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add that Ava acting calm and rational would probably help her case, that no one would send her off to some kind of psychiatric evaluation if she pulled this off . . . Oh, hell. “Joe is here unofficially, really. He came as a favor to me—”
    â€œIn a department-issued boat.”
    â€œIt was the fastest way over here. But, really, it’s more of a call to check up on you rather than anything remotely official. He even ate dinner with us.”
    â€œReally?”
    She lifted a slim shoulder. “I would just feel better, since I called him out here, if you’d show him that you’re . . .”
    â€œSane? Have my wits about me? Not suicidal?”
    â€œWhatever. But, yeah.” She was nodding. “Just humor me, would you?”
    It seemed there was no way around facing the sheriff again. “Fine. Just don’t be so quick to call the cavalry next time.”
    â€œThere’s not going to be a next time. Right?”
    Let’s hope, Ava thought, but didn’t answer as she found a jacket hanging inside her closet and slipped her arms through its sleeves. “I think I’m lucky that Sea Cliff is closed. Otherwise Biggs might have hauled me up there.”
    â€œVery funny,” Khloe said without the trace of a smile at the mention of the old mental hospital. An asylum for the criminally insane located on the southern tip of the island, Sea Cliff had been closed for a little over six years. Everyone at Neptune’s Gate had grown up within five miles of the hospital, which had been permanently closed after one of the most dangerous criminals in Washington State history, Lester Reece, had escaped the thick, crumbling walls and rusted gates of the facility.

CHAPTER 3
    B racing herself for what would probably be another interrogation, Ava followed Khloe down the single flight of stairs and walked through the dining room where Graciela had cleared the soup tureen and dishes from the table. They deposited Ava’s dirty dishes on the counter in the kitchen, then made their way through to the library where Biggs had settled into an easy chair and was cradling a mug in his fleshy hand.
    Her cousin Ian, along with Jewel-Anne, had joined Wyatt and Dr. McPherson in the cozy room with its Tiffany lamp shades, cushy old couch, and side chairs. Dr. McPherson worked with Ava’s medical doctor, but was Ava’s primary counselor. The conversation was a quiet hum, the mood sober. Jewel-Anne, for once, wasn’t listening to music, though she had one of her hideous dolls with her. This time it was a Kewpie-type doll with big, staring eyes, exaggerated lashes, and a deep-red mouth curved into a precocious pout. Ava didn’t know whether the doll with its tangled yellow curls was supposed to be a child or a teenager. Either way, it was disturbing, especially the way Jewel-Anne held it, as if the damned thing were her child.
    Ian didn’t seem to notice the doll and kept reaching into his breast pocket where he’d once kept a pack of cigarettes always at the ready. He’d given up the habit a while back, he claimed, though Ava had seen him out near the dock, sneaking a smoke, though why he lied about it was anyone’s guess. Long and lanky, topping six feet, with curly brown hair showing a few strands of gray, Ian had taken a job on the island as a handyman a few years back, and Ava had often wondered why he didn’t move on, get away from this place. He, like her other cousins, had once owned part of Church Island, or “a piece of the rock,” as Ian’s father had often said, a reference to an old slogan for an insurance company that fitted his view of the island.
    No doubt the cozy little group had been discussing Wyatt’s wife and her current mental state, as they all became quiet when she walked into the room.
    Great , she thought as the uncomfortable silence stretched, and the knot already tightening in her stomach twisted a little more