“I feel for her,” Mary-Lou said. “And even though I wouldn’t say no to the money, I would say no to her life. She can’t even go to the store without having her picture taken. Can you imagine? They showed pictures of her home on the news this morning. Fancy mansion. Press and photographers crawling all over it. What use is a house like that if you’re afraid to leave it? Might as well be a prison. She’d have more privacy in Otter’s Nest, but I’m sure you’re right.” She waved her hand. “Joanna hasn’t shown her face around here in twenty years. Why would she come now?”

5

Joanna

Joanna lay on her back in the middle of her bed, feeling no inclination at all to leave it. She savored those blissful few seconds before she was properly awake, before her brain cleared itself of sleep and reminded her that she was living the life she’d chosen.

A life paved with bad choices.

Sometimes she imagined how her life would look if she’d made different decisions. If she’d paused, instead of rushing forward. If she’d taken one route instead of another. It was easy to judge yourself harshly when you glanced back down the road you’d traveled. Decisions that had seemed clear at the time were harder to understand with distance. You made a wrong turn, and then another and another, and before you knew it you were hopelessly lost and there was no going back so you kept moving forward. You stuck with something you knew was bad because at least it was familiar and, anyway, you no longer knew what good looked like, or how to find it.

She heard clattering in the kitchen and froze. And then she remembered. Nessa. Not some random member of the press who had somehow forced their way into her home. Nessa, her loyal assistant, who had insisted on staying and had moved into Joanna’s guest room. I can’t run the gauntlet by going through those gates every day, and I’m not taking any chances in the wild woods, so for now I’m your lodger.

Joanna had readily agreed. Having Nessa around forced her into action and stopped her overthinking. Right now, Nessa was the closest thing she had to a friend.

What did that say about her?

Joanna pushed back the covers and forced herself to start the day. She looked wistfully at the towering stack of books on her nightstand and fought the impulse to lock the door and spend the day lost in someone else’s world.

Instead, she walked to the bathroom, showered, cleaned her teeth and dressed in her habitual work outfit of jeans and a white shirt. She spent less than five minutes on her makeup because that was the maximum time she could stand staring at her pale face. She looked deader than Cliff.