Shay turned away from him, holding the manuscript in both arms. “It’s over now, I guess,” she said distractedly. “You have your life and I have mine.”

“Over?” Mitch was stunned. He reached out then and caught her arm in one hand and wrenched her around to face him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“W-we’ll both be so busy now—”

“Busy?”

There were tears gathering along her eyelashes and her lower lip was quivering. “Shall I call you if there are any changes to be made? In—in the book, I mean?”

Mitch looked around him then, at the beautifully restored walls and ceilings, and suddenly he thought he understood what was happening. He’d served his purpose and now there was no place in Shay’s life for him. “Yeah,” he bit out, letting go of her arm. “You do that.” He turned and walked out, not daring to look back.

Shay sat down on the newspaper-covered floor and opened the packet containing Mitch’s manuscript. She had to rub her eyes several times before the words would come into focus.

“Where’s Mitch?” Alice asked innocently, holding out a cup of coffee to Shay and sipping at one of her own.

Shay felt hollow and broken. “He’s gone.”

Alice manuevered herself into a cross-legged position on the floor, facing her granddaughter. “Gone? I don’t like the sound of that, Shay. It has a permanent ring.”

“It is permanent,” Shay confirmed sadly.

“Are you mad?” Alice asked in a low incredulous tone. “That man loves you, Shay, and you love him!”

“You don’t understand. H-he’s writing another book.”

By now, Alice was a member of the necessarily small group of people who knew that Mitch Prescott and the mysterious “Zebulon” were one and the same person. She had read his books avidly, one after another, Shay knew, so she should have gotten the point. It was obvious from what she said next she hadn’t. “Isn’t that what writers do? Finish one book and start another?”

Shay was suddenly annoyed, and the sharpness of her tone reflected that, as did the hot color in her cheeks. “It isn’t the writing that bothers me! It’s the research! Alice, he could be killed, captured, tortured!”

“That’s why you’re throwing him over? Shay, I thought you were made of better stuff.”

Alice’s words, though moderately spoken, stung Shay. “I’d be sweating blood every time he left the house, Alice! I love him too much to—”

“On the contrary, dear,” Alice broke in quietly. “It seems to me that you don’t love him enough.”

Shay leaped to her feet, insulted, and stomped out of the room, out of the house. Alice could get back to her apartment on her own, she knew; she had bought a small car from Marvin Reese and was already an expert at navigating every part of Skyler Beach. Shay got into her own car and drove away, going far too fast.

She got a speeding ticket before she had traveled four blocks, and the fact that she deserved it did nothing to temper her mood. By the time she got back to her house, she was a wreck.