"Perfect. Let's go out tomorrow night. Have you got any really great wine?"

"Some Corton Charlemagne."

"Whoops. Sorry I asked. Jake's favorite, if I remember correctly? Let's stay home and stuff ourselves in front of a roaring fire. We can drink you out of his leftover vino, darling, and then you can order something entirely new. We're over him, aren't we?"

"I'm trying, Joanie. Let's not go there."

We drove into Menemsha, the commercial fishing village that was my favorite part of the island. Along the dock where steel-hulled trawlers off-loaded their catch, old-timers watched from the wooden benches along Squid Row.

Betsy Larsen was in the kitchen, cooking lobster and working the raw bar, and her sister Kris was behind the counter. It would take twenty minutes to make our dinner, so Joan and I ordered a dozen oysters each and carried them out to eat as lunch down on the jetty, at the bight that led out to the sound.

We reached the house and I parked in front of the barn, opening the trunk to take out Joan's bag.

She was already on the step and called out to me as she pulled on an envelope that was wedged in between the screen and doorjamb.

"Did you do this?"

"What?"

"It's addressed to me," Joan said, tearing open the sealed paper.

I came up behind her and saw the daffodils bunched in groups next to the granite step. They were soaking in four brightly colored pails-children's plastic sand buckets-lined up in graduated sizes, each full of the bright yellow flowers.

" 'For Joan,'" she read aloud to me. " 'Hoping to see you and the kids before too long.' It's signed Dan Bolin. I don't get it, Alex. I don't know anybody named Dan Bolin. Does this make any sense to you?"

"I think it's romantic."

"It makes my skin crawl. Creepy, not romantic."

"It's exactly what you get for lying to the guy. Especially, may I add, for using my name and giving me the added delight of mothering four little monsters. I almost asked him to join us for dinner tomorrow night."

"Spare me," I said. The Temptations were singing "I Can't Get Next to You," as I added two logs to the fire and opened the second bottle of wine. "It was a weird thing for the guy to do."

"That's the difference between us. You're always seeing perverts and madmen where I would find adventure and, well, sexiness. Thanks for giving him my name."

"Sexiness?"

"Well, it was a very sexy move. Admit it. To drive all the way up here from Edgartown with flowers for you. Have you forgotten how it's supposed to feel when a guy hits on you? Especially when he's cre-ative about doing it?"

Joan had called the phone number on the note that Bolin left at the door before we sat down for dinner. He had recognized me from the photographs in the paper and the evening news stories after the arrest of the Silk Stocking Rapist several months earlier. He knew I was pulling his leg from the first answer I gave and decided to play with me.

"In my business we call it stalking. Now I'll be up all night worried that the guy might actually find you in the D.C. phone directory. How's that for guilt?"

"You've been in your line of work too long."

"How did he know where I lived? That's not in the book."

"It's a friendly island. He told the kid who pumps gas in Men-emsha that he forgot which driveway was yours and got a very cheerful and accurate set of directions."

"So what did you say to him?"

"That we have a full house this weekend. I promised I'd pass his number along to you and maybe you'd call him next time you're here. It's against my better instincts, Alex. I'd much rather check him out."

"You don't know who he is or what he does or whether-"

"You said yourself he had a nice face-intelligent and sensitive."

"So did Ted Bundy have a nice face. You'd better take your night-cap and go upstairs to bed before you come up with any other clever ideas."

Joan slept late on Saturday morning while I took my coffee out on the deck and started reading the draft of her new novel, a brilliantly perceptive tale of obsession and revenge among Southamp-ton's toniest social set. It was fun to try to identify the people she skewered in the book with her witty dialogue and clever observations. By the time I showered and dressed, Joan had come down, ready to plan the day.

"It's fabulous. You just nail the whole scene so perfectly."

"Did you finish?"

"Not yet. Why?"

"The legal stuff, the part about the husband changing his will? I want you to tell me if it's accurate."

"I hope you had some help, Joanie. I haven't touched trusts and estates since my law school class. It's a really arcane specialty."

"One of the T-and-E partners at Milbank, Tweed talked me through it. I just wanted to be sure it makes sense to you. Looks like a glorious day. How about a walk on the beach?"

"I'm game. Grab a sweatshirt from the closet in your room and take a scarf. The sun feels great but the wind is really kicking up."

The ride to Black Point Beach took half an hour, the slowest part of the drive on the winding dirt road-full of ruts from the winter storms-that cut off into the woods and led out to the private stretch of pristine white sand that bordered the Atlantic Ocean. There were several cars parked near the walkway across the wetlands, so we took off our shoes and trekked across the dunes to the east, our footprints the only trace of activity in that magnificent meeting place of land and water.

This was the spot I came to whenever I needed my spirit and strength restored. It had been the favorite place on earth for my fiance, Adam Nyman. We came here days after his accident to scatter his ashes, so that he seemed forever a part of this landscape, a vista that took my breath away each time I visited again.

Joan knew that, and she knew from my stories that the last time I sat high above the shoreline on this very dune, I had brought Mike Chapman here to comfort him, to try to console him, after Valerie's accident. I tried to stop thinking about the cases and personalities that had occupied all my waking hours during the week-Talya Galinova, Joe Berk, Ralph Harney, Hubert Alden-but it was hard to do even in this setting.

I warned Joan to stay on the path, pointing out the poison ivy to the right and left. We were making small talk, I supposed, as she tried to distract me from the more serious connections this beach conjured up in my heart and mind.

"You know who we had dinner with in D.C. last week? Cynthia Lufkin."

"She's amazing, isn't she."

"Smart."

"Very smart."

"Gorgeous," Joan said, wrapping the scarf around her neck against the fifteen-mile-an-hour winds whipping off the water.

"Beyond gorgeous. And extremely generous. I'm a huge fan."

"It kills me that on top of all that she's really nice, too. Don't you hate that?"

"It's a rare combination," I said, laughing at Joan's comment as I reached the crest of the tallest dune, watching the blue surf pound against the packed sand.

Joan passed by me and backed down halfway to the beach, putting up her hands as though to stop me. "Enough about Cynthia. Time to talk about me. Will you sit?"

"What's going on?" I zipped my sweatshirt and parked myself on the ground.

"Look, I know what this-this beach-means to you, and I've got something terribly important to ask you. And it's the only place in the world I can even raise this question to you, because it's only here that you can give me an answer and know whether, emotionally, it's an honest one."

"What are you talking about?"

"How long have Jim and I been engaged? It seems like I've waited longer than anyone besides Sleeping Beauty to get married, right? Well, we'd like to do it this summer. And we'd like to do it on the Vineyard."