Chapter 2Late that morning, a shrill ring whisked Anastasia from a blissful nap. Her first instinct had been to grab the phone on the nightstand, but then she recalled the notice she’d received in the mailbox the day before, stating the phone company would be working on the nearby cell tower and service would not return to normal for another twenty-four hours. Since she had also grown used to the obnoxious shriek of her cell phone, she decided that whatever had awakened her must have been in her imagination.
But then the sound came again. She sat up in bed, blinking the sleep from her eyes until it finally dawned that the doorbell had awakened her.
Funny, she thought, this was the first time she had ever heard that particular ring. In the three weeks she had been at the beach house, no o
