She’d looked so beautiful that day, too, with humorous lights dancing in her eyes. Unlike the stiff gray suit she’d chosen for today’s trip to Police Plaza, she’d been wearing a vest embedded with tiny mirrors and a brightly patterned skirt, dressed for her volunteer work with CLASP, an organization for the homeless.
Rex could still hear what Truman had to say once the men were alone. “Fifteen million! That’s five million each.”
Sully had shaken his head. “If Ma hadn’t shown us the letter from the lottery board, I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen.”
Rex had chuckled. “Don’t be so suspicious, Sully. This is Ma we’re talking about. Not a criminal.”
“Beg to differ,” Truman had countered. “Didn’t Ma say she expects us to find wives? And if we don’t, she’s going to give all that money away to a foundation that saves sea turtles?”
“They also save marine iguanas,” Rex had reminded.
“And don’t forget flightless cormorants,” Sully had said.
“Oh, right,” Truman had whispered. “Flightless cormorants.”
At that, the brothers had stared at each other in shock and, a moment later, they were hooting—clapping each other’s backs and wiping tears of merriment from their eyes.
But Rex had meant what he’d said. As far as he was concerned, the Galapagos Islands could have the money. Like his brothers, he’d been weaned on stories of the mysterious volcanic islands just off the coast of Ecuador. Close to a mainland rich with a history of Inca warriors, Amazon explorers and Spanish conquistadors, nature had been left to thrive on the islands, becoming home to wildlife that existed nowhere else on earth. Rex had spent more than one summer vacation lounging on the rocky beaches, sketching the animals.
“We can’t find soul mates in three months,” he’d argued that day, intrigued by their mother’s inventive way of encouraging them to find spouses.
“She said wives, not soul mates,” Truman had argued.
But for Rex, they were the same. Besides, to him marriage was just a piece of paper. Maybe because he was a lawman, he wanted something that transcended legalities. He wanted mystery. Romance. Poetry. Soul-searing sex. A lover whose warm body would twine with his, melting his heart. Each year, on his annual sojourn, he imagined he might find that woman. He envisioned meeting her while wandering in the dunes near a deserted beach and making love to her in the hot sand while sea foam washed over their bare bodies.
Not that it mattered. Sure, he’d love to see his mother’s face light up with the news that he’d found someone, but Augustus was missing, which meant Rex would be looking for him on Seduction Island—not love.
Rex said a silent goodbye to the month-long hiatus he got once a year. At least he’d already forwarded his mail to Casa Eldora, the two-bedroom cottage he’d rented on Seduction Island in the name Ned Nelson. According to the sexy-voiced Realtor whose laughter sounded like crystal bells and who had introduced herself as Pansy Hanley, the waterfront place was on stilts, its shingles weathered to silver. It was nestled where sand drifts gave way to otherworldly, deeply cratered dunes. Accessible by a private shell road, the house was off the main drag, Sand Road, but still in view of the ocean.
How many times had he spoken to Pansy? Rex couldn’t recall. But they’d established an easy rapport. When they met, Rex had been planning to do what he always did on vacation—drop the mask. Lose the disguises. Trade in his sidearm for a fishing rod. He’d ask Pansy Hanley to Casa Eldora for dinner…maybe more. Now he squeezed his mother’s hand. “If Pop’s out there, I’ll find him, Ma. Don’t worry.”
No doubt, he’d be busy on Seduction Island, just not seducing. So much for this year’s hopes that Pansy Hanley might turn out to be a dream lover.
“PANSY? LILY? Are you home yet? We’ve got to talk!”
Long before she saw her youngest sister, Violet, Pansy Hanley registered her high-pitched voice and instinctively double-checked the jacket to the all-white suit she’d slung around the back of a kitchen chair to make sure it was safe from Vi. Vi, when excited, was the world’s biggest klutz, and Pansy wanted to wear the jacket to meet her client, Ned Nelson. “I’m here,” Pansy called toward the screen door, waiting for Vi to appear in the dunes. “Lily just got home, too—”
“I know it was my turn, so thanks for making lunch,” said Lily, breezing into the kitchen and plopping down at the table. “I was running late.”
As Pansy washed down a bite of her specialty—almond butter on homemade rye—she studied her sister’s string bikini. “If you get bored on the beach, Lily,” Pansy offered dryly, “you can always take off your bathing suit and play cat’s cradle.”
Lily chuckled. “Or hog-tie the nearest beachcomber, rub him down with Coppertone and force him to have sex with me.”
Pansy tried to look scandalized. “Your mind’s in the gutter, Lily.”
Lily merely grinned. “Too bad every guy out there with a metal detector is pushing seventy and too old for us. What’s Vi so upset about?”
“Who knows?” Pansy shrugged as Vi pushed through the screen door, lifting a shoulder bag stuffed with mail onto the kitchen table. “You’re a mess,” gasped Pansy, taking in Vi’s mail carrier uniform—a striped shirt and gray shorts—splashed with syrupy pink liquid. Pansy’s eyes dropped to the soda can in Vi’s hand just as Vi crushed her stubby-nailed fingers around it.
“Don’t tell me,” quipped Pansy. “We’re fresh out of boards you can crack with your head.”
Ignoring the good-humored gibe, Vi set aside the crushed can and lifted the remaining sandwich. Between healthy, gulping bites, she said, “Thanks for lunch. I’ve got to change uniforms, so I’ve only got a minute.”
It was hard to say how the same gene pool turned out three such different females. All the Hanleys had light brown hair, just a shade down from honey blond, but Pansy’s flowed in sumptuous layers past her shoulders. The curviest of the three, she liked wearing a trace of makeup and comfortable skirts, practical but feminine, nothing she’d have to iron. Today’s white suit was an anomaly, chosen because the client she was to meet, Ned Nelson, had sparked her imagination during their phone conversations, though she wasn’t quite sure why.
By contrast to Pansy, the middle sister, Lily, owner of Lily’s Pad, a stationery shop, had cut the same almost-honey hair in a sharply wedged bob, and it had been years since anyone had seen her wearing anything besides a bikini or a linen shift. Vi, the youngest, was deeply tanned from surfing. She kept her hair short—less wind resistance, she claimed—trimming it above ears studded with tiny silver earrings.
Having quickly dispensed with her sandwich, Vi pushed aside the plate she hadn’t bothered to use and said, “Okay. Now for the news. You two aren’t going to believe this!”
“By the looks of the mailbag, you’re about to get fired,” Lily guessed in an awed voice, still gaping at the soda drips.
“Or get more demerits,” agreed Pansy worriedly. “Did any of that soda actually make it to your mouth, Vi?”
“Not much,” admitted Vi. “The second I opened the can, Garth Garrison’s dog—you know, that chocolate Lab he named Gargantua?—well, he came after me like a hound from hell. I ran, of course.”
“Very logical response,” said Lily.
“I didn’t want to use the Mace,” Vi defended. “Not even Gargantua deserves that. Anyway, I accidently dumped the soda in the bag. But all is not lost.” Grinning excitedly, Vi held up a cherry-stained envelope as her sisters looked on with dismayed expressions. The flap had come unglued, and in