The New England Oceanographic Institute followed a policy of responding to any stranding in a humanitarian manner. Teams of volunteers rescued, reoriented and returned to deep water those animals they believed could survive. They brought back to the institute’s outdoor tanks those they could reasonably be assured of restoring to good health, usually the smaller, younger animals. Those without hope they euthanized on the beach and studied carefully for any clues as to how and why they had ended up there.

Through the morning and afternoon, Ashley instructed volunteers, rescued dolphins and did whatever she was told to do. In the midst of a stranding, the director of the institute’s marine mammal stranding program was in charge, and she tolerated no arguing, bickering or interference—even from million-dollar benefactresses.

By evening, Ashley was exhausted, muddy and bedraggled, a sorry sight for her sleazy photographer’s camera. She didn’t care. The institute team had decided to spend the night on the Cape, but Ashley had to get to New York for a charity fashion show the following afternoon. She had learned that if she took an interest in other people’s favorite charities, they were more inclined to take an interest in hers.

Right now, all she wanted were a bath, food and rest.

Tired as she was, she performed the preflight walk-around check of the Cessna herself, refusing to delegate that responsibility to anyone, not even the most trusted of mechanics. It was her plane; she was the pilot. She was the one who’d end up in the drink if she screwed up.

In her muddy gum shoes, drenched overalls and messy braid, she ducked under the left wing.

Her nemesis photographer jumped out from behind another plane and clicked off a shot. “Hey, Girl Wonder, smile.”

She groaned.

And the camera clicked again.

He wouldn’t leave, and she was too exhausted to argue. As she continued with her visual inspection of her plane, she could hear him jumping around, switching angles, snapping pictures. It was strange, she thought, that adept as she was at handling the media for her clients, and helping them learn the art of professional communications, she was painfully awkward at dealing with the media when she was the focus of attention. For four years, she had been very, very good at eluding the press. It was easier that way. Safer. She wouldn’t have to answer questions to which she had no answers.

She sighed. Whoever he was, her skinny photographer had quite a spread on her now. In a bathing suit at Newport, an evening gown in the Berkshires, a sundress in New York, a business suit in Boston. Now in drenched overalls on the Cape. But who would be interested in pictures of a dolphin-rescuing Boston businesswoman?

Everyone, she thought, if they found out she was also a mystery heiress.

Devoted to oceanographic research, conservation and education, the prestigious New England Oceanographic Institute occupied an entire wharf on the Boston waterfront. The institute flag—a deep blue graphic of a dolphin against a vibrant orange background—billowed above the new wing, whose starkly graceful modern lines complemented the classic style of the old building. Out front was a wide cobblestone-and-brick plaza, with aquatic sculptures, fountains and benches. The institute’s research ships were docked to the side, and the outdoor tanks were in the rear.