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letters without reading them. Anything to distract herself from the curious freaks with umbrellas. She counted to ten, feeling certain that at any moment she’d hear the sound of the door handle click and crack as the two menin black tried to break into the car.
    On the number nine, with her heart beating so hard she thought it would burst through her chest, a loud rapping startled her, and she yelped. Her head whipped up, away from the iPod screen, and she saw her dad’s face, dripping wet, pressed up against the glass. He was pointing at the door lock and shouting “Hurry up.”
    Lindsay sprang forward to disengage the lock. Behind her dad, she saw the two men in black drifting deeper into the storm.

2
    As they drove south on the narrow coastal road, Lindsay was thrilled to see all of the new construction going up near town. Then she was disappointed when they neared her uncle’s house, because this stretch hardly seemed to have changed at all. Every tenth house was fantastic—all glass and new paint—which only served to point out the lameness of the older properties.
    Of course, the weather didn’t help. It was so dreary. Still, she kept hoping, unreasonably that in the years since she’d last visited the beach it had gone from zero to hero on the resort scale. Then, just before turning into her uncle’s drive, she saw the sign for the Redlands Mobile Home Park, andher spirits sank a little lower.
    Lightning cracked as Lindsay followed her parents into Uncle Lou’s house. The rain sounded like a million tiny footsteps on the roof.
    â€œIt’s supposed to clear up tomorrow,” her dad said. He carried her bags upstairs, while her mom stayed in the kitchen to unload the groceries.
    Uncle Lou’s house hadn’t changed in five years. His green sofa still faced the fireplace in the den, and the square wooden coffee table sat in front of it. He still had all of the old paintings of dogs and hunters on the walls. At least he’d discovered the magic of Febreze, so the room didn’t smell as bad as she remembered. Lindsay went to the window and looked toward the beach. Angry surf, with caps of froth, cut a line through the otherwise gray scene. The beach looked messy with tons of drift-wood and litter poking out of the sand.
    Glad I brought sandals. I’d cut my toes to shreds on that stuff.
    Once she heard her dad’s heavy feet on the stairs, Lindsay turned away from the view. She needed to recharge her Treo, cell phone, and iPod, and get her laptop set up.
    Her dad met her at the bottom of the stairs andsaid, “You’re all set. First door on the right. Why don’t you get unpacked and then come down to help your mom fix dinner?”
    â€œI have to call Kate first,” Lindsay said, walking up the stairs. “Tell Mom I’ll do the salad.”
    The room wasn’t awful. The bed was huge, with a fluffy down quilt hugging the top of the mattress. A small chest of drawers, hardly large enough for the clothes she brought, stood by the closet. There was a cool window seat with a thick green cushion on the far side of the bed. She imagined that was where she’d spend a lot of the next ten days, drinking coffee and looking out at the ocean or at the screen of her laptop. That would work. She could picture herself there, like one of those models in a coffee commercial, looking all cool and content while gripping a steaming mug of bean and gazing out into the world.
    There was even an electrical outlet built into the wall under the window seat, so she could keep her laptop plugged in. Nice.
    Lindsay lifted the first suitcase onto the bed, where it sank in the fluffy quilt. She unpacked her cables and chargers first, plugging them into the socket by the chest of drawers, and then connectedher cell phone and iPod. She carried her laptop and its power cord to the window seat and hooked them up.
    Looking out the window, she noticed the house