Poppy stopped to cough into a fist. The humidity down here, even at this early hour, felt like it was about a thousand percent. She glanced at her watch; somehow she was keeping a good ten-minute-per-mile pace. She carried on down the path, enjoying glimpses of ocean between the houses. The sunrise was still at least half an hour away, but the world was slowly awakening to its presence, the sky going navy overhead, rosy at the horizon, stars retreating. She admired the palmetto trees, hardwood live oaks, magnolias, some barkless species that she didn’t recognize.

A huge gray teardrop of a wasp nest was attached to a nearby telephone pole. Poppy would have liked to suit up and take an industrial-sized can of Raid and a baseball bat to it, like a piñata. She loved an excuse to be merciless.

Soon she had to stop again. She coughed and wiped a thick film of sweat from her face with the hem of her shirt. She stretched her muscles. Damn, this humidity was really doing a number. Her lungs tickled like the dickens and she couldn’t seem to get a good breath in or a good one out. She guessed she had about a half-mile to go to her intended destination, so she decided to power through until she had gotten at least that far. She’d walk some of the way back if she had to.

Poppy jogged a quarter of a mile and noticed a parking lot up ahead next to a small, ramshackle blue building with a sign out front that she couldn’t yet read from this distance. When she sniffed the air, the wonderful aroma of breakfast reached her. Bacon and coffee and maple syrup. She drew closer and saw that the sign read Gram’s Diner in pale green cursive. Several cars and golf carts were parked in the lot. Poppy sniffed the air greedily; sugar, coffee, and fat.

She had to slow to a walk again by the time she actually reached Gram’s. The humidity was too much. She was drenched with sweat, her breath was shallow. A terrible throbbing cramp was spreading through her belly.

She paused in front of the restaurant and peered absently into the windows at the sweet and cozy-looking scene within. Most of the patrons at this early hour were locals, Poppy gathered; tanned to jerky, with mounds of bleached yellowy hair bundled into unruly ponytails or contained beneath faded pastel caps. Most of them were elderly, although there was also a table of young surfers who were eating eggs in their wetsuits.

A voice to Poppy’s left, from the side of the restaurant, startled her.

“You worked up quite a sweat,” a woman’s voice said. “Need a glass of water?”

Poppy turned. The woman was leaning against the building, smoking a cigarette, and wearing a teal skirted apron over denim shorts and a T-shirt. She was thin, young, early to mid-twenties, very pretty. Large, pale blue eyes. Glossy blond hair pulled into a long, loose braid. She waved her cigarette in the general direction of the entrance. “Just go in and ask. They don’t bite.” She smiled. Her teeth were too straight and too white, like too much money had been spent on them.