Deep Waters

secret, but she certainly hadn't broadcast the news, either. Elias must have mentioned their dinner to someone, who had, in turn, spread it immediately all over the cove.
    "Nothing like a small town for gossip, is there?" Charity muttered.
    "Look, I'll be blunt. It's common knowledge that Winters is not just the new proprietor of that ridiculous curio shop at the other end of the pier. He's the new owner of this entire landing." Phyllis leaned closer. "And, he's also the head of a very high-stakes consulting company called Far Seas, Inc."
    "So?"
    "So he's a player. The question is, what game is he playing?"
    Charity smiled grimly. "Whatever it is, I can guarantee that he's writing his own rules."
    "That doesn't surprise me." Phyllis tapped one long, Dartmoor Mauve nail on the counter. "Winters is up to something. There's a lot of speculation going on, but the bottom line is that no one really knows what he intends to do with the Landing. That's why we need your help."
    "We?"
    "Those of us who care about the future of this town. You're the only one who's established any sort of relationship with him."
    "Phyllis, I don't know what the rumors were like by the time they reached you, but I can assure you that it was just dinner, not an engagement party."
    "Look, this isn't a joke. No one else around here can get a straight answer out of Winters."
    "He doesn't exactly specialize in straight answers," Charity admitted.
    "You know as well as I do that the town council has had its eye on Crazy Otis Landing for some time now. Hayden Stone was impossible. As long as he owned the pier, there was no hope of upgrading the shops. But now that he's gone, we want to convince Winters that it's in his own best interests to cooperate with the council's plans."
    "There's that word 'we' again. It makes me nervous."
    "The members of the council and I want you to join our team, Charity. It's time we stopped arguing about the future of this pier and worked together to make it the centerpiece of the new Whispering Waters Cove."
    "I like it the way it is."
    "Where's your sense of vision?" Phyllis demanded. "You were once a successful businesswoman. With the obvious exception of Elias Winters, you're the only one on this pier with a head for business. The rest of these misfits couldn't make a profit running a hotdog stand at a Fourth of July Parade."
    Charity felt her temper stir. Sooner or later it always came down to this with Phyllis. "The shopkeepers of Crazy Otis Landing are not misfits. They've single-handedly kept this pier alive for the town for the past twenty years. Everyone else considered it an eyesore until recently."
    "Alive?" Phyllis waved one beautifully manicured hand in an exasperated gesture. "You call this alive? You've got three shops standing empty. They've been empty for years."
    "We'll get them rented sooner or later."
    "No smart businessperson is going to open a store on this pier until there's some guarantee that the image of the landing will be improved."
    "You don't have to evict all of the present tenants in order to improve the landing," Charity snapped. "We're doing a good job of building business all by ourselves. Foot traffic here on the pier has tripled this summer. Bea's pulling in tourists with her espresso machine. Radiance has brought in local people with her nail parlor. Yappy's booked several birthday parties down at the carousel. Ted's T-shirt sales have skyrocketed. And I'm doing just fine with my bookstore, thank you very much."
    "You can't stand in the way of progress, for God's sake."
    "I can stand anywhere I like."
    Phyllis drew an audible breath. "I didn't come here to argue with you."
    "Really? I would never have guessed."
    "Be reasonable, Charity. I came to enlist you on the side of the future. We need your help. You stand to benefit from a revitalized pier as much as anyone does. This bookshop of yours would work beautifully in an upscale version of Crazy Otis Landing. Help us convince Winters to cooperate."
    Charity leaned both elbows on the counter and clasped her hands. She eyed Phyllis with a mixture of caution and growing fascination. "Let us say, for the sake of argument, that I was willing to help you accomplish your plans. How, exactly, do you expect me to convince Elias to cooperate with the council?"
    Phyllis pounced on the small opening. "We need you to talk to him. Find out what he plans to do with the pier. We want to work with him."
    "Work with him?"
    "We're all interested in