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knew he shouldn’t. He wished that he smoked and knew that he couldn’t. He was more a man of thought than action, and yet he wanted to drive the roads of Connecticut to look into a thousand faces for his wife. He knew he wouldn’t find her. She was invisible. She was stuck away, imprisoned and held in a place he could not see.
    â€œWhere are you, Bea?” he said aloud.
    She answered him. “Damn it all, Wentworth! Quit kidding around and come get me.”
    He fell asleep on the couch. It was a restless, troubled sleep. She was somewhere ahead of him and he swung a hedge clipper against the clinging stalks that surrounded him. The smell of ripe flowers was overpowering. He was surrounded by lilacs, and he swung the tool in wide frantic blows to cut his way through the profuse flowers that hid her.
    Lyon drank coffee in the breakfast nook and watched Rocco’s cruiser careen down the drive. It was followed by a battered and dusty pickup truck of some ancient vintage. Rocco parked, swung from the seat, and leaned in the pickup’s window to talk to the driver.
    The pickup’s occupant stepped out onto the drive and stamped heavily broganed feet on the asphalt as if to restore circulation. He was a short, heavy man with a massive head of dirty blond hair. He wore a ripped poplin jacket and work pants stuffed into muddy boots. As he followed Rocco to the front door, he looked from side to side appraisingly.
    Rocco smiled when Lyon opened the door. “Lyon, I’d like you to meet Burt Winthrop. Burt’s a developer from Middleburg and might have some interest in your property.”
    â€œCome on in and have some coffee,” Lyon said and led them back to the kitchen. He noticed that Winthrop’s trousers were flecked with grease, and he wondered what this man could develop other than an addition to a garage.
    â€œYou got a survey map, Wentworth?” the builder asked brusquely.
    â€œYes. I dug it out this morning.” Lyon spread the map over the breakfast-nook table. The two men looked down at it as Lyon served mugs of coffee.
    Burt Winthrop handed Lyon his half-emptied mug. He sat down at the table in front of the survey and whipped out a slender pocket calculator from his pocket. His pudgy fingers flew lightly across the keys as he made rapid calculations from his study of the survey.
    â€œIf you’re interested, I’d have to close tomorrow. I need the money,” Lyon announced.
    Rocco rolled his eyes and pulled Lyon by the sleeve back into the kitchen. He whispered, “Christ, Lyon. Don’t make it sound so desperate. This guy will rape you.”
    â€œI am desperate, Rocco.”
    â€œClose tomorrow?” Winthrop asked when they returned to the nook. “I don’t know about that. You got to understand, Wentworth, that I’m just an old country boy, a builder who happened to make a few bucks. I leave the closing thing up to my lawyers.”
    â€œThat’s the way it would have to be,” Lyon said.
    â€œWell, I suppose we might do away with a title search and piggyback on the last conveyance. That is if you’ll give me full warranties on your deed?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œOkay, let me give it a few more figures.” Again the fingers flew over the calculator. “I could go into my CDs and Treasuries, but I sure hate to touch that money and lose the interest. You got a nice piece of property here, lots of shoreline, but there’s plenty of rocks and we’d have to do a lot of blasting. I’d have to squeeze to get enough units in here to make it worth my while.”
    â€œUnits?”
    â€œCondos.”
    â€œCondominiums.”
    â€œThat’s right. I specialize in that. I build mostly for retired folks … folks that made a bundle from the sale of their last house and can afford a nice and expensive condo overlooking the water. You understand that a fast close will affect the price. Raising