As expected, the interior was chilly. It was also dusty and cobwebby, and she was pretty sure the small dark particles around the edges of the floor had been left by a family of winter’s mice. But the table and two chairs still stood in the kitchen area—the same table where she and Earl had shared countless mugs of steamy morning coffee and batches of homemade cinnamon rolls, and where she and John had savored scores of newly caught fish, island-grown veggies, and fresh-baked bread, but then had skipped dessert, choosing to make love instead. Next to the woodstove, she’d once set her rocking chair, where she’d sat for hours rocking Bella to sleep. It was also where she’d been living when she’d met Donna the first time, before Donna had been sick, or at least before Annie and Kevin had known that she was.

Annie teared up with nostalgia.

Then suddenly, from the rafters, came Murphy’s voice again: All this blubbering isn’t going to get Body in the Blue Room written.

Annie laughed. “We have to change the title,” she said. “You suggested that they only find a skull, remember?”

You’re the writer, not me.

“Some friend you turned out to be.”

But Murphy didn’t reply, and Annie knew she was gone. Again.

With a lingering sigh, she sat at the table, set down the thermos, opened her laptop, and got to work.

At first, the writing was slow and labored, her thoughts bouncing from Donna and the sudden way she’d decided she needed a “home companion”; to the skull and its pending peril for them all; to Kevin, Lucy, Jonas, John. Even Taylor. No matter how hard Annie tried to focus on her novel, she couldn’t unwind. She growled. She snarled. Then suddenly, a title flashed into her mind: Bedlam in the Blue Room.

Perfect, she thought she heard Murphy agree.

Annie went back to page one and inserted the new words that were so simple, it was annoying she hadn’t thought of them sooner. Then she returned to the page where she’d left off and moved fluidly into the writing zone, her fingers skating over the keys as if they were as lightning-quick as Lucy’s, and as if she’d known all along what the next chapter would reveal.

Several hours passed until late afternoon started to turn to dusk, and the chill inside the cottage began to permeate her bones. Annie finally snapped out of her daydream and realized it was past time to check on Donna. Glancing one last time at the screen, she saw that she’d typed fifteen pages while hardly paying attention. On rare days when a miracle like that occurred, she was reassured that leaving her third grade students had been the right thing to do.