First Time in Forever (Puffin Island 1)
“I’m not retired. I changed direction.” Ryan picked up his beer, blocked out images that still kept him awake at night and stared at the information on his computer screen. “Tell me what you know about her.”
/> “Lana Fox? She’s dead.”
“Yeah, I got that part. I was hoping for a little more depth.”
“Depth and Lana Fox aren’t words that sit comfortably together. What do I know? Total wacko. How she managed to hold it together in front of a camera, no one knows. Rumor has it they were threatening to fire her from her last film because she lost so many days on set.”
Ryan stretched out his legs and stared out to sea. “The paper mentioned a kid.” A kid she’d left in the care of an aunt she’d never met.
“Why would you be interested in that?”
“Can’t imagine Lana as a mother, that’s all. Didn’t seem the type.”
“Well, she wasn’t Mary Poppins, if that’s what you’re asking me. I think she forgot she had a kid except for the few occasions when it suited her to show her off to the cameras. If you ask me, that child was a publicity stunt. Maybe she wanted the attention. She certainly had everyone speculating about the father. Who knows? Maybe she was going to reveal it at some point. Use it in some way. Casting couch in reverse. Woman on top.”
Ryan thought about what Emily had told him about Lizzy being scared of cameras and photographers.
Mind working, he watched the lights from a yacht winking in the darkness. “Any idea what happened to her?”
“The kid? That’s a mystery. There was some talk of family, but I always thought Lana invented herself with some pixie dust and a fairy wand. No one has been able to find out details. There’s probably a story there if anyone can be bothered to look.”
Ryan thought about the child fast asleep just a couple of miles away.
“Doesn’t sound like much of a story to me.”
“Me neither, but that’s because I prefer something more challenging than trapping first-graders. So, why all the questions? You’re tired of lounging around with lobsters and want to come back to the bright lights of the city?”
“That won’t be happening anytime soon.”
“Are you bored with being a tycoon? You thinking of starting up a newspaper? The Puffin Post?” Larry laughed at his own joke. “The Crab Chronicle.”
“You are hilarious.”
“No, you’re the one who is hilarious burying yourself in the freezing wastes of rural Maine when you could have been here at the sharp end. You don’t have to travel if you’ve lost the taste for it. You could pick your job. That’s what happens when you were the best of the best. Come back. Dust off that Pulitzer prize. Return to the dark side.”
“No.” Ryan watched as the lights of a boat blinked in the bay. “Those days are over.”
“They’ll never be over. You’re a born journalist. You can’t help yourself. You smell blood and you hunt. So, is something going on there? Is that nose of yours on the scent of something?”
Ryan thought about Juliet Fox. About how much the media would love to get their hands on that juicy piece of information.
He thought about how Emily would react if she found out what his career had been before he’d moved back to the island.
“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t have anything. I’m living in the freezing wastes of rural Maine, remember? Nothing ever happens here.”
CHAPTER FIVE
EMILY ROSE TO sunshine and blue skies after another night where sleep had barely paid a visit. Switching on her phone, she found a voice mail from Skylar asking how she was.
Ryan Cooper’s dark, handsome features swam into her vision. Last night her anxieties about being responsible for Lizzy had been punctuated by thoughts of the calm way he’d dealt with her mini meltdown.
Pushing those thoughts aside, she texted Skylar, doing okay, thanks. She knew better than to mention Ryan to her friend, an incurable romantic. She sent a similar message to Brittany, who had asked the same question in a text sent in the early hours, and then slid out of bed.
Lizzy was still asleep, so she took a quick shower in Kathleen’s pretty bathroom. Afterward she secured her hair on top of her head and reached for another pair of black tailored pants that were the staple of her wardrobe.
Sooner or later she was going to have to do something about that. She didn’t own clothes suitable for casual beach living.
It felt strange not to be living her life checking the time and syncing calendars.