“Her roses are absolutely incredible,” Susan said. “You have to give her that.”

“Fine,” Jody said. “I’ll give her that.”

Dr. Andy McMann saw the paper first. Normally, he savored the solitude of his Sunday mornings. Calgary slept late, and Rachel slept even later. This allowed Dr. Andy to sit out on his deck, enjoy the sunshine and the breeze, drink his coffee, eat his lightly buttered rye toast and half a ripe avocado, listen to Schubert, and read the Globe. He usually skipped the Home & Garden section, but his eye happened to catch a glimpse of the word Nantucket, and he checked to see what it was all about.

Grace Pancik’s yard. Some hotshot landscaper. Dr. Andy read the article and studied the pictures, and a feeling of distinct discomfort started at the base of his spine and traveled up to his neck. His landlord, Eddie Pancik, was being cuckolded by this Coe fellow—that much was obvious! Dr. Andy was hesitant to awaken Rachel for any reason, but this, he felt, couldn’t wait. He carried the newspaper up to their bedroom.

Alicia Buckler, a title examiner for the Town of Nantucket, was reading the Globe while standing in line, waiting for a table at Black-Eyed Susan’s, along with the rest of the world. She turned to her wife Janice, and pointed at the photo of Grace and Benton hanging from the tree branch.

“I think we’ve both been working too hard,” Alicia said. “We should take a vacation and goof off like these people.”

Janice gasped. “That’s Grace Pancik!” she said. “And Benton Coe.”

Alicia thrust the paper at Janice in frustration. She was sick and tired of the way Janice seemed to know everyone on the island just because she cleaned their teeth. And she was fed up with their Sunday routine of eating at Black-Eyed Susan’s. Every week, an hour of their day was wasted by waiting in line. Alicia pined for the olden days, when one could get breakfast at the Jared Coffin House, but if she brought this up, Janice would call her an old fuddy-duddy, and they would start to fight. Alicia was eight months older than Janice, and she was sensitive about it.

“Enjoy your tofu Benedict,” Alicia said. “I’m going home.”

But Janice didn’t hear. She was too engrossed in the article.

Glenn Daley rolled over and nearly crushed Barbie. They were lying in bed, drinking mimosas and reading the paper. Glenn had been with a lot of women, but never had he enjoyed creature comforts like good champagne and five-hundred-thread-count sheets and fresh flowers by the bed the way he did with Barbie. And she smelled delicious, even when she first woke up. He didn’t like to think that he was falling in love—his wife had ruined love for him forever—but he sure as hell didn’t want to be doing anything else or be with anyone else on this Sunday morning.

“Look at this,” Glenn said, showing Barbie the paper. “Your sister-in-law.”

“Good God,” Barbie said.

EDDIE

As the terrible old cliché goes: When it rains, it pours.

On Friday afternoon, Eddie received not one but two disturbing phone calls. One was from Madeline and Trevor’s attorney, Layton Gray, and one was from Philip Meier, at the bank.

Layton was calling about the investment of fifty thousand dollars. His clients were very upset, Layton said, and they wanted their money back. Eddie and Layton had worked together on countless real-estate deals. Eddie not only considered Layton a good guy; he considered him a sort-of friend, and so what bothered Eddie most about the message was Layton’s tone of voice. It was litigious and smoothly distant, with no hint that Layton even knew Eddie, much less had thrown a few back with him at the bar at the Great Harbor Yacht Club.

“Please call me to discuss,” Layton said, “before I have to take legal action.”

Legal action? Eddie didn’t think there were grounds for legal action. It had been a good-faith investment. Madeline and Trevor had written a check, and Eddie had promised them double back—a hundred grand—once he sold the houses. He had made a photocopy of the check and written across the bottom of the page, Llewellyn investment in Eagle Wing Lane, and then the three of them had signed the paper, which Eddie again copied, giving the original to Madeline and Trevor and keeping the copy for himself.

Nothing legal, nothing binding. A good-faith investment between friends.

And yet, the words good faith gnawed at him. He couldn’t default on this. He had to keep up his end of the bargain. And he certainly didn’t want Layton Gray to think that he, Eddie, had taken his friends’ money and sunk it into a losing proposition. Layton did eight to ten real-estate closings a week; he dealt with every agency on Nantucket. If word about this got out… no, Eddie couldn’t allow that to happen. He was livid that Madeline had called Layton; frankly, a part of him couldn’t believe she’d actually done it. Lawyers cost money. If she had called, she was serious.

He tried to calculate a way to get Madeline and Trevor at least a portion of their investment back. Once he closed the deal with Glenn Daley (even thinking the man’s name gave Eddie heartburn), he might be able to put aside ten thousand dollars for the Llewellyns.

Maybe?

Yes, he would do that.

Then, Philip Meier had called and told Eddie that he was ninety days behind on the mortgage for his house.

“Wait a minute,” Eddie said. “That’s not right…?”

“Ninety-two days, actually,” Philip said. “You’re in arrears twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and ten dollars.”