Summer in Eclipse Bay

and I hauled them both out of the car and dragged them out of the water. We wrapped them in some blankets I kept in the back of the car."
    "In other words, you and Jeremy saved Eugene and Dwayne."
    "And neither of them ever forgave us for the humiliation," Nick concluded dryly.
    "Where does Virgil Nash fit into this story?"
    "Virgil lives out near where the accident happened. After we got Eugene and Dwayne out of the car, we went to Virgil's house to get help. He was there when Eugene made some threats to Jeremy and me."
    "Threats?"
    "Eugene was really pissed, like I said. Blamed us for wrecking his beloved car. But mostly he was just furious because he had screwed up and we'd had to rescue him. Anyhow, Virgil took us aside later and said that we should watch our backs for a while. We did, but Eugene never made any moves. The years went by and we figured everyone involved had forgotten about what happened that night."
    "But Virgil didn't forget?"
    "No. Virgil's been watching Eugene ever since, and that means watching Dwayne, too, since for the most part they're inseparable. When they got into trouble last year in Seattle, Virgil heard about it from a colleague who runs a sex toy shop there. He e-mailed both Jeremy and me and told us the story. Reminded us that guys like Eugene don't change and that someday it might pay to have some ammunition on hand, just in case."
    "And today you used your ammunition."
    "You could say that."
    She watched him with an odd, unreadable expression. "For my sake."
    "Yeah, well, I didn't want them spreading that story around."
    "It's the kind of thing your hero, John True, would do."
    He should have been flattered, he thought. But for some reason it irritated him that she was making a connection between him and the character in his books. He wasn't John True. He was Nick Harte. He closed the menu a second time and looked at her very steadily.
    "Don't," he said grimly, "get me mixed up with John True. He's pure fiction. I'm real."
    The interesting expression on her face disappeared immediately behind a cool veil. She took her chin off her hand and sat back. "Got it. Trust me, I won't make that mistake."
    "Good." He was more annoyed than ever now. What the hell was wrong with him today?
    A young waiter appeared, saving him from getting too deep into the introspective thing. Octavia ordered a salad. Nick realized that he was hungry. The confrontation at the Total Eclipse had given him an appetite. He chose the oversized tuna sandwich and fries, knowing from past experience that it would do the job.
    When the waiter had disappeared, Octavia looked at him.
    "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what you did today," she said. "But do you think it was wise to threaten Eugene and Dwayne?"
    "I'm not worried about those two," he said.
    "Okay, so what
are
you worried about? I can see that you've got something else on your mind."
    "Eugene and Dwayne are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, if you know what I mean."
    "I sort of got that impression. So?"
    "So, while they are both the type to spread false and malicious rumors, neither of them has the brainpower to concoct the one going around about you."
    She elevated her brows. "I believe I see where you're going here."
    "When you stop and think about it, that story Eugene and Dwayne were spreading about you is a fairly sophisticated piece of gossip. They gave you motive and opportunity and they've added a few inside bits about how the art market works. Eugene even tried to use the word
provenance."
    "Not the sort of word you'd expect a guy like him to have in his vocabulary."
    "No."
    "From what I've heard about those two, they aren't likely to know much about the art market, either."
    "Highly doubtful," he agreed.
    "Which means that they are probably not the source of the rumors."
    "Probably not."
    She was quiet for a moment. Her expression turned somber. "What do you propose to do next?"
    "I'm going to try to find out who started the gossip about you," he said. "I figure whoever is responsible for the rumors might have had a motive for implicating you."
    "Like, maybe, to cover up his own involvement in the theft of the painting?"
    "Yeah." He hesitated and then decided to give her the rest of it. "There's something else that bothers me about that elaborate story, too."
    "What?"
    "It would have been a lot simpler to point the finger of blame at the Heralds. They already seem a little suspicious to most folks. Instead, whoever concocted it chose you for