She stood for a moment, staring at what might be confirmation of who Simon Anderson really was. Or had been. But while her gaze drilled into the nameplate, she did not hear the front door to the cottage open, or footsteps crossing the braided rug and stepping onto the hardwood floor in the bedroom.
“Annie?” the voice asked. “Aren’t you a little old to be snooping?”
Chapter 23
She might have reacted more casual, less contrite, if Simon wasn’t downright red-faced angry.
“I’m sorry,” Annie said, willing her voice not to tremble, though she knew it was on the verge. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I needed to get something out of my trunk. You weren’t here and the door was unlocked.” Did that sound plausible? Acceptable? “I must have forgotten to ask you to please lock the door when you aren’t here. Our crime rate is pretty low, but I wouldn’t want to give everyone free rein to my personal belongings.” She knew that her mouth was off and running, spewing out blah-blah-blah words again, something that often happened when she was embarrassed. Or nervous.
Why the heck was she nervous? This was her Inn. This was her cottage. There was no need to be nervous.
She was, however, standing with her back to the corner, with Simon blocking the doorway. Which made her feel like a trapped animal. A skunk. A raccoon. An opossum.
If he would say something—anything—maybe she’d relax.
“I wasn’t looking through your things,” she continued rambling. “I was looking through mine. And I came across something interesting.”
He responded with a steady glare from those teal blue eyes.
Then Annie had an unpleasant thought: Had Simon come to the island not to bring her information, but because he wanted to reveal her unhappy backstory to her fans? To boost his ratings with an exposé of a mystery writer’s painful past? Annie’s best friend might have whispered that she wasreaching, if Murphy—the one voice she relied on more than anyone’s—wasn’t otherwise occupied doing God only knew what.Come on!Annie’s thoughts muttered toward the ceiling.Stop cavorting up there and pay attention to me!
Then, at last finding her nerve, she returned Simon’s glare and said, “I know who you are.”
He shifted on one foot. His eyebrows scrunched. His mouth tightened, and he spoke through his teeth. “I’m the guy you watch every night on the news.” As if it were a given that everyone in every household in America and beyond, would not miss the evening news with Simon Anderson.
She decided not to contradict him. “How did you find me on the Vineyard? And, for God’s sake, why?”
His right eye developed a slight tic. “You’re a popular woman. A best-selling author with a new business on Martha’s Vineyard. What makes you think I wouldn’t want to stay here when my work brought me to the island?”
“Bull,” she said.
“No, it’s not. I like to learn about people and places and connect them in ways that my viewers don’t always get to know simply by watching the day-to-day news. Not to mention that I really am passionate about climate change. Some people call it having a global conscience.”
It was hard to tell if he was schmoozing or preparing to do battle. She decided to play his game and wait for him to say more.
But he didn’t.
So Annie finally nodded, hoping that would help her manufacture another layer of courage as she asked, “You’re Andrew Simmons, aren’t you?”
He gestured toward the messenger bag. “That’s an antique, you know. Belonged to my uncle Harry’s father. He owned a manufacturing plant. Textiles.”
Neither of them had moved, though Annie longed to, stuck as she was in the cat-and-mouse game.
“I’m surprised I didn’t recognize you,” she finally said. “From when you interviewed me. About when my husband was killed.”
He bowed his head, then. Using his fingers he rubbed one eye, then the other, as if an eyelash or a grain of sand was scratching at them. But when he raised his head again, Annie realized why she hadn’t recognized him: it hadn’t been because she’d been so overwhelmed by grief that she hadn’t paid close enough attention to the young reporter. It was because those striking teal blue eyes weren’t teal blue at all. They were brown. Natural, ordinary brown. Now, he looked like an older version of Andrew Simmons. Andrew J. Simmons. Whatever the “J.” stood for.
He held out his hand, displaying the tinted lenses. “This color makes me look better on camera. At least that’s what the ratings’ folks say.” He bent his head again and popped the lenses back in.
It occurred to her that she should make a note to use the disguise in one of her plots. The change was so simple, yet quite effective.
“If you were one of my characters, I’d say that’s a great way to travel incognito.”
He looked back at her, his eyes teal again.
“You stopped taking my calls,” she said. “And you never called back. Had you learned something you didn’t think I should know? Something that might upset me more—as if that were remotely possible?” In her darkest hours, more than once she’d made herself ill rewinding the details of the accident, how the impact of the car must have felt, what might have happened to different parts of Brian’s body—his arms, his legs, his handsome, still youthful face. While writing her books, she still had trouble including words like shattered, squashed,spurting. Remembering that now, Annie swallowed, unable to hold back tears.
He stiffened. “I was in grad school. I was an intern at the paper. When the summer was over, I left.”
