I blinked. Then I blinked again. “Who … what … who…?”
“Are you going to fix my table?” Amy screeched, drawing my attention back to her.
“Of course,” I said automatically. “I just … of course.”
I bent down and started collecting books. Nathan helped. By the time we were finished, the whirlwind was gone. She’d knocked me over, caused Amy Ryan to be infuriated with me, and then waltzed off with her coffee.
“Who was that?” I demanded when I managed to step away from Amy. She’d regaled me with a nonstop litany of complaints the entire time we’d worked. I was glad to get away from her.
“Amy Ryan,” Nathan replied. “She writes mysteries.”
I pinned him with a withering look. “Not her. The one who ran into me.”
“Oh.” Nathan’s shoulders hopped. “I have no idea.”
“Where did she go?”
“It doesn’t matter. Your panel starts in exactly two minutes. You don’t have time to track her down and kill her.”
That was a bummer. Not that I was into murder or anything. Because he was right about the time and I was a man who wasneverlate, I ran across the convention center room and managed to get to the stage with exactly 2.5 seconds to spare.
I landed in my chair, out of breath, and double-checked that I was in the right seat. The placard in front of me read B. B. Bates. The one next to mine read Bree James.
“Hello,” I said automatically, hoping to ease the tension coiling inside me. I’d had a plan. That plan had gone out the window, but it could still be salvaged. I believed that right up until the moment I lifted my eyes and realized I was looking at the whirlwind.
She smirked as I glared. “Hey,” she said in a friendly tone. “Bree James.” She stuck out her hand.
I looked at it, then her. Then I scowled. “Yes, I believe we met by the coffee cart.”
Bree was the picture of innocence. “What do you mean?”
“You ran into me, knocked me into Amy Ryan’s table, then took off without picking up your mess.”
Bree took a long sip of her coffee. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said with a straight face.
That only made me frown harder. “Are you kidding me right now?”
Her lips quirked, then she pointed toward the crowd. When I glanced in their direction, I realized all eyes were on us. They seemed fascinated.
“It’s going to be a fun panel, huh?” she said, amusement dripping from every word. “I can’t wait to see how it goes.”
That made one of us.
1
ONE
PRESENT DAY
“What’s with the names of the roads?”
My best friend, Hayley Clifton, cocked her blonde head and studied the laminated map that had been part of my packet when I’d moved into the Landings, a community deemed “luxurious,” on Skidaway Island in Savannah, Georgia.
“What do you mean?” I watched the movers deposit my couch in the living room.
One of them looked up to silently ask if the spot was okay. I nodded. I would move the furniture where I wanted it once it was in the room. I just needed them to go. This had been the longest day of my life.
“You live on Yam Gandy Road. What’s a Yam Gandy?” Hayley asked.
