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she’d seen Noah, and no matter what Khloe or her cowboyesque savior or even the damned shrink Ms. Evelyn McPherson thought, she wasn’t insane. Had never been. Wasn’t ready for the loony bin.
    â€œLet me help you,” Khloe said, but Ava was having none of it.
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œYou just jumped into the ocean, Ava! You are definitely not anywhere close to fine .”
    â€œJust leave me alone, Khloe.”
    Khloe glanced at Dern, then backed up, lifting her hands, palms out. “Ooookay.”
    â€œNo need to be melodramatic,” Ava muttered.
    â€œOh, yeah. I’m the drama queen!” Khloe sighed heavily. “Just for the record, who was it who flung herself into the bay a few minutes ago?”
    â€œOkay, okay.” Ava was up the stairs and opening the screen door. “I get it.” Once inside, where the heat hit her like a wall and the tangy scent of tomatoes and clams swept through the hallways, she hurried past the wall of windows that overlooked the yard, taking another quick glance. Now, aside from a few security lights, the grounds were dark, the fog too dense to see the end of the pier. Her heart ached at the thought of her son, but she pushed her grief aside.
    At least her mind had cleared somewhat; her headache, if not completely gone, at least had receded to somewhere far away from her frontal lobes. She heard the screen door open and close behind her and knew that her confrontation with Khloe, and possibly the man who had leaped in after her, wasn’t yet over.
    Great. Just what she needed!
    Teeth chattering so hard they rattled, she was heading toward the back stairs when she heard the clunk of the elevator from the shaft that ran along the east side of the stairs, then the whisper of the elevator doors slowly opening.
    She prayed the occupant wasn’t Jewel-Anne. But, of course, she wasn’t so lucky, and within seconds her pudgy cousin emerged, her electric wheelchair carrying her into the hallway. Through thick glasses, she threw a look at Ava, taking in her soggy nightgown, plastered hair, and probably nearly blue skin.
    â€œSwimming again?” she asked with that smug little smile Ava would have liked to wipe off her face. Jewel-Anne pulled out an earbud from her iPhone, and Ava heard the strains of Elvis’s “Suspicious Minds” sounding tinny at the distance.
    â€œWe’re caught in a trap,” he warbled, and Ava wondered why a woman who had been born long after the rock icon had died had become such a die-hard fan. Of course, she knew the pat answer, because she’d posed the question to Jewel-Anne just this past year. Over her oatmeal, with one earbud plugged in, Jewel-Anne had turned deadly serious. “We shared the same birthday, you know.” She’d added a second scoop of brown sugar to her cereal.
    Somehow, Ava had managed to keep her sarcastic tongue in check and said only, “You weren’t even alive when—”
    â€œHe speaks to me, Ava!” Jewel-Anne’s lips had compressed with certainty. “He was such a tragic figure.” She paid attention to her breakfast, stirring her butter and brown sugar and swirling her hot cereal in her bowl. “Like me.”
    Then she’d looked up at Ava with innocent eyes, and Ava had felt the deep jab of guilt that only her paraplegic cousin could inspire.
    You’re not the only one he speaks to, she’d wanted to say. There are hundreds of Elvis sightings every day. He’s probably “speaking” to those lunatics, too. Rather than escalate a fight with no end, she’d pushed out her chair, scooped out the remainder of her cereal into the sink, and dropped her bowl into the dishwasher just as Jacob, Jewel-Anne’s only full brother, strolled into the kitchen without a word, found a toasted bagel, and walked out the back door, his backpack slung over one thick shoulder. Once an all-state wrestler, Jacob, with