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J ack must have had a remote fob in the car, because when they turned onto Beach Read’s street, its garage door was already rising. He swung the car inside too fast and at too sharp an angle, braking hard just a couple of feet before the headlights would’ve met solid wall.

‘She’s all right,’ Emily said, trying to calm him.

They’d kept Grace on speakerphone all the way back from Seaside. She hadn’t said much and when she did, she’d whispered it – she’d locked herself into a room and didn’t want to draw any attention in case the intruder was still inside the house – but a few moments ago, when Emily had told her they were almost there, Grace had sighed with relief and hung up.

‘I know,’ Jack said, killing the engine. ‘But she’s scared.’

He got out, slamming his door behind him, and hurried under the archway and into the courtyard.

Emily followed.

The sun had only started to sink in the sky but every last light in Beach Read was ablaze, inside and out. The courtyard was empty except for them, and looked the same as it had when Emily had left it. Jack called out Grace’s name just as footsteps came running out of the house and she appeared in front of them, flushed and breathing hard.

‘I think he’s gone,’ she said.

Jack went to her and touched a gentle hand to her back, and asked in a low voice if she was all right. She looked up at him with wide eyes and nodded, her lips pressed together, and then they held each other’s gaze while something silent was communicated, after which Jack let his hand drop and they stepped apart.

The exchange left Emily uncomfortable, as if she’d witnessed something she shouldn’t have.

For the second time today.

‘Tell us exactly what happened,’ Jack said.

‘I was upstairs, putting the laptop into the safe. I heard a crash. I thought it might have been glass breaking. I assumed it was one of you, but when I looked out the window there was a man down here.’ Grace pointed a few feet away, to a spot near the pool. ‘Standing right there.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Nothing. Looking around. I don’t know.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I banged on the window.’ She mimed striking invisible glass with two closed fists. ‘He looked up and saw me, and then he ran off, into the garage. I locked myself in the room, called you and stayed there until I saw you walk out of the garage. I presume you didn’t see him in there? Or outside?’

After Jack shook his head, Grace took a deep breath and said, ‘Where the hell were you guys?’

‘What did he look like?’ Jack asked, ignoring the question.

A flash of light caught Emily’s attention. There was something small and reflective on the ground near the foot of one of the chairs.

She walked to it to get a closer look.

‘Tall,’ Grace said. ‘White. Skinny. I didn’t really see his face.’

‘He knocked a lantern over,’ Emily said, pointing. A number of Moroccan-style lanterns were dotted around the courtyard, and now one of their number was lying on its side just under one of the chairs. Its glass was cracked. ‘That must have been the crash you heard.’

‘What was he wearing?’ Jack asked.

‘A white shirt,’ Grace said. ‘A baseball cap. Shorts, maybe. What does it matter? He shouldn’t have been here. We need to call security. Or maybe even the police. Someone broke in , Jack. This house isn’t secure.’

‘This house has staff,’ he said calmly. ‘Housekeeping, maintenance, pool cleaner – and there’s the property manager who let us in. They’re supposed to stay away this week but maybe there was a miscommunication. It must have been one of them. How else would he have got in? There’s no lock broken or door kicked in.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe you didn’t close it properly when you left.’

‘I think I saw him,’ Emily said.

They both turned to look at her questioningly.

‘Earlier,’ she continued. ‘On the beach. Looking up at the house. And then again when I was walking around the town – just before I ran into you, Jack.’ She hesitated. ‘I think he was following me.’

Silence.

Blank faces.

Then Grace spat, ‘ What? ’

‘What do you mean, following you?’ Jack demanded.

She briefly recapped what had happened, after which Grace and Jack exchanged glances.

‘Let’s not jump to any conclusions,’ Jack said to Grace, although it wasn’t at all obvious to Emily what conclusion Grace was jumping to. ‘A white guy in shorts and a T-shirt pretty much describes everyone around here.’

‘But there’s been no one around here,’ Emily said. ‘Not after the construction crews go home. I think that’s more the point.’

‘If he was staff,’ Grace said, ‘why didn’t he ring the buzzer? And why would someone who works here be following her ’ – she jerked a thumb in Emily’s direction – ‘around town?’

‘OK, look,’ Jack said, ‘I’ll call the owner.’ He took his phone out of a pocket. ‘Find out if that sounds like someone who works here. And if it doesn’t, I’ll ask him what we should do. Let’s try that first before we declare an international incident, all right?’ He turned and headed for the house, handing his car keys to Grace as he passed her.

Grace waited for him to get all the way inside before she turned to Emily, folded her arms across her chest and said, ‘Where were you?’

‘We went to Seaside.’

‘Was I not clear? You’re supposed to stay here , in Sanctuary, at all times.’

‘Grace …’ Emily hesitated. On one hand, she abhorred confrontation. She just wasn’t built for it. If people were rude, her response was to kill them with kindness or, failing that, find the quickest way to exit stage left. But she was tired. More than tired, she was jetlagged. Her body didn’t know what day of the week it was and her brain had been fed more new information today than it had had to deal with in the whole of the last month. A single glass of wine had skipped off her near-empty stomach and shot into her veins. She felt warm and loose and a little tipsy and she had just about had it with Grace. So she said, ‘With all due respect, I’m not a prisoner and you’re not the warden.’

Grace’s mouth fell open. ‘ Excuse me?’

‘If my subject wants to share some of his story in a social setting, I will facilitate that. I didn’t take any of your electronic devices out of the house, so there was no security risk. And we’re in Florida. Jack said himself, no one has any clue who he is and frankly no one cares. But if you want to talk about if we’re all doing what we’re supposed to be doing, if we’re abiding by the rules and doing our jobs and being professional, then sure. By all means. But maybe we should begin with you. For starters, I’m wondering what you’re even still doing here? You told me that Jack needs his own time in the evenings and you’re supposed to be staying in a hotel down the highway …’

Grace’s glare was so cold that Emily felt its chill.

‘Members of the public,’ she said, pronouncing every word with a disquieting distinctiveness, ‘took pictures of Jack at Dublin Airport, and again in JFK. They’re all over social media if you know where to look. Everyone knows that he’s in the US, so it’s only a matter of time before they trace him to here. And then they’ll start digging for why he’s here, and who is here with him. If the Irish media find out about the book, there will be no book . But it won’t be my fault, because I told you the rules. I told you to stay in Sanctuary. I made that perfectly clear. And the reason I’m still here is because I had work to do, for you , and Jack had the rental car. Not that that’s any of your concern.’ Grace moved to go. ‘Oh – and Jack isn’t your subject. He’s your client . I know you don’t have a clue what you’re doing, but at least get that right.’

She spun on her heel and stormed off, into the house.

Emily stared after her, dumbstruck. It was a mystery how Grace had got this gig when she had the professional demeanour of a sulking teenager. Whose insane idea was it to put someone that volatile on a project this important? Was she someone’s daughter or niece or lovechild? Or had she just done a really good job of pretending to be better back in London?

Emily decided that she’d email Beth about it – which will be breaking another one of Grace’s rules , she thought with an eye-roll.

And then she thought, What a day.

She crossed the courtyard and wearily climbed the stairs to Bookmark.

As she stood on its threshold and felt for the light switch, it occurred to her that they’d just had an intruder in the house, potentially. This gave her pause. But while the front door to the main house, opening into the courtyard, was typically left open all day, Bookmark’s front door locked automatically on closing. She’d had to open it just now with her key.

But still …

Emily flipped on the lights and scanned the space. Everything looked just as she’d left it. The balcony door was still locked, but she went out there anyway. All good. She went into the bathroom and yanked the shower curtain all the way back. All clear. She pulled on the connecting door, but it didn’t budge. Everything was fine.

She drew the curtains, locked the front door from the inside and turned off most of the lights. Another glass of wine seemed like a nice idea, but not a good one. She dug a can of Coke out of the fridge instead.

As she pulled on its tab, Grace’s words echoed in her head.

If the Irish media find out about the book, there will be no book.

Numerous other morally dubious memoirs had gone directly from printer to shredder, sunk by tsunamis of public outrage before they got anywhere near the bookshop shelves. Like the film director’s career retrospective that conveniently ignored the numerous abuse allegations against him. The political memoir which claimed that the pandemic was caused by mobile phones. The latest pop-sci title by that guy who’d lied about his college degrees and whose work had been discredited on numerous occasions by people who didn’t have to lie about theirs. People had got wind of these projects, clutched their pearls – or taken to social media, to Goodreads, to Medium – and, as a result, the books had got pulped.

And rightly so, Emily had thought at the time.

But what if that happened to this book?

She wondered if, in that scenario, she’d still get paid – and then immediately hated herself for thinking that. Her problems were only financial. What about Kate’s family and friends, forced to relive the worst thing that had ever happened to them, but with Kate replaced by Jack in the role of victim? If any of them believed Jack was guilty, they’d have to stomach her killer getting a chance to plead his innocence, not just with the privilege of his very own book, but in all the publicity that would come with its publication.

And if Jack was innocent, he’d be robbed of this opportunity to say so.

But the fact remained that Emily didn’t have twenty-five grand. She didn’t have a grand. If this all went to shit, someone would surely find out her name and make it public, and then her boss would find out the true nature of her ‘family emergency’ and she wouldn’t have a job.

She went to her backpack and took out the notebook she’d bought before she’d left Dublin: a large, black Moleskine whose pages were blank. It was the kind of expense she hadn’t been able to justify for a long time, but on the way home after the meeting with Beth and Carolyn, she’d slipped into a stationery shop and purchased it, a little giddy with having, suddenly, what looked like a tangible excuse.

It was still in its plastic wrap – thanks to Grace’s rules, she’d had no need for it. Now, Emily ripped the plastic with a fingernail and slipped it off. She stroked the newly exposed smoothness of the cover, feeling the universe of possibility underneath. Then she cracked the spine, opened the notebook to the first blank page and laid it flat on the breakfast bar.

This week was an opportunity, but in more ways than one. She had her evenings free and this place to herself. She was afraid that Jack’s book wouldn’t make it to the shelves; she should use that fear as motivation to start writing something else. To start writing again. To do the only kind of writing she’d wanted to do in the first place.

And in this new place, all these new experiences, people …

The restaurant back in Seaside, for instance, that rang the bell every time the sun set. Could there be something in that? Emily imagined a woman, sitting out life on the sidelines, promising herself ‘Someday’, every day, shaken out of her stupor by the sound that signalled she’d wasted yet another twenty-four hours of her life. She even had a title: The Sunset Bell . Or what about Sanctuary, in all its sterile, silent strangeness? What if, when it was finished, it still felt the same way? Who would build a town like this? Who would live in it? What might happen here? An update of The Stepford Wives , mashing together the horrors of AI with the even more horrific #tradwife trend. And Tall Blonde Woman. Don’t you always wonder where the other people on your plane are going to, and why? What if you became so unhealthily obsessed with your seatmate that you followed them to their destination, and then stayed there so you could follow them around it as well?

There was, potentially, so much material. A shower of sparks. She should take advantage of it.

She should, at least, try .

When Plan A was helping a man who might have committed a murder write a memoir, it seemed wise to have a Plan B.

Emily picked up a pen and started to write.