Excerpt
**Excerpt from Chapter 7**

"Go home, Tara," he said commandingly, "and don't come back. This is a dangerous game you're playing, becoming involved in this mess. If you had any sense at all you would forget you ever saw us."

He had risen and was walking towards her.

She replied haughtily, "This is my island, in case Tommy didn't tell you already. I have the deed for it as proof, so if you think you can run me off with your scare tactics, then think again."

"Scare tactics, as you put it, are strong words. Everyone around here seems to think I'm an alarmist, and no one seems to realize the danger we are in. By getting yourself involved you have made yourself an accomplice and could be punished if we are caught before we have a chance to clear the boy's name. Do you really want to take that risk? Is this some kind of game to you, a temporary cure for you dull existence? If so, then your presence will be a hindrance to us all!"

"Tommy doesn't see me as a threat. Why do you? I haven't done anything to you, and I won't stand here any longer and listen to you. You're stuck with me whether you like it or not!"

She turned to walk towards her boat when suddenly Jaques caught her by the wrist and whirled her back around.

"If not for Tommy's sake, then for your own sake, Tara. Stay away until we are gone." Behind his eyes there was a pleading look that was too obvious to miss.

She pulled her wrist slowly out of his grasp and got into her boat without another word. As she rowed away she finally looked up, and saw his eyes on her. Tara nervously looked away and rowed harder. He watched her steadily until the boat was out of sight.

**Excerpt from Chapter 8**

There she lay, mounted on some pillows, pale and willowy, lingering, tucked away in her own corner of life like some battered parcel that Death had forgotten to claim. Madison loitered in the background, uncertain. Subconsciously, Constance was to him a holy shrine that he was unworthy to approach. But she was his shrine, he thought defiantly. She lay there for him. So why this religious kind of chasm between her and him--the saint and the sinner? He resented this intangible separation, and started boldly forward, purposely ripping that veil, that aura of detachment between them. He would have none of it. He would come and go as he liked, and dodge with precision any guilt, any conviction that may hurl itself his way like frenzied asteroids from that bed of embalmed life.

Sensing his presence in the room, Constance reluctantly opened her eyes, which were crystal clear like a mountain stream in the Rockies. Madison had always had a secret hankering to go out West, and used to tell Constance that he could see Colorado in her eyes. She thought him so romantic in the early days of their courting. Her eyes seemed more clear than ever, but had a new kind of coldness to them, as if the snows of winter had fallen the week before. There was a mixture there, the whiteness of fallen snow set against the cold blue backdrop of a still mountain sky. Madison looked away as if blinded, as if the sun had just hit the snow and bounced a sunbeam in his direction. It was hard to look her in the eyes. He hardly ever did.