Sandra pasted a smile onto her face and offered a hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet. How are you feeling? Mr. Ruskin told me you—”

“I’m fine,” she said, ignoring the hand. “At least I think so.”

“The queasiness passed?” Ruskin asked her.

“I think.” She looked at Sandra. “There’s something wrong with the coffee. Is there no Starbucks on this island?”

“I’m so sorry. Are you sure it was—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Lisa said. “I have to finish setting up.” She looked at Ruskin. “Where’s my laptop?”

“It’s where you left—”

“For Christ’s sake, you just left it there?”

“I’ll get it.” He looked at Sandra. “Is there somewhere else we could work? That office behind the gym is simply not acceptable. There were basketballs in there. It smells like Bigfoot’s jockstrap in there.”

“I can have another room set up,” Sandra said.

Sandra led the two of them down another hall, then held open the door to what was normally the center administrator’s office, which came with its own private washroom.

“I suppose this will have to do,” Lisa said, going in and closing the door behind her.

“Jesus,” Sandra said under her breath as Ruskin went off to fetch his boss’s computer.

Movement at the end of the hall caught Sandra’s eye.

“Incoming,” she said to herself. The first wave of reporters was entering the building. She trotted up the hall and was starting to quicken her pace when a hand reached out from an open door and grabbed her by the wrist.

Sandra let out a muted scream as she felt herself being pulled into a room with a sign on the door that said technical. Whoever’d grabbed her kicked the door shut, wrapped both arms around her, and spun her around.

And then a man’s lips were on hers.

Sandra submitted, briefly, to the embrace, then put both hands on the man’s chest—almost getting her finger caught in the badge pinned to his chest that read joe bridgeman, chief—garrett island police.

“Shit, Joe, are you out of your mind?”

Joe, just under six feet with black hair, a thick black mustache, and dressed in a tan shirt and slacks, grinned mischievously.

“You look very hot,” he said.

“Yeah, well, you probably played hell with my lipstick. I’ve got a horde of journalists to greet and I can’t go out there looking like I kissed a ripe tomato.”

He pulled her close, pressing himself into her. “They can wait a couple minutes.”

“Wait while we do what?” she asked, glancing about the room. This was the guts of the community center. A huge furnace, circuit breaker boxes, hot water tanks, security system panels, wires and pipes running all over the place. “Believe me, nothing is happening in here.”