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plumes of exhaust into the air. Before Mitch could move out of her way she got out and approached him.
    She was in her late forties or early fifties, and she must have been quite beautiful when she was a girl. She was still an exceedingly lovely and well put-together woman. Tiny, no more than five feet two, and slender, with an air of innate class and elegance that reminded Mitch of Deborah Kerr at her most genteel and ladylike. She had porcelain blue eyes, delicate features, high cheekbones. She wore her silver blond hair cropped at her chin and parted on the side, like a boy. She was deeply tanned but her complexion was unlined and youthful. She wore no makeup. She wore a buttery yellow cashmere sweater, tailored gabardine slacks and pearls. A silk kerchief was knotted at her throat.
    She smiled faintly at Mitch through his open window. “You’re early—I wasn’t expecting the ad to run until Tuesday.” Her voice was very gentle and reserved.
    “The ad?”
    “You have come about the carriage house, haven’t you?” she asked, flushing slightly.
    “Yes, I have,” Mitch said impulsively.
    “If you’ll lead me to my house—it’s the cream-colored one—I should be happy to show it to you.”
    “And I should be happy to see it.” He was here to write a getaway story. If his getaway happened to include a guided tour of a private island, so much the better. “I’m Mitch Berger, by the way.”
    “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Berger. I am Dolly Seymour.” She inserted a plastic card into the security slot. The barricade in front of the bridge hummed and slowly began to rise. “Kindly lead on. I shall follow.” She started back to her car.
    Mitch eased his way slowly out over the choppy blue water on the spindly wooden bridge, trying to remember the last time he had heard someone use the word “shall” in ordinary conversation. The bridge was exceedingly loud, bumpy going. Also exceedingly narrow. Not much more than one car-width, with railings on either side, along with utility poles that carried the power and phone lines out there.
    As he drew closer to Big Sister he began to realize that the houses were not clustered nearly so close together as they had seemed. Each of them was built on the rocky cliffs overlooking the Sound and distanced from its neighbor by acres of woods and green meadows. There was the cream-colored center chimney colonial that Dolly had referred to. It was at least two hundred years old, and quite grand. But not nearly so grand as the natural-shingled Victorian summer cottage next door. This place had wraparound balconies and turrets and sleeping porches and must have had at least ten or twelve bedrooms. Also a spectacular garden. There was a second Victorian summer cottage that was like a miniature version of the big one. There was a squat stone lighthouse-keeper’s cottage house built in the shadow of the old lighthouse. A gravel driveway connected the houses, which were also joined by footpaths bursting with wild beach roses and bayberry. They had a tennis court out here, their own private beach and their own dock, where two yachts were presently moored.
    It was, Mitch reflected, a hundred or so acres of pure paradise.
    He told her so when he pulled up outside of her house and got out. It was at least five degrees cooler out here, thanks to the brisk breeze off of the water.
    “Yes, it is quite lovely,” she acknowledged wistfully. “Sometimes, I forget just how lovely.”
    “How did it get the name Big Sister?”
    She squinted at him, as if she were regarding him from a great distance. “It’s the tides. At low tide one can actually walk out here across the rocks and tide pools. That’s how the animals get out here. The deer and so forth. But when the tide is high, such as it is now, the cross currents from the river are swift and treacherous. Swimming out here from the Point is unthinkable—one would be washed out to sea instantly. And there are rocks. That was why they built