Every square inch of white space was covered with drawings of the ocean, this house, and the bungalows. All were signed with an RW in the bottom-right corner. Ruth Wheeler. Given the dates, Ruth would have been about eight to twelve.

Ruth’s sense of perspective, shading, and detail would have shown remarkable talent for an adult, let alone a child. But it was her eye for shape and movement that infused the images with emotion.

Ruth had had no formal art training, though she’d once said she would have studied art if she’d made better choices. Ivy assumed the bad choices were the marriage and daughter at a young age and then the decision to join her mother and run the Seaside Resort.

She opened the black box and found brittle tissue paper that broke apart as she lifted it. Underneath was an old 35 mm Leica camera. This German camera’s sharp images had been used by the best photographers covering fashion, war, and life.

On the silver metal bottom were scratched the initials CD. “Who are you, CD?” she asked. Ivy thumbed through the address book, running her gaze over all the names in the D section. No one with a D surname paired with a C first name.

As tempted as she was to open the back of the camera, a glance at the photo counter indicated that there was film inside and the user had taken ten pictures. Opening the camera would expose the film and ruin the photos. Ivy set the camera aside. Photo-developing stores weren’t as common as they used to be, but there had to be someone in the area who could safely check the film.

She traced the engraved CD. Ruth could have bought the camera secondhand, or it could have been left behind by a guest years ago. It amazed her what people forgot. But it wasn’t like Ruth to have a camera as nice as this and just stow it away. Ruth had kept a lot of stuff, but all of it had been connected to her on some emotional level.

That meant that CD must have meant something to Ruth.

CHAPTER NINE

RUTH

Saturday, June 17, 1950, 4:00 p.m.

Ruth now stood in the towel shack by the drink hut, staring at the kids splashing in the cool water. She shifted from her left foot to her right and leaned back away from the sun’s heat. Mama had said she could swim later, when the guests were eating dinner, but for now, her job was to hand out towels and answer questions about bathroom locations, dinner hours, evening tide schedules, phases of the moon, or whatever information a guest might want. And if she could sell them a cola or a cocktail from the drink hut, then all the better.

Talley stepped out of the restaurant, balancing a tray of iced glasses, which she carried to a collection of mothers sitting by the pool under their large aqua umbrella. Mmes Manchester, Osborn, and Bernard were all sitting together at the same table in the same order, just as they had last year and the year before. Each was on her third cocktail.