Marcia Talley: Tomorrow's Vengeance

Book 13 in the Hannah Ives series, 2014

Writing is a solitary business, yet it takes a team to put a novel into the hands of readers. With thanks to my incredible team:

My husband, Barry Talley, who understands what it’s like to live with a woman who ‘always seems to have a term paper due.’

My editor, Sara Porter, my can-do publicist, Michelle Duff, chairman Edwin Buckhalter, publisher Kate Lyall-Grant and everyone else at Severn House who makes it such an incredibly supportive place for a mystery writer to be.

Tyson Bennett and Elaine Broering, whose generous bids at charity auctions benefitting the Annapolis Opera Company and the United Church of Christ in Lovell, Maine, respectively, earned them the rights to play roles in this novel.

Barbara Jean, for performing her original song, ‘Tell Me Your Name,’ within the pages of this book. Listen for yourself at www.barbarajeanjazz.com.

Sisters in Crime, for the week-long retreat at the Lodge at Ballantyne in Charlotte, NC, where the final draft of this novel was written.

And once again, thanks to my fellow travelers at various stations on the road to publication – the Annapolis Writers Group: Ray Flynt, Mary Ellen Hughes, Debbi Mack, Sherriel Mattingly, and Bonnie Settle for tough love.

To Kate Charles and Deborah Crombie. When the time comes for me to join a retirement community, I hope you’ll be sitting on the porch with me, rocking and knitting and still telling tales.

And, of course, to Vicky Bijur.

‘Continuing care retirement communities, or CCRCs… offer three types of senior housing in one location, so that older residents can move from one to the other as their need for care increases throughout retirement. These communities allow seniors to stay among friends and near their spouse during the aging process, and for that reason they have grown in popularity over recent decades. The number of older adults living in CCRCs has more than doubled between 1997 and 2007 and now totals 745,000 seniors living in over 1,800 CCRCs. With the boomer generation retiring, we can only expect this number to grow.’

Testimony of Senator Herb Kohl before the Senate

Special Committee on Aging, July 21, 2010.

You can accomplish a lot on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay while stretching your calves in the downward-facing dog pose. What to buy your husband for his birthday. How to use up a bumper crop of early August tomatoes.

After a few minutes of staring at my feet, wondering in a Zen-like way whether I should replace my beat-up Nikes, I shifted to the sphinx position. Once my head cleared, I gazed out over the waters of the bay, tea-brown and placid beneath a cloudless sky baked to a pale blue by the sun.

A sailboat ghosted by as I arranged my limbs in the side plank pose, looking to the casual observer, I supposed, like a woman who’d been knocked to the ground while hailing a cab. I breathed deeply, tensing my abdominal muscles as I’d been instructed.

My stomach rebelled and rumbled, reminding me that it was almost time for the lunch I’d planned to have at Spa Paradiso, the spa that dominated the hill behind me, owned and successfully operated, I’m proud to say, by my daughter, Emily, her husband, Daniel Shemansky, and their relentlessly cheerful and capable staff. Did I want soup or salad, or both?

I folded myself into a lotus position, closed my eyes and tried to focus on my mantra – kerim, kerim, kerim – but other thoughts kept intruding, messing with my wah , like where the heck had I stored the folding beach chairs?

Sweat slithered down my temples and trickled into my hair. I considered, briefly, diving into the tepid water, but didn’t fancy being stung to death by sea nettles, those nasty pearlescent jellyfish that invaded the upper reaches of the bay every mid-summer when the salinity got too high.

Kerim, kerim, kerim . I tried to ignore the splintered spot on my bamboo mat that was digging into my thigh and the dampness of the grass I’d spread the mat upon. Kerim, kerim, kerim … Damn it! Did I really want to practice yoga three times a week?

Through half-slitted eyes, I considered the serpentine brick wall – about five feet high – that meandered gracefully along the slope of the manicured lawn down to the wide, white sand beach that Spa Paradiso shared with its immediate neighbor, Calvert Colony. Named in honor of Lord Cecil Calvert, the guy who’d founded Maryland back in sixteen-hundred-and-something, the sprawling continuing care retirement community had only recently opened its doors. It was a geritopia so posh – according to my husband, Paul – that if you had to ask how much it cost to buy in there was no way you could afford it.

Kerim, kerim, kerim. The sun warming my cheek. The gentle buzz of bees flitting around a nearby bed of red valerian and golden coreopsis . The drone of a power mower in the distance and the smell of fresh-cut grass.

A jet ski rooster-tailed by, shattering the quiet. ‘Damn,’ I muttered again, giving up.

‘You are alive, then, Hannah,’ a familiar voice said.

I turned, squinting, shielding my eyes from the late morning sun. ‘Naddie!’

‘Am I interrupting?’ my old friend asked.

I unfolded my legs and struggled awkwardly to my feet. ‘Not really. I was about to call it quits anyway. Honestly,’ I said, gesturing toward the jet ski that was departing with all the stealth of a Boeing B-57, ‘those things ought to be illegal.’

‘He had a kid with him, too,’ Naddie added. ‘No helmet, no seatbelt.’

As she rattled on about the irresponsible driving habits of jet skiers – getting no objection from me – I rolled up my mat and tucked it under my arm. ‘Are you coming or going?’ I asked, indicating the entrance to Spa Paradiso.

‘I’ve just had a facial. Can’t you tell?’ she said, patting her cheeks with the fingertips of both hands.

Naddie – Nadine Smith Gray, retired mystery writer – was in her mid-eighties but had the clear, smooth complexion of someone half her age. From the fresh pinkness of her skin I could tell she’d had a facial, but I also suspected she’d had her hair done, too. Her silver waves had been coaxed into a neat pageboy cut that framed her face and curled gently under her ears, showcasing a pair of art deco earrings acquired, I was sure, at one of the craft shows she liked to frequent. Naddie wore what I always thought of as her summer uniform: an A-line denim skirt that hovered several inches below the knees, a pale pink three-quarter-sleeve scoop-necked T-shirt, and sensible leather sandals. I smiled. ‘Join me for lunch?’

She slid her sunglasses up to her forehead, disrupting the orderly march of bangs across her brow. ‘No thanks, Hannah. Gotta get home for an appointment with my decorator. Your nose is red,’ she added.

I tugged on the brim of my floppy hat. ‘And I slathered myself with SPF30, too. Skin cancer doesn’t appeal.’