Page 2 of The Island Villa

For the first time in weeks, she felt optimistic and hopeful. She’d been smothered in a dark cloud of gloom, fueled by bitter resentment. She’d felt like a failure for letting it reach this point. She hadn’t been able to see a way forward, but now she could.

The future was clear to her. All she needed was courage.

It was time to make a fresh start. Time to put the past behind her and reinvent herself.

It was a just a shame that someone had to die.

Part One

1

Adeline

Adeline Swift was on a call with the features editor of Woman Now when the letter was pushed through the door of her apartment.

“The thing is,” Erin was saying, “your advice column has the highest readership of any section of the magazine. People really seem to connect with it. With you. The market research we did recently suggests that seventy percent of people would rather ask you for advice than their best friend. Can you believe that?”

Yes, she could believe that. Few people reached adulthood without suffering some degree of emotional hangover from the past. Hurt. Resentment. Shame. Disappointment. Grief. Regret. Life left scars and you had to find a way to live with those scars. Some people chose denial as a strategy. Ignore it. Leave it in the past. Move on. Others confronted those emotions and spent hours in therapy trying to understand how the past affected the present, in the hope of reaching a point of acceptance. Most just struggled along by themselves, striding and occasionally stumbling, handling the ups and downs of life as best they could. After a few too many drinks they might confide in a friend, but more often than not they’d stay silent because revealing those deep secrets and fears, those most personal parts of yourself, was a risk. It said this is who I really am, instead of this is who I’m pretending to be.

It was those people, alone with their fears, who often wrote to Adeline.

Dear Dr. Swift...

They poured out their problems in the hope that in a few well-chosen words she would help them resolve their crisis, or at least feel better about their situation.

Adeline delivered calm analysis, sympathy, and the occasional pep talk. She employed a mix of empathy, experience, and plain speaking when crafting her answers. It was a combination that worked for people. She fulfilled the role of a sympathetic stranger, someone who would listen without judgment and respect anonymity. But that role meant she existed in a world of problems. In her working day, she was buffeted by the challenges of life, drenched in the pain of others, required to ponder at length on everything from infidelity to unemployment. When people asked how she coped with it, she pointed out that it was easy to cope with a drama that wasn’t your own.

When the drama was hers? That was different.

She stared at the envelope.

It rested innocently on the floor, dazzling white against wide oak planks. Even without picking it up, she could see that the paper was high quality, and embossed. Her name and address were written out in a bold script that was instantly recognizable.

Her heart beat a little faster. Emotions rushed her, buffeting her like a gust of wind. She placed her hand on her diaphragm and forced herself to breathe slowly. She was an adult with her own life, a good life, and yet this small inanimate object had ruined the calm of her day.

And she hadn’t even opened it yet.

Her first impulse was to tear it up without opening it, but that would be immature, and she tried very hard not to be immature and to always exercise self-control.

She tried to be the person she pretended to be in her advice column.

“Adeline?” Erin’s voice wafted into her conscious. “Are you still there?”

“Yes. Still here. I’m listening.” But her focus wasn’t on Erin.

She should open the envelope right now. Or she could simply drop it into the recycling without opening it. She imagined what “Dr. Swift” would have to say about that approach.

Avoidance.

With a sigh, she picked it up. She could put it to one side and open it later, but then she’d be thinking about it all afternoon. If she was advising someone in this situation, she’d say that no good ever came from delaying the inevitable and that the anticipation was often worse than the reality. That no matter what lay inside the envelope, she had the tools and mental fortitude to handle it.

Did she though?

Still holding the envelope, she walked across her apartment, opened the French doors and stepped onto her small balcony. The tension in her neck and shoulders drained away. She breathed in the rich scent of honeysuckle, the sweetness of jasmine. Bees hummed around slender spikes of purple lavender. The space was small, but she’d chosen the plants carefully and the end result was an explosion of bloom and color that felt like an oasis of calm in the busy, noisy city she’d made her home. She loved London, but she appreciated being able to retreat from the blare of car horns, the crush of people and the frenetic pace. Sometimes it felt to her as if everyone was living their lives on fast forward.

In creating her balcony garden, she’d followed the advice she’d given to a reader who had moved to the city from a rural area and was struggling with anxiety as a result.

Adeline had interviewed a horticulturist and compiled her answer accordingly.

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