She tried several lamps, and none worked. “It gets better and better.” Slipping on her jacket, she went outside and hurried down to the circuit breaker box. She checked, saw that the main breaker had popped. She flipped it back on and heard the heating unit rumble to life.

Glancing over at the construction site, she saw Dalton standing next to a truck, giving instructions to the driver, who was surveying the muddy puddles covering the lot. She appreciated his confidence and how he moved around the site as if it were his kingdom. She’d been just like that in Vincenzo’s kitchen. No problem was too big or small for her in that world. She’d been a master and enjoyed her life. Even when the problems had mounted one on top of another, she’d never once doubted herself. And now she was here, with no job or plans for the future. Should have been freeing, but it felt a little like being on a high-wire act without a net.

She climbed the stairs, pushed through the front door, and made a pot of coffee. The machine quickly gurgled, and when the pot was a third full, she filled a blue OBX mug. Cradling the cup, she tunneled through the stacked chairs, tables, lamps, and nightstands to the porch. The sun splashed yellow light over now-calm waters touching the horizon. The fickle weather at the end of the earth could be as breathtakingly beautiful as it could be dangerous.

Her gaze drifted to the ribs of what looked like an old ship jutting out of the sand. It wasn’t unheard of for storms to unearth the bones of sunken vessels. The area offshore was known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic because hundreds of vessels like this one had sunk off the shore over the centuries.

When Ivy was in elementary school, a clipper ship had risen from the sand near Hatteras and had remained above ground long enough for her fourth-grade class to take a field trip to see it. Her teacher had explained that off the coast, there were two great landmasses that butted against each other. Natural currents were constantly shifting underwater sandbars that could easily beach or sink a vessel.

Curious, Ivy took a swig of coffee, set it down, and then crossed the sleeping porch, opened the squeaking screened door, and descended the stairs to the moist sand. She zipped up her jacket and jammed her hands in her pockets as she crossed to the wreckage.

The vessel’s hull was gone, and what remained were the ribbed support beams curving out from the ship’s keel or backbone of the ship. The wood was darkened and petrified by decades in the salt water.

Ruth had never mentioned a shipwreck near her back porch, but decades if not centuries could pass before the sands divulged one of their secrets.

A dog’s bark had her turning, and on the dune, she saw an Irish wolfhound. The dog looked more like a beast than any domesticated canine she had ever seen. Its deep woof rumbled along the ridge of the dunes and caught the wind. The rising sun to her back, she watched it vanish behind the tall beach grass.