Chapter 1

She said her name was Alison Simms.

The name tumbled slowly, almost languorously, from her lips, the way honey slides from the blade of a knife. Her voice was soft, tentative, slightly girlish, although her handshake was firm and she looked me straight in the eye. I liked that. I liked her, I decided, almost on the spot, although I'm the first to admit that I'm not always the best judge of character. Still, my first impression of the amazingly tall young woman with the shoulder-length, strawberry-blond curls who stood tightly clasping my hand in the living room of my small two-bedroom home was positive. And first impressions are lasting impressions, as my mother used to say.

"This is a real pretty house," Alison said, her head nodding up and down, as if agreeing with her own assessment, her eyes darting appreciatively between the overstuffed sofa and the two delicate Queen Anne chairs, the cushioned valances framing the windows and the sculpted area rug lying across the light hardwood floor. "I love pink and mauve together. It's my favourite color combination." Then she smiled, this enormous, wide, slightly goofy smile that made me want to smile right back. "I always wanted a pink and mauve wedding."

I had to laugh. It seemed such a wonderfully strange thing to say to someone you'd just met. She laughed with me, and I motioned toward the sofa for her to sit down. She immediately sank into the deep, down-filled cushions, her blue sundress all but disappearing inside the swirl of pink and mauve fabric flowers, and crossed one long, skinny leg over the other, the rest of her body folding itself artfully around her knees as she leaned toward me. I perched on the edge of the striped Queen Anne chair directly across from her, thinking that she reminded me of a pretty pink flamingo, a real one, not one of those awful plastic things you see stabbed into people's front lawns. "You're very tall," I commented lamely, thinking she'd probably heard that remark all her life.

"Five feet ten inches," she acknowledged graciously. "I look taller."

"Yes, you do," I agreed, although at barely five feet four inches, everyone looks tall to me. "Do you mind my asking how old you are?"

"Twenty-eight." A slight blush suddenly scraped her cheeks. "I look younger."

"Yes, you do," I said again. "You're lucky. I've always looked my age."

"How old are you? That is, if you don't mind..."

"Take a guess."

The sudden intensity of her gaze caught me off-guard. She scrutinized me as if I were an exotic specimen in a lab, trapped between two tiny pieces of glass, under an invisible microscope. Her clear green eyes burrowed into my tired brown ones, then moved across my face, examining each telltale line, weighing the evidence of my years. I have few illusions. I saw myself exactly the way I knew she must: a reasonably attractive woman with good cheekbones, large breasts, and a bad haircut.

"I don't know," she said. "Forty?"

"Exactly." I laughed. "Told you."

We fell silent, frozen in the warmth of the afternoon sun that surrounded us like a spotlight, highlighting small flecks of dust that danced in the air between us, like hundreds of tiny insects. She smiled, folded her hands together in her lap, the fingers of one hand playing carelessly with the fingers of the other. She wore no rings of any kind, and no polish, although her nails were long and cared-for. I could tell she was nervous. She wanted me to like her.

"Did you have any trouble finding the house?"

"No. Your directions were great: east on Atlantic, south on Seventh Avenue, past the white church, between Second and Third Street. No problem at all. Except for the traffic. I didn't realize that Delray was such a busy place."

"Well, it's November," I reminded her. "The snowbirds are starting to arrive."

"Snowbirds?"

"Tourists," I explained. "You're obviously new to Florida."

She looked toward her sandaled feet. "I like this rug. You're very brave to have a white carpet in the living room."

"Not really. I don't do much entertaining."

"I guess your job keeps you pretty busy. I always thought it would be so great to be a nurse," she offered. "It must be very rewarding."

I laughed. "Rewarding is not exactly the word I would use."

"What word would you use?"

She seemed so genuinely curious, something I found both refreshing and endearing. It had been so long since anyone had expressed any real interest in me that I guess I was flattered. But there was also something so touchingly naive about the question that I wanted to cross over to where she sat and hug her, as a mother hugs her child, and tell her that it was all right, she didn't have to work so hard, that the tiny cottage behind my house was hers to occupy, that the decision had been made the minute she walked through my front door.

"What word would I use to describe the nursing profession?" I repeated, mulling over several possibilities. "Exhausting," I said finally. "Exacting. Infuriating."

"Good words."

I laughed again, as I seemed to have done often in the short amount of time she'd been in my home. It would be nice having someone around who made me laugh, I remember thinking. "What sort of work do you do?" I asked.

Alison stood up, walked to the window, and stared out at the wide street, lined with several varieties of shady palms. Bettye McCoy, third wife of Richard McCoy, and some thirty years his junior, not an unusual occurrence in South Florida, was being pulled along the sidewalk by her two small white dogs. She was dressed from head to toe in beige Armani, and in her free hand she carried a small white plastic bag full of dog poop, a fashion irony seemingly lost on the third Mrs. McCoy. "Oh, would you just look at that. Aren't they just the sweetest things? What are they, poodles?"

"Bichons," I said, coming up beside her, the top of my head in line with the bottom of her chin. "The bimbos of the canine world."

It was Alison's turn to laugh. The sound filled the room, danced between us, like the flecks of dust in the afternoon sun. "They sure are cute though. Don't you think?"

"Cute is not exactly the word I would use," I told her, consciously echoing my earlier remark.

She smiled conspiratorially. "What word would you use?"

"Let me see," I said, warming to the game. "Yappy. Pesky. Destructive."

"Destructive? How could anything that sweet be destructive?"

"One of her dogs got into my garden a few months back, dug up all my hibiscus. Trust me, it was neither sweet nor cute." I backed away from the window, catching sight, as I did so, of a man's silhouette among the many outside shadows on the opposite corner of the st reet. "Is someone waiting for you?"

"For me? No. Why?"

I edged forward to have a better look, but the man, if he'd existed at all, had taken his shadow and disappeared. I looked down the street, but there was no one there.

"I thought I saw someone standing under that tree over there." I pointed with my chin.

"I don't see anyone."

"Well, I'm sure it was nothing. Would you like some coffee?"

"I'd love some." She followed me through the small dining area that stood perpendicular to the living room, and into the predominantly white kitchen at the back of the house. "Oh, would you just look at these," she exclaimed with obvious delight, gliding toward the rows of shelves that lined the wall beside the small breakfast nook, her arms extended, fingers fluttering eagerly in the air. "What are these? Where did you get them?"

My eyes quickly scanned the sixty-five china heads that gazed at us from five rows of wooden shelves. "They're called 'ladies' head vases,'" I explained. "My mother used to collect them. They're from the fifties, mostly made in Japan. They have holes in the tops of their heads, for flowers, I guess, although they don't hold a lot. When they first came out, they were worth maybe a couple of dollars."

"And now?"

"Apparently they're quite valuable. Collectibles, I believe, is the word they use."

"And what word would you use?" She waited eagerly, a mischievous smile twisting her full lips this way and that.

I didn't have to think very hard. "Junk," I said concisely.

"I think they're great," she protested. "Just look at the eyelashes on this one. Oh, and the earrings on this one. And the tiny string of pearls. Oh, and look at this one. Don't you just love the expression on her face?" She lifted one of the heads gingerly into her hands. The china figurine was about six inches tall, with arched painted eyebrows and pursed read lips, her light brown curls peeking out from under a pink and white turban, a pink rose at her throat. "She's not as ornate as some of the others, but she has such a superior look about her, you know, like some snooty society matron, looking down her nose at the rest of us."

"Actually, she looks like my mother," I said.

The china head almost slipped through Alison's fingers. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry." She quickly returned the head vase to its original position on the shelf, between two doe-eyed girls with ribbons in their hair. "I didn't mean..."

I laughed. "It's interesting you picked that one. It was her favorite. What do you take in your coffee?"

"Cream, three sugars?" she asked, as if she weren't sure, her eyes still on the china heads.

I poured us each a mug of coffee I'd been brewing since she'd phoned from the hospital, said she'd seen my notice posted to the bulletin board at one of the nurses' stations, and could she come over as soon as possible.

"Does your mother still collect?"

"She died five years ago."

"I'm so sorry."

"Me too. I miss her. It's why I haven't been able to sell off any of her friends. How about a piece of cranberry-and-pumpkin cake?" I asked, changing the subject for fear of getting maudlin. "I just made it this morning."

"You can bake? Now I'm really impressed. I'm absolutely hopeless in the kitchen."

"Your mother never taught you to cook?"

"We weren't on the best of terms." Alison smiled, although unlike her other smiles, this one seemed more forced than genuine. "Anyway, I'd love a piece of cake. Cranberries are one of my very favorite things in the whole world."

Again, I laughed. "I don't think I've ever met anyone who felt so passionately about cranberries. Could you hand me a knife?" I motioned toward a group of knives slid into the artfully arranged slots of a triangular chunk of wood that sat on the far end of the white tile countertop. Alison pulled out the top one, a foot-long monster with a tapered two-inch blade. "Whoa," I said. "Overkill, don't you think?"

She turned the knife over slowly in her hand, studying her reflection in the well-sharpened blade, gingerly running her finger along its side, temporarily lost in thought. Then she caught me looking at her and quickly replaced the knife with one of the smaller ones, watching intently as the knife sliced effortlessly through the large Bundt cake. Then it was my turn to watch as she wolfed it down, complimenting me all the while on its texture, its lightness, its taste. She finished it quickly, her entire focus on what she was doing, like a child.

Maybe I should have been more suspicious, or at the very least, more wary, especially after the experience with my last tenant. But likely it was precisely that experience that made me so susceptible to Alison's girlish charm. I wanted, really wanted, to believe she was exactly as she presented herself: a somewhat naive, lovely, sweet young woman.

Sweet, I think now.

Sweet is not exactly the word I would use.

How could anything that sweet be destructive? she'd asked.

Why wasn't I listening?

"You've obviously never had a problem with your weight," I observed as her fingers pressed down on several errant crumbs scattered across her plate before lifting them to her mouth.

"If anything, I have trouble keeping pounds on," she said. "I was always teased about it. Kids used to say things like, 'Skinny Minny, she grows like a weed.' And I was the last girl in my class to get boobs, such as they are, so I took a lot of flak for that. Now suddenly everybody wants to be thin, only I'm still catching flak. People accuse me of being anorexic. You should hear the things they say."

"People can be very insensitive," I agreed. "Where'd you go to school?"

"Nowhere special. I wasn't a very good student. I dropped out of college in my first year."

"To do what?"

"Let's see. I worked in a bank for a while, sold men's socks, was a hostess in a restaurant, a receptionist in a hair salon. Stuff like that. I never have any trouble finding a job. Do you think I could have some more coffee?"

I poured her a second cup, again adding cream and three heaping teaspoons of sugar. "Would you like to see the cottage?"

Instantly, she was on her feet, downing the coffee in one seamless gulp, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "Can't wait. I just know it's going to be beautiful." She followed me to the back door, an eager puppy nipping at my heels. "Your notice said six hundred a month, right?"

"Will that be a problem? I require first and last month's rent up front."

"No problem. I intend to start looking for a job as soon as I get settled, and even if I don't find something right away, my grandmother left me some money when she died, so I'm actually in pretty good shape. Financially speaking," she added softly, strawberry-blond hair curling softly around the long oval of her face.

I had hair like that once, I thought, tucking several wayward waves of auburn hair behind one ear. "My last tenant was several months behind in her rent when she took off, that's why I have to ask..."

"Oh, I understand completely"

We crossed the small patch of lawn that separated the tiny cottage from the main house. I fished inside my jean pocket for the key to the front door, the heat of her gaze on my back rendering me unusually clumsy, so that the key fell from my hand and bounced on the grass. Alison immediately bent to pick it up, her fingers grazing mine as she returned it to the palm of my hand. I pushed open the cottage door and stood back to let her come inside.

A long sigh escaped her full lips. "It's even more beautiful than I thought it was going to be. It's like... magic." Alison danced around the tiny room in small, graceful circles, head arched back, arms outstretched, as if she could somehow capture the magic, draw it to her. She doesn't realize she is the magic, I thought, suddenly aware of how much I'd wanted her to like it, how much I wanted her to stay. "I'm so glad you kept the same color as the main house," she was saying, briefly alighting, like a butterfly, on the small love seat, the large chair, the bentwood rocker in the corner. She admired the rug - mauve and white flowers woven into a pale pink backround - and the framed prints on the wall - a group of Degas dancers preening backstage before a recital, Monet's cathedral at sunset, Mary Cassatt's loving portrait of a mother and her child.

"The other rooms are back here." I opened the double set of French doors to reveal a tidy arrangement of galley kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom.

"It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect." She bounced up and down on the double bed, running eager palms across the antique white bedspread, before catching her reflection in the mirror above the white wicker dresser and instantly assuming a more ladylike demeanor. "I love everything. It's exactly the way I would have decorated it. Exactly."

"I used to live here," I told her, not sure why. I hadn't confided anything of the sort to my last tenant. "My mother lived in the main house. I lived back here."

A little half-smile played nervously with the corners of Alison's lips. "Does this mean we have a deal?"

"You can move in whenever you're ready."

She jumped to her feet. "I'm ready right now. All I have to do is go back to the motel and pack my suitcase. I can be back within the hour."

I nodded, only now becoming aware of the speed at which things had progressed. There was so much I didn't know about her. There were so many things we had yet to discuss. "We probably should talk about a few of the rules...," I sidestepped.

"Rules?"

"No smoking, no loud parties, no roommates."

"No problem," she said eagerly. "I don't smoke, I don't party, I don't know anyone."

I dropped the key into her waiting palm, watched her fingers fold tightly over it.

"Thank you so much." Still clutching the key, she reached into her purse and counted out twelve crisp $100 bills, proudly handing them over. "Printed them fresh this morning," she said with a self-conscious smile.

I tried not to look shocked by the unexpected display of cash. "Would you like to come over for dinner after you get settled?" I heard myself ask, the invitation probably surprising me more than it did her.

"I'd like that very much."

After she was gone, I sat in the living room of the main house, marveling at my actions. I, Terry Painter, supposedly mature adult, who had spent my entire forty years being sensible and organized and anything but impulsive, had just rented out the small cottage behind my house to a virtual stranger, a young woman with no references beyond an ingratiating manner and a goofy smile, with no job and a purse full of cash. What, really, did I know about her? Nothing. Not where she came from. Not what had brought her to Delray. Not how long she was planning to stay. Not even what she'd been doing at the hospital when she saw my notice. Nothing really except her name.

She said her name was Alison Simms.

At the time, of course, I had no reason to doubt her.

From the Hardcover edition.