9. What Comes Next
Chapter nine
What Comes Next
Claudia called at nine-thirty, which meant she’d probably been thinking about it since at least nine.
“I was just about to call you,” Lila said, tucking the phone between her shoulder and ear while she crossed to the coffee maker for a refill.
“Great minds.” Claudia’s drawl was warm and unhurried, the way it always was. “I have you on the calendar for this week and wanted to catch you before the day got away from me. How are things?”
“Good, actually. The house is finished.”
“The renovation? Completely?”
“Completely. I finished the last of the painting myself.”
“Lila.” Claudia paused, and Lila could hear the smile in her voice. “That’s wonderful. You must be relieved.”
“I am.” She carried the coffee back to the kitchen table and sat down again. The file still rested near the center of the table where she’d left it the night before, her notebook beside it. “I’m meeting with the listing agent this afternoon. I’m getting it listed as a vacation rental.”
“So you’re wrapping things up.”
“That’s the plan.” Lila glanced out the kitchen window toward the water. “I should be back by the end of July, I’d think. Once the listing is live and the first booking is in place, I can manage it remotely from Charlotte.”
“Good.”
Claudia’s voice stayed easy and accepting, and for a moment Lila let herself believe it really could be that simple.
Charlotte.
Remote work.
The investigation continuing quietly from a distance.
Order restored.
“We’ll be glad to have you back,” Claudia said. “It’s not the same without you properly in the loop around here.”
“Just a few more weeks.”
They spent the next several minutes talking through project timelines and staffing updates, the ordinary machinery of work Lila had once moved through every day without thinking about it. Nothing urgent. Nothing that couldn’t wait until August.
When the call ended, she sat for a moment with the phone still in her hand.
She looked around at the finished counters, the pale cabinets, the windows above the sink with nothing beyond them except water and morning light. The back door stood cracked open the way she always left it now, letting the breeze move through the house.
Then she picked up her bag and keys.
She had things to do.
The Starlite was doing its usual mid-morning business. Sunlight filtered through the front windows onto the worn wood floors and exposed brick walls. Jess was behind the counter, already reaching for a cup before Lila reached the register.
“The usual,” Jess said.
“Please.”
Lila paid and stepped aside while the espresso machine hissed and steamed behind the counter.
Around her, Salt Flower Bay moved through another ordinary morning.
A couple shared a pastry near the window.
Two older men sat with newspapers spread across their table like they were solving the world’s problems between refills.
A woman Lila recognized from the farmers market worked on a laptop in the corner.
Jess slid the cup across the counter.
“Good morning, by the way.”
Lila smiled. “Good morning.”
She took her coffee to the small table by the window. She had some time before she needed to be anywhere. Outside the window, a man walked a dog that seemed deeply opposed to urgency. Two women stopped on the sidewalk to talk and showed no signs of moving anytime soon.
Jess knew her order. The sourdough vendor held a loaf when he saw her coming. The woman who ran the fruit stand had her mangos ready. Frances came by on her morning walk and stopped at the fence.
Lila was known here. Not as someone’s wife. Not as someone’s daughter. Not as a résumé or a role or a function. Just as herself. A person who came in for the same coffee and walked the same streets and had quietly become part of the rhythm of the place.
It was a small thing. But it was not nothing.
After a few minutes Lila gathered her bag and headed back out into town. The morning had warmed while she’d been inside, sunlight settling across the sidewalks and storefront windows as Salt Flower Bay moved through another ordinary day around her.
The property management office sat on Whittaker Street between the hair salon and dry cleaners that looked exactly like it had in 1994.
Patricia Hines ran the vacation rental side of the real estate business and had the calm efficiency of someone who had spent years solving problems before other people realized they existed.
Lila liked her immediately.
She had already done the research before walking in.
She knew what comparable properties rented for during peak season and shoulder season.
She knew the difference in rates between beachfront properties and homes two blocks inland.
She knew which amenities mattered and which ones simply sounded good in listings.
What she needed from Patricia was the practical machinery of it all: the listing process, management fees, cleaning services, insurance requirements. And most important, the anticipated timeline from listing to first booking.
Patricia walked her through everything without condescension, which Lila appreciated.
Lila asked good questions. Patricia gave direct answers.
By the time the meeting ended, Lila had a folder tucked beneath her arm, a follow-up appointment scheduled for the following week, and a very clear understanding of what the next steps would look like if she decided to move forward.
The house could be listed within a week. Possibly sooner.
She stood on the sidewalk outside Patricia’s office and flipped through the folder. She had already run the numbers. She knew what the house could generate annually if it was managed properly, and she would make sure it was managed properly.
After a minute she headed back toward her car.
She didn’t consciously decide to drive past the house on Marlowe Lane. One minute she was heading in the direction of the beach house, and the next she was slowing at the corner Danny had mentioned, turning onto a quiet residential street shaded by live oaks.
The house sat midblock beneath a canopy of live oaks, a single-story ranch with faded trim and a front walk cracked in two places.
The bougainvillea along the fence had gone mostly unpruned for years, bright magenta branches pushing through the slats and spilling toward the sidewalk.
Mature palms rose behind the roofline exactly as the listing photographs promised.
Lila slowed the car. Then stopped completely.
She sat looking at the house through the windshield while the neighborhood moved quietly around her. Somewhere nearby a lawn mower started up. A woman pushed a stroller along the opposite sidewalk. Wind stirred the overgrown bougainvillea against the fence.
The house needed work. The siding would need repainting, and the landscaping had gone mostly feral along the fence line. She could already spot several windows that probably needed replacing.
But the proportions were good. The lot was good. And the bones of the house—the things you couldn’t easily change—looked solid.
Lila pulled out her phone and took some pictures, then shifted the car back into drive and headed toward home, waving at the neighbor as she pulled away.
She took the long way, following the road along the water before turning back toward her street. The windows were down and warm air moved steadily through the car, carrying the faint smell of sunscreen and salt from the beach access a few blocks over.
At a stop sign she caught herself thinking about the house on Marlowe Lane again. The cracked walkway. The overgrown bougainvillea. The shape of the back lot.
She turned onto her street.
The beach house appeared at the end of the block, sunlight catching the screened porch and the palms rising behind it. Lila pulled into the driveway but didn’t get out right away.
Instead she sat with her hands resting lightly on the steering wheel, looking at the house.
There was a lot ahead of her. More than she’d let herself want for a long time. And for the first time in years, the thought didn’t scare her.
Lila grabbed her bag from the passenger seat and went inside.