A THRILLING MYSTERY COMING SOON

I blinked at the gray-blue light seeping past the curtains, trying to remember why I’d set the alarm for today. That’s when it hit me: the meeting. I had an appointment in South Lyme at eight—coffee with a publisher interested in my new project. It was only a twenty-minute drive from my cottage, but I’d need every spare minute to get myself presentable, scrape together some confidence, and try to shake off the sick feeling lodged in my gut. Ten years ago, when the market still felt predictable and my royalties actually paid the bills, I’d bought this place: a weather-beaten house right on Old Lyme Point. The sand was always getting inside, and the storms rattled the windows in winter, but I loved waking up to the water and a sky that shifted with the seasons. Out here, it was easier to write—and, sometimes, easier to hide. I also like to work on the cottage, fixing it up mostly on the outside that has been worn down over the years. I closed the battered notebook, tucking it away behind a row of dusty paperbacks. The original manuscript went inside an old shoebox, slid between some tax files. I told myself it was safe enough, at least for now. Outside, the waves slapped gently against the shore, as if nothing in the world had changed overnight. But as I passed my bookshelf on the way to the kitchen, the absence of that one book stood out like a bruise. I tried not to look, and failed. By the time I locked the door behind me, the sky was split down the middle—half gold, half shadow—and I wondered what sort of story I’d have to tell by the end of the day. The publishers’ office was perched above a coffee shop in South Lyme, the kind of place that still had real mail slots and faded carpet. Ethan Dowery met me at the door—broad-shouldered, with tired crow’s feet and the half-smile of someone who’d read too many rejection letters for one lifetime. He poured me a mug before I sat. “You look like you’ve been up all night, friend.”