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her.
    She passed a park—she couldn’t recall the name but remembered it had ball fields, though she’dnever played there—and on to the center of town. St. Dennis still had only one traffic light. It was at the corner of Kelly’s Point Road and Charles Street, and it marked the beginning of the shopping district. Lis slowed and noted the new arrivals since she’d last been back. The flower shop, Petals and Posies, had been there for years; likewise, Lola’s Café, an upscale eatery. Cuppachino had opened right before her last long visit, and she fondly remembered the excellent coffee she’d had there. Across the road was Sips—beverages only—which had been around when Lis was in high school. Next to it, however, was a fancy-looking shop that had all manner of gorgeous things in the window, things like shoes and bags and swimsuits, sundresses and one knock-out dress-up dress, a black sleeveless V-neck number with tiny sparkly things scattered on it like stars against a dark night sky. The name of the shop—Bling—was painted on the window as well as on the door. She’d passed it numerous times on her previous visits home, but since she rarely stayed beyond two or three days, she’d never had the occasion to stop in. This time around she might check it out when she had a moment. But that moment wasn’t now. She was on a mission.
    The light was red and the DON’T WALK sign was flashing, so Lis waited at the corner for the go signal. There was a sign with an arrow pointing down Kelly’s Point Road for the municipal building, the marina, Captain Walt’s Seafood Restaurant, and One Scoop or Two, the local ice cream shop. Hadn’t Ruby said that Alec had the skipjack at the marina? That was as good a place as any to start.
    Lis headed left down the road, which had been sand and gravel the last time she’d been there. The macadam was a nice improvement: Stones had gotten into her sandals the last time she’d walked that road, a few years back when she was home for Owen’s wedding. His bride had wanted the photos taken along the dock overlooking the bay. The photos had lasted longer than the marriage.
    Must have been something he’d said , Lis mused. No one had liked his wife, Cindy, and no one had so much as blinked when she left him and filed for divorce less than a year later. Some guys weren’t meant to settle down. Lis suspected Owen might be one of them.
    At the end of the road a wooden boardwalk went left and right. To the left was One Scoop or Two, and the marina lay to the right behind Captain Walt’s.
    The sign out front of the marina read ELLISON’S—BOATS FOR THE BAY SINCE 1896 . The building was as wide as it was long, of weathered white clapboard that was showing its age. The roof was slate and large double doors opened along the bay side. Windows ran across the front on both sides of a glass door with the name painted on it in black. Lis tried the door and found it locked, so she walked around to the side and followed the sound of machinery through the open double doors.
    Ten feet in, the skipjack Eben Carter bought in 1932 was perched atop a series of cinder blocks. Pieces were missing from the hull and the rudder lay on the floor next to it. The boom, as long as the boat itself, lay alongside the empty hull. The mast, a fullsixty feet long, stood at a wide angle to the wall. The whining noise from the other side of the boat was deafening. Lis covered her ears and ventured close enough to peer around the bow.
    His back was to her, but she knew instinctively that she’d found the man she was looking for. He wore a pair of ripped khaki shorts and a gray T-shirt that had holes near the shoulder and the sleeves ripped off to show deeply tanned arms. His blond hair, mostly hidden by a baseball cap worn backward, was just long enough to inch over the back neckline of the shirt. He held a sander, which he ran back