Which reminded me of my promise to Josh, that I’d talk to Mia. I’d sent her numerous text messages and had even left voice mails, but she was ghosting me completely. I pulled my phone out and tapped out yet another text.

Minnie: Lunch tomorrow at Shomin’s? I’ll buy!

Mia:

Nothing came back from Mia. Not as I finished eating, not when I wrapped up the leftovers, not after I tossed the pizza box into the garbage, and not by the time I got back to the houseboat, not even the telltale dots of a canceled text.

“Maybe she’s just working on a big project,” I said to Eddie, this time for real. “She’s so into whatever she’s working on that the world around her doesn’t exist.”

Though this was possible, Josh had mentioned that Mia was between projects and was doing the kind of cleanup tasks we all tend to put off as long as we can.

I looked at my phone one last time and sighed. Next step was to stalk the poor girl. “In a nice way, of course,” I said.

Eddie, still in the closet, didn’t reply.

I sat on the edge of my bed and thought about how it might feel to be stalked. To be followed by someone who meant to hurt you. To know someone wished you ill. To hear footsteps approaching, coming faster than you could run.

A tendril of fear started at the base of my neck and spread out across my back. I jumped to my feet, hurried to the door, and locked it. Outside, the wind was up and I sat in the cockpit, elbows on the steering wheel, chin in my hands, and watched the waves curl and crash, thinking and wondering.

Had Emily been stalked, out there on a lonely trail? Had Brown?

Why had the lives of Brown and Emily been cut short? What could they have done to get in the way of a murderer? Who had taken the awful, irrevocable step of ending the lives of two people?

And then my thoughts took a new, and even more frightening, turn.

Was there going to be a third murder?

Or even more?

*   *   *

The next day, the rain let up enough that I didn’t get drenched when I walked to Shomin’s Deli for lunch, on the off chance that though Mia hadn’t responded to my text, she might show up anyway.

I waited by the counter a few minutes before ordering, then gave up and asked for the turkey and provolone with basil mayonnaise, my new favorite, and slid into a wood-seated booth to wait for my food to arrive.

I’d just had time to pull out my phone to check for e-mails when there was a heavy thump on the opposite seat.