Wendy gave a long, martyred sigh. “Okay fine. I’ll come right to the point. You need to get to work on time, Drue. You know perfectly well we started running the new ad campaign last night, which means all the lines were jammed, last night and this morning. As I explained during your training, we run a small, tight ship here. Everybody has a job to do and nobody else has time to do yours. If you want to work here, you have to pull your own weight.”

“I understand that. But my car wouldn’t start—”

Wendy held up her hand, palm out. “I don’t care. Your car is not my problem. I don’t care if you have to walk to work. Just get here on time. Or we’ll find somebody else who can. Understood?”

“Perfectly. Are we done?”

Princess crawled out from beneath the desk and jumped onto Wendy’s lap. She placed her front paws on the lip of the desk and stared at Drue, her tiny body quivering like a tuning fork, snout lifted, her teeth bared, ears pricked.

Wendy kissed the top of the dog’s head and Princess instantly calmed, her pronounced underbite curling into what Drue would swear was a smile.

“Sweet girl,” Wendy murmured, her chin resting atop the dog’s head. “Mommy’s bestest, sweetest girl.” She looked up at Drue and picked up the phone again. “Okay. Yes, I need to take this call. We’re done here. For now.”

Drue nodded.

“One more thing,” Wendy called. “Your dad wanted me to ask if you have dinner plans tonight.”

“Sorry,” Drue said, shrugging. “I’m moving into the cottage. Can’t make it.”

7

Drue drove the short three blocks to Coquina Cottage Friday night after checking out of the Sea Breeze motel. The last time she’d been here she was fifteen. It was the summer before Papi died. She cringed now at the memory. She’d been a horrible teenager: angry, rebellious, full of pent-up hormonal rage at the world in general and her family—especially her father and her stepmother Joan.

Poor Nonni. Her darling grandmother had been heartbroken at the change in her only grandchild that summer. The sweet, fun-loving child who’d spent two weeks at Coquina Cottage every summer since she was old enough to walk had turned into a selfish, sullen shrew.

She had the address, of course—409 Pine Street. But after such a long absence, the street, the houses, virtually everything was unrecognizable. Papi’s cottage—for that’s how she would always think of it—had been the middle house in a row of five humble wood-frame homes. The Harrells, a family with three rambunctious red-haired boys, had lived in the white house to the left of the Sanchezes, and the Maroulises, a retired pharmacist from Tarpon Springs and his wife, lived in the pale green house to the right.