“I don’t let guys test my vital signs until they’ve bought me dinner.” She jerked her thumb. “You’re in my way.”

He stepped to the side. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

“No, thanks.” She headed straight for the door without looking back. “You are so not my type.”

Rather than waste time on annoyance when she slammed the door behind her, Mac searched for his recorder and began relaying the data.

“Ripley Todd,” he finished. “Deputy Ripley Todd, late twenties, I’d guess. Abrasive, suspicious, casually rude. Incident occurred on physical contact. A handshake. Personal physical reactions were a tingling and warmth along the skin, from point of contact, up the right arm to the shoulder. An increase of heart rate and a temporary feeling of euphoria. Deputy Todd’s physical reaction is unsubstantiated. Impressions are, however, that she experienced the same or similar reactions, which resulted in her anger and denial.”

He sat on the arm of the sofa, considering. “Early hypothesis reached upon previous research, current

observations, and recorded data is that Todd is another direct descendant of one of the three original sisters.”

Pursing his lips, Mac switched off the recorder. “And I’d say the idea of that really ticks her off.”

It took Mac the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening to unpack and set up. By the time he surfaced, the living room looked like a high-tech science lab, with monitors and keyboards and cameras and sensors arranged precisely to his preferences.

It left very little room to maneuver, but he didn’t expect to be entertaining. He moved what little furniture there was into one corner, and tested every piece of equipment. When he was finally finished, the fire had long since burned out and he was starving. Remembering the pizzeria, he grabbed his coat and started outside.

He was greeted by almost unrelieved darkness. There was a splinter of moonlight, a scatter of stars. The village, which according to his best memory was about a quarter mile south, was nothing more than vague silhouettes shadowed under the pretty march of streetlights.

Baffled, he looked at his watch. Swore. It was after eleven at night, outside a small village on a knuckle of land.

There would be no pizza tonight.

His stomach, wide awake now, protested crossly. He’d gone hungry before, often because of his own forgetfulness. But he didn’t have to like it.

Without much hope, he went back inside to search for crumbs in the kitchen. Maybe he had an old bag of trail mix or candy in his briefcase. But he hit the jackpot in the freezer. He found a container labeled

“clam chowder,” with instructions for heating. Compliments of Sisters Catering.

“I love Nell Todd. I’m her slave.” Deliriously pleased, he set it in the microwave at the time and temperature directed. The first wisps of scent nearly had him crying. He ate the entire container, standing up.

Sated, refreshed, and revived, he decided to take a walk down to the beach. Two minutes later, he came back and dug out a flashlight.

He had always liked the sound of the sea, especially at night when it seemed to fill the world. The cold wind was bracing, the smooth velvet dark soothing.

As he walked he made mental notes of chores and tasks he would need to see to the following day. The knowledge that most if not all of his list would be forgotten didn’t stop him from making it. He would need to stock up on supplies. Transfer some money to the local bank for convenience. Arrange for phone service. A post office box. He wanted to do more in-depth research on the Todd

ancestry, and the Ripley family history as well.

He wondered how much information he could pump out of Mia. Definite tension between her and the deputy. He’d be interested to know what caused it.

He needed to spend more time with both of them, though neither one would be easily nudged. A prickling on the back of his neck made him stop, slowly turn.

She was glowing. A faint aura of light outlined her body, her face, the long coils of her hair. Her eyes were green as a cat’s against the dark. And watched him, just as steadily, just as patiently.

“Ripley.” He wasn’t easily spooked, but she’d managed it. “I didn’t know there was anyone else out here.”

He started back toward her. A ripple of air shivered over him. The sand shifted under his feet. He saw a single tear, diamond bright, slide down her cheek. Before she vanished like smoke. Three

Three Sisters Island was still and white and perfect, like, Ripley thought, one of the snow globes on the shelf at Island Treasures. The storm that had swept through during the night had covered the beach, the lawns, the streets. Ermine-draped trees stood still as a painting, and the air was church quiet. She hated to mar it.

Even now Zack was calling Dick Stubens and telling him to start up his plow. Soon the world would move again. But for now it was still and silent. Irresistible.

A few feet of snow was one of the only things that kept her from her morning run on the beach. She tossed her gym bag over her shoulder, took one last whiff of whatever it was her sister-in-law was baking, and slipped out of the house.

For now, for the length of her walk to the hotel and its health club, the island belonged only to her. Smoke pumped from chimneys. Lights gleamed behind kitchen windows. Oatmeal was being stirred, she imagined, bacon was sizzling. And inside those warm, snug houses, children were doing a dance of joy. No school. Today was for snow battles and snow forts, for sledding and mugs of hot chocolate at the kitchen table.

Her life had been just that simple once.

She trudged toward the village, leaving a trough in the snow. The sky was a soft, waiting white, as if it was considering shaking out a few more inches just for good measure. Either way, she thought, she would take her hour at the gym, then head back home to help Zack shovel out the cruiser and Nell’s car. As she crossed into the village, she looked down and frowned. The snow wasn’t pristine here, as she’d expected, as she’d wanted it to be. Someone else had been out and about early, too, and had left a narrow path.

It irritated her. It was a tradition, almost a ritual, that she be the first to break the field of snow on this part of the island. Now someone had spoiled her routine and pricked her contentment bubble. She kicked at the snow and kept walking.

The path led, as hers did, toward the Gothic stone hotel, the Magick Inn. Some mainlander, she decided, who’d come out of his hotel room early to see a genuineNew England village in the snow. Hard to blame him, she admitted, but he might have waited another hour. She stomped up the short flight of steps, bumped the bulk of the snow off her boots, and went inside. She waved to the desk clerk, hitching up her gym bag, and jogged up the lobby steps to the second floor. She had a long-standing pay-as-you-go deal with the hotel for health club privileges. She preferred working out on her own, and during the summer she used the sea as her pool, so an official membership wasn’t worth her while.