Suspicion

Suspicion
Janice Macdonald

Three months ago, Sam and Diana Lynsky boarded their twenty-six-foot yacht and set out for a sail to mark their fortieth anniversary. Diana never returned. Sam told the sheriff that he'd retired to the cabin for a nap, and when he awoke, Diana had vanished…Journalist Scott Campbell is fascinated by Catalina Island's biggest story. Had Diana fallen overboard? Had she been unhappy enough to swim away from the yacht, or, even worse, had she decided to end her life? And finally the most chilling scenario of all. Had Dr. Sam Lynsky–an impatient, difficult man–somehow gotten rid of his wife?Much as Ava Lynsky wants to know what happened to her mother, she's afraid of what Scott may find out. Unlike her twin, who has no reservations about digging up family skeletons.Finally Ava accepts the fact that nothing in her past is exactly the way she remembers. But her future–with Scott–promises to be everything she's dreamed of.

“You asked yesterday if I had any questions. Well, I do.”

Ava looked up to see Scott standing in the doorway.

“Hi,” he said, not moving into the room. “I didn’t realize this was your studio. I was just walking by and I saw you working. Then I remembered what you’d said about questions.”

“Questions?”

“About the tile-making process.” He took a notebook from his pocket. “How do you actually make them?”

She glanced at him long enough to tell that he wasn’t here to talk about tiles. He wanted to know more about her mother’s disappearance. Fine. If he wasn’t going to come clean, she’d make him pay the price. She launched into a detailed explanation of paint pigments, moved on to glazes and anything else she could think of to throw into her monologue. When she saw his eyes start to glass over, she began a dissertation on firing techniques.

“That’s the short, simplistic answer,” she said twenty minutes later.

“Interesting,” he said.

“You stopped taking notes about fifteen minutes ago,” Ava said. “And interesting is one of those words people use when they can’t think of anything else to say.”

He looked at her for a full five seconds. “Interesting.”

Dear Reader,

I’m sure most of you have felt that tug of nostaglia when you return to places you knew as a child. I know I have. For me, it’s a wistful feeling, a yearning to recapture something that seems as elusive as smoke. I’ve found that it’s equally impossible to explain. No one but me really understands exactly how magical the lights along the seafront in Ramsgate, Kent, seemed when I was fifteen and in love—or imagined I was. Or, except for my sister, the specific taste of ice cream from Stonelees, a dairy that opened only during the summer. A few years ago, I went back to England and took that same walk—the ice cream parlor had long gone. Some things had changed, others were as I remembered them, but the magic wasn’t there. I couldn’t—no matter how hard I tried—feel the way I had at fifteen.

For Ava, the heroine of Suspicion, the childhood that she and her twin sister, Ingrid, spent on the island of Santa Catalina, twenty-two miles off the Southern California coast (didn’t the Beachboys say it was twenty-six?—they were wrong) was an enchanted time full of wonder and promise. After her husband dies early in their marriage, and a few years later her mother mysteriously drowns, Ava begins to wonder how much of her past was truly as idyllic as she recalls, and to what extent her memories have been colored by what she wants to believe….

I love to hear from readers. Please visit my Web site at janicemacdonald.net and let me know how you enjoyed this book.

Janice Macdonald

P.S. If you ever visit Southern California, take the Catalina Express over to Avalon. It truly is a magical place, no matter how old you are.

Suspicion

Janice Macdonald

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To Carolyn, who always lets me sing “Pineapple Princess.”

Acknowledgments:

I’d like to thank Deanna Shiew of C & S Ceramics & Crafts in Muskogee, Oklahoma, for all the details she provided on the tile-making process. If there are any errors in description, they are mine alone. Deanna was truly a tireless and invaluable source of information.

Thanks also to www.cataromance.com. The e-mail loop and the willingness of its members to offer their expertise on an absolutely amazing range of topics is truly a writer’s boon.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“I KEEP HAVING this dream. I’m looking down into the water and I can see my mother’s face staring up at me….” Ava Lynsky held the fingertips of her left hand in the palm of her right and squeezed hard. Her skin felt numb and icy-cold, her chest hurt. “And then it isn’t her. It’s me or my sister, and every time we come up to the surface, something pushes us down again.”

“Something?” the therapist asked.

“A hand.”

“Do you know whose hand it is?”

Ava didn’t answer. Through the tinted windows she could see the small square structure of Avalon Municipal Hospital through a clearing of eucalyptus trees. Her father was one of two Catalina Island physicians on staff there. She imagined him looking through the windows to see her sitting in a psychologist’s office. Could imagine the mixture of incredulity and contempt on his face. Neurotic, he would say. Can’t stand neurotic women.

“Ava.”