“Why are we still standing in the foyer?” Leigh asked.

“Damned good question,” Myra said, flinging an arm toward the stairway. “Come with me.” From behind she looked like an offensive tackle as she cleared the hallway. They followed in her wake and stopped in a family room with a television and fireplace and, in one corner, a full bar with a marble counter.

“We do have wine,” Leigh said.

“Then I’ll have some white wine,” Mercer said. Anything but the home brew.

Myra went to work behind the bar and began firing questions. “So, where are you staying?”

“I don’t suppose you remember my grandmother Tessa Magruder. She lived in a little beach house on Fernando Street.”

Both women shook their heads. No. “Name sorta rings a bell,” Myra said.

“She passed away eleven years ago.”

“We’ve been here for only ten years,” Leigh said.

Mercer said, “The family still owns the cottage and that’s where I’m staying.”

“For how long?” Myra asked.

“A few months.”

“Trying to finish a book, right?”

“Or to start one.”

“Aren’t we all?” Leigh asked.

“Got one under contract?” Myra asked, rattling bottles.

“Afraid so.”

“Be thankful for that. Who’s your publisher?”

“Viking.”

Myra waddled out from behind the bar and handed drinks to Mercer and Leigh. She grabbed a quart-sized fruit jar of thick ale and said, “Let’s go outside so we can smoke.” It was obvious that they had been smoking inside for years.

They walked across a plank deck and settled around a pretty wrought-iron table next to a fountain where a pair of bronze frogs spewed water. Old sweet gum trees blanketed the courtyard with a thick layer of shade, and from somewhere a gentle breeze settled in. The door off the porch didn’t latch and the dogs came and went as they pleased.

“This is lovely,” Mercer said as both hosts fired up cigarettes. Leigh’s was long and skinny. Myra’s was brown and potent.

“Sorry about the smoke,” Myra said, “but we’re addicted, can’t stop. Once, long ago, we tried to quit, but those days are history. So much work, effort, misery, and finally we said to hell with it. Gotta die of something, you know.” She took a long pull from her cigarette, inhaled, exhaled, then washed it all down with a slug of homemade ale. “You want a drink? Come on, try it.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Leigh said.

Mercer quickly sipped her wine and shook her head. “No thanks.”

“This cottage, you say it’s been in the family?” Myra asked. “Been coming here for a long time?”

“Yes, since I was a little girl. I spent the summers here with my grandmother Tessa.”

“How sweet. I like that.” Another slurp of the ale. Myra’s head was peeled about an inch above her ears so that her gray hair flopped from side to side when she drank, smoked, and talked. She was completely gray and about Leigh’s age. Leigh, though, had long dark hair that was pulled back into a tight ponytail and showing no gray.