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shape than the stairs that now swayed and shuddered beneath their feet.

Chapter Four

    Inside, the air was thick with trapped humidity and smelled of too little air-conditioning and the underuse of cleaning products.
    There were three bedrooms, each with a small kitchenette. The two bedrooms on the west side of the house shared a Jack-and-Jill bath.
    “Do you mind if I open a window?” Nicole asked in the third bedroom. Her face had taken on a greenish tinge.
    Avery had been doing her best to breathe only through one nostril. Which was no easy task when you were also trying not to hyperventilate.
    “Here, let me.” Max shuffled over to a block of casement windows. The first handle he grasped came off in his hand. He couldn’t budge the second. Avery could barely keep herself from rushing over to help him when he put all of his weight into the third. All of them relaxed slightly when he managed to crank that window open a few inches.
    Max turned on the room’s wall air conditioner, which made noise as if it were on. Nothing stirred.
    The baby started fussing in earnest. Avery had a bad feeling that her face looked as horrified as the others’ and, of course, she was wearing ridiculously short shorts and what was now a sweat-stained halter top.
    Max too was drooping, his earlier banter and stage persona long gone as he led them out to the eastern deck, where they stared out over the bow in the direction of the night-shrouded Atlantic.
    “This would be a great place to watch the sunrise,” Madeline said. “The ocean’s only a few blocks away.”
    Avery winced at the suggestion. She was not now, and never intended to be, a morning person.
    “I have to agree that sunset toasts seem a lot more civilized,” Deirdre said, referring to their ritual at Bella Flora. “And I don’t think I could bear watching Avery eat Cheez Doodles that early in the morning. It was bad enough at sundown.”
    Madeline and Nicole laughed.
    “There’s never a bad time for Cheez Doodles,” Avery scoffed. “I’m pretty sure it says so right on the bag.”
    Max mopped at his forehead. His cheeks seemed even more sunken.
    Cradled in his grandmother’s arms, Dustin whimpered and yawned. His eyelashes brushed his cheeks.
    “I think we’ve done enough for today,” Avery said. “Let’s divvy up the rooms and get a good night’s sleep.” As tired as she was, she knew she’d be spending most of the night open-eyed and praying that the bottom of the house was in better shape than the top. She did not want to see it for the first time with the Lifetime crew documenting her reactions.
    “What time do you want to get started tomorrow, Kyra?” she asked, intentionally ignoring Troy and Anthony. “Nine or nine-thirty?” She emphasized the latter, which would give her more time for a quiet walk-through and a chance to rough out a schedule, and was relieved when Kyra chose nine-thirty.
    “Does that work for you, Max?” Madeline asked.
    “Perfect,” Max said, the relief etched clearly on his face. “I’ll see you in the morning, kiddos. There should be clean sheets in all of the bedrooms.” He tilted his captain’s hat in their general direction and headed toward the gangplank staircase.
    The women looked at one another and Avery knew she wasn’t the only one who would have liked to help him down the stairs; just as she knew he would have rejected such an offer.
    Dustin let out a serious wail and reached for his mother. Kyra set down her camera and reached for her son. “That’s a wrap,” she said as she held the baby against her, his back to the network camera.
    “But…” Troy began, his camera still raised atop his shoulder.
    “I said, we’re done,” Kyra repeated in much the same tone that an officer might command an underling to “stand down.” She continued to stare at him until he finally lowered his camera. “We’ll pick up again tomorrow morning at nine-thirty if you want to come back then.”
    “We have