted in a knot at the back of her neck and she was doing everything she could to block Troy’s shots of Dustin. Maddie sighed. She wasn’t sure how big the island was. She only hoped it would be big enough for the both of them.

As seen from the marina, the northern side of the island was bordered by an almost impenetrable wall of mangroves and what Maddie thought were sea grape trees—at least, they had the same broad round leaves that she remembered from Bella Flora. Rounding the island, a line of tall, skinny palms arrowed toward a half-moon of white sand beach bisected by a sphere-shaped tidal pool where seagulls and other small birds chased after food on matchstick legs.