She arranged her umbrella and folding chair and covered herself with sunblock, watching all movements to the south as she did so. He always came from the south, from the direction of the Ritz and the fancy condos. She unfolded her beach towel and stretched herself in the sun. She put on her sunglasses and straw hat and waited. As always on weekdays, the beach was practically deserted. Her plan was to see him in the distance and walk casually to the water, timing her movements to coincide with his. She would nail him with a casual “Good morning,” the same as everyone else on this friendliest of beaches. She rested on her elbows, and as she waited she tried not to think of herself as just another failed writer. The five thousand words she’d just deleted was the worst junk she’d ever written.

He had been there for at least ten days, too long for a hotel stay. Perhaps he was renting a condo for a month.

She had no idea what to write next.

He was always alone but too far away for her to check on a wedding band.

After five years of lame characters and clunky prose and ideas so bad that she didn’t even like them, she was convinced she would never again finish a novel.

Her phone rang and Bruce began with “Hope I’m not interrupting the genius at work.”

“Not at all,” she said. In fact, I’m lying on the beach practically nude scheming to seduce a stranger. “I’m taking a break,” she said.

“Good. Look, we have a signing this afternoon and I’m a bit worried about the crowd. It’s an unknown guy with a first novel that’s not very good.”

What does he look like? How old is he? Straight or gay? But she said, “So this is how you sell books. You rally your writers to come to your rescue.”

“You bet. And Noelle is doing a last-minute dinner party at the house, in his honor, of course. Just us, you, him, and Myra and Leigh. Should be fun. Whatta you say?”

“Let me check my calendar. Yes, I’m free. What time?”

“Six, dinner to follow.”

“Casual attire?”

“Are you kidding? You’re at the beach. Anything goes. Even shoes are optional.”

By eleven, the sun was baking the sand and the breeze had moved elsewhere. Evidently, it was too hot for jogging.

6.

The writer’s name was Randall Zalinski, and a quick look online revealed little. His brief bio was deliberately vague and intended to give the impression that his career in “dark espionage” had given him rare insights into all manner of terrorism and cyber crime. His novel was about a futuristic showdown between the U.S., Russia, and China. Its two-paragraph summary was sensationalized to the point of being ridiculous, and Mercer found even it to be boring. His doctored photo was of a white male in his early forties. No mention of a wife or family. He lived in Michigan, where, of course, he was at work on a new novel.