I envisioned the whole revolting scene. Old Nat renting a room, desperate in a moment of passion. Charlene, a little sweaty from the humidity and reeking of some cheap cologne from the drugstore and the dry cleaning fluid that stiffened her synthetic clothes, hiking up her skirt and rubbing Nat's pants leg right there in the reception area. The smells of curry and onions wafting all around them, coming from a hot plate in the back room. Pale thin children with wide dark eyes, peering through a flowered curtain made from a bed sheet. A large picture of the Hindu deity Ganesha hung on the wall next to a calendar from a local bank. And the dignified man from Pakistan or India or Nepal who takes the charge card, refusing eye contact with Nat and Charlene, embarrassed by the indignities of his immigration life, hating the fact that his livelihood depended on the continuing immorality of his new countrymen.

I could see the whole sordid business like a movie in my head.

Once I found the first puzzle piece, I would subpoena the records of the hotel and find Nat's name or Charlene's name and the room paid for that time on another credit card, probably from one of the banks in the photographs. I would subpoena the bank of that credit card and discover that the statements were being sent to a post office box. Next, I would subpoena the post office, only to have revealed that the box was rented in a fictitious name. On and on it would go. One carefully hidden and then found piece of information would lead to another and another. I would need every shortcut I would find to move this show down the road. Everything was on my side except time.

That was the sordid reality of divorce in these duplicitous times. My father used to say, Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. So did Sir Walter Scott. Neither one of them knew how dead on they were. It was my job to untangle Nat's web of deception and I would do it, one strand, one lie, one nasty little detail at a time.

I was startled by my cell phone. It was Byron.

"Hey, Miss Abigail. Do you have a minute?"

"Sure. What's going on?" I took the handful of envelopes I was holding and threw them back in the box.

"You sound aggravated. You okay?"

Well? It was nice of him to ask, wasn't it? "I'm fine-just doing paperwork."

"Oh, good. Well, I found you somebody to straighten out your house."

"Tell me about her. Or him."

"She's got a college degree in business, but she's got to save money to go to graduate school. She's a neat freak and she's a little hyper, but she's honest and works like a tornado."

"She sounds perfect. Neat freak is good and hyper doesn't bother me. Honesty is essential. Who is she?"

"My little sister, Daphne. She's a ball of fire! Would you like to meet her?"

"Absolutely. Send her over. And Byron?"

"Yes'm?"

"Thanks."

I could feel him smiling through the phone. Byron knew he irked me sometimes, and he was pleased to have me even somewhat in his debt.

Thirty minutes later, I heard a rap on the screen door. I looked up to see a skinny-as-a-stick young girl of about fifteen or sixteen standing there.

"Hello?" I said. "Can I help you?"

"No, ma'am! I'm Daphne and I'm the one who's gonna help you! Can I come in?"

"You are?" Gosh! She didn't look old enough to babysit, much less graduate from college! She couldn't have weighed one hundred pounds.

I held the door open, and Daphne walked straight into the middle of the living room. She stood there with her hands on her nonexistent hips and looked around. She ran her finger over the coffee table and an end table, grunting in disgust at the tip of her finger. Then she started talking.

"Byron say you live by yourself and that you are very smart."

"Yes, well, that's nice of him..."

"And he also say that you probably ain't much of a housekeeper..."

"Well, I have other priorities and..."

"Humph." Daphne walked up to me, wiped her hand on her skirt and extended her hand for me to shake it, and I did. "It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too." I looked in her face for a glimmer of Byron's features. Her nose was small and narrow. Her cheekbones were high and pronounced. Her smile was wide open with the kind of authenticity that made you like and trust her immediately. In contrast to Byron's height and girth, all this tiny girl Daphne had in the way of family resemblance was attitude. "Do you want to look around?"

"May as well," she said, not waiting for my lead.

I explained to her that I wanted to convert my parents' bedroom to an office, and she agreed that it would be the nicest place to work.

"You can watch the ocean while you figure things out," she said. "Byron said you're a lawyer?"

"Yep, that's right. With one client. But it's a good one."

Although Daphne probably had no earthly idea what I meant, from the condition of my house and having one client to claim, she surmised that I wasn't exactly wealthy.

"You sure you can afford me? My work is the best, but it ain't no bargain."

"I think so," I said and laughed. "I'd sell my jewelry to get help at this point!" She laughed with me, and over the next few minutes the deal was cut.

"Yeah, this is some mess you got here," she said. "I'll see you Monday morning."

I watched her walk away back to her little red car, and I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. She was a little ball of fire all right and probably just what I needed to get my home and my business in order.

THIRTEEN.

BURN THIS!.

IT was about seven o'clock Saturday night when Everett called. I was so deep in thought and focused on preparing subpoenas that the ring of my cell phone scared me half to death.

"Everett?"

"Got it!"

"What? The computer?"

"Yep!"

"You're the best! Okay, so now we have to get it to a technician who can copy the hard drive and tell us what's on it!"

"Already did that!"

"And...?"

"Pay dirt! The mother lode! Porn sites, teen chat rooms, you name it, we got it!"

"Oh, Everett! You're wonderful!"

"All in the line of duty, Ms. Thurmond. And, I returned his computer. He'll never know, except that I left one wire unhooked. Let him sweat a little, right?"

"Suits me."

"I can bring it to you Monday morning, if you'd like. I'm playing golf at Diamond Back up on the north end of Myrtle Beach, so I'll be in the neighborhood. I loaded all the data on an old computer I had in the gadget museum."

"Your garage?"

"Yup. Wait until you see..."

"You know what? I'm so glad you did all this. It's one less thing for me to handle."

"Hey, I know you're flying solo on this mission..."

"Well, pretty soon I'm gonna have to make you a partner!"

I thanked Everett again, we said good-bye and I figured it was probably time to call Rebecca. She answered and I didn't like the sound of her voice.

"What's the matter, Rebecca? It's me, Abigail."

"Oh, God, Abigail..." Her voice was cracking and she began to sob.

"What's the matter? What is it?"

"I called...I called the kids at camp and they told me that Nat had...Nat's attorney called them...he said I couldn't talk..."

"To your own children? What is he? Crazy?"

"And they didn't want to talk to me!"

"That's even more insane." I listened to Rebecca cry her heart out for a few minutes, and then I said, "I'm coming to pick you up. You gotta get out of that condo. I'll get a pizza and we can talk it all out. Besides, I have a load of stuff to show you."

"Okay."

By the time I got there, I was so mad I wanted to pound Nat Simms and Harry Albright into a bloody pulp. How dare they do such a thing? I knew how. Intimidate the witness. They would do what they wanted and see what they could get away with. I could take care of this with a phone call to Mr. Albright Monday morning and another one to the camp. But in the meantime, Rebecca was stinging from Nat's cruelty and black and blue from his stupidity. She was so uninformed about the law that she probably thought if Harry Albright made that phone call, it was legal to do it. And worse, that she deserved it.

I rang Rebecca's doorbell, and she answered it, looking absolutely dreadful.

"I hate his guts," she said. "And his lawyer's guts too."

"That's the spirit! So do I. Go wash your face," I said, "and let's get out of here."

"Fine."

While I waited, I looked around. There were watercolors in various stages of completion spread all over her table. I stared at them in disbelief. Even though they were drawings and paintings of children's toys, they were startling in a way I had never seen. I was certainly no art critic, but any simpleton could see that these images took Rebecca's work out of the world of commercial decorative art and into another realm.

"Rebecca?"

She came out of her bedroom and down the hall, turning out lights behind her.

"Oh!" she said and began scooping them up to put away from prying eyes like mine. "What do you think?"

"I think they're pretty stunning. You know, we should ask Huey of course, but I think we should show them to someone at the Gibbes, girl."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, I do. I mean, doesn't South Carolina have a watercolor society?"

"Gosh, I don't even know. Probably."

"Wait! Yes, they do! You should join it. They have shows all over the place and awards that come in the form of cash." We looked at each other, and Rebecca threw her hands in the air as if to say, Why not? "Come on. My car is probably reeking of pepperoni."

On the way to my house, I explained to Rebecca that Harry Albright and Nat Simms had no authority whatsoever to stop her from talking to her children.

"First of all, I'm not playing tiddlywinks here with Nat and his Mr. Albright. That Nat was granted temporary custody and the house is a bullshit deal, which will be corrected by the courts. He got his order of protection today, so at least you don't have to worry about Nat bothering you in person for a while. And I think it's time for me to rattle his cage about his answer to our interrogatory."

I told her that I had filed the answer and counterclaim and that we were looking at the week before Labor Day as a court date. Of course, even in a best-case scenario, it could still take a while for it all to be final. She just listened and didn't say much at all. Maybe I was waiting to be thanked? How silly of me.

We pulled up in the yard and got out. Miss Salt Air had almost every single light on. It surprised me how alive and welcoming my house was. It was a monument to my family's history, and while it had always been a vacation home, now it was something else. My permanent residence and a place of refuge. It welcomed Rebecca the same way it did me.

"What a great house," she said, echoing my feelings.

After all, some houses had personalities that bordered on human.

"Thanks," I said. "Been in the family for a jillion years."

We climbed the stairs and went in through the kitchen door. I put the pizza on the counter and set the oven temperature to warm.

"I love funky old houses," she said. "You're on the ocean, right?"

"Yep."

As though she was invisibly summoned, she was already moving toward the front porch. I knew Rebecca was about to fall under the spell of Pawleys Island's wizardry.

I put two slices of pizza on plates, grabbed two diet sodas from the refrigerator and slid the pizza box into the oven. "Wanna eat on the porch?" I called out.

There was no answer, so I went through the living room and opened the screen door. There was Rebecca, leaning over the banister, watching the ocean recede with its musical pattern of swooshing the shore with silver and foam and then whispering good-bye as it pulled away for the night. Inch by inch, the beach widened. There was the beginning of a moonrise. It was going to be a beautiful night.

"Wanna eat out here?"

"Absolutely! This is fabulous!"