She sat down in a wing chair and put her face into her hands, trying to slow her brain. Again. She hated that her thoughts often ran on—much like the sentence that dearest Kevin had pointed out.

What she needed was to work.

But she didn’t want to go back to the community center.

Raising her head, she looked out the window. “With our good wishes and the best of luck for your new venture,” the previous owners of the house had written on a card that had been attached to a beautiful hand-carved wooden bowl that was made right there on Chappy from Edgartown sycamore maple. Annie thought back to how it had all come to pass, how she’d lived next door in the place that had belonged to Jonas’s grandparents until . . . Well, she didn’t like thinking about all that. It had been the first rental she’d lived in since right after college, the first place she’d lived outside of the city, and the very first location where she’d been able to totally relax and work. She’d written Renaissance Heist: A Museum Girls Mystery there; her editor expected that it would soar to the top of the best-seller list when it was released. To put it mildly, the muses in that little rental had been wonderful to her. Could she bring her laptop over there now, sneak in, and recapture some of the magic?

Did she dare?

She glanced in that direction. Squinting through the trees, she saw no vehicles and no activity. The property had been purchased by seasonal residents; over the winter, there hadn’t been a single sign of residents in either the main house or in the tiny place where she’d been. Annie doubted that the rental would be locked; there probably was little left inside to steal or trash.

Of course, she would be trespassing. John would hate that. But how would he know?

Then again, there would be no lights. Or heat. And it was a fairly chilly day.

But her laptop had a nicely lit screen, and she could bring a thermos of hot tea. She could put on her thick socks and old fleece shirt and the matching pants that she’d been sleeping in because the Inn did not have heat, either. Not yet, anyway. Besides, who would care what she was wearing? It was not as if she’d see anyone.

No one would have to know.

And she’d be nearby and would have her phone with her in case of emergency.