18
Ivy lay awake, watching shadows from moonlit palm trees swaying across her walls. She slept with the window open to hear the ocean’s lullaby, the ceaseless tide that usually put her to sleep and kept her in slumber.
But not tonight.
Something had woken her. Straining to listen, she detected the low idle of an engine. Someone was in the car court behind the house. Turning over, she blinked. The digital clock on the bedstand read 4:02 a.m. How odd. She rose and padded across the vintage wool rug onto the smooth wooden floor in front of the window.
Glancing out to the moonlit court below, she saw a car she didn’t recognize. It was a convertible, but the headlights were off, and the top was up. At this time of year, nights were still chilly by the ocean. Her friends in Boston would have
