Twisted

characters ranging from William Shakespeare to brilliant attorneys to savvy lowlifes to despicable killers to families that can, at the most generous, becalled dysfunctional. I’ve written an original Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs story, “The Christmas Present,” just for this volume, and see if you can spot the revenge-of-the-nerd tale included here, a—dare I say—twisted throw-back to my days as an adolescent writer. Unfortunately, as with most of my writing, I can’t say much more for fear I’ll drop hints that spoil the twists. Perhaps it’s best to say simply: Read, enjoy . . . and remember that not all is what it seems to be.
    —J.W.D.

W ITHOUT J ONATHAN

    M arissa Cooper turned her car onto Route 232, which would take her from Portsmouth to Green Harbor, twenty miles away.
    Thinking: This was the same road that she and Jonathan had taken to and from the mall a thousand times, carting back necessities, silly luxuries and occasional treasures.
    The road near which they’d found their dream house when they’d moved to Maine seven years ago.
    The road they’d taken to go to their anniversary celebration last May.
    Tonight, though, all those memories led to one place: her life without Jonathan.
    The setting sun behind her, she steered through the lazy turns, hoping to lose those difficult—but tenacious—thoughts.
    Don’t think about it!
    Look around you, she ordered herself. Look at the rugged scenery: the slabs of purple clouds hangingover the maple and oak leaves—some gold, some red as a heart.
    Look at the sunlight, a glowing ribbon draped along the dark pelt of hemlock and pine. At the absurd line of cows, walking single file in their spontaneous day-end commute back to the barn.
    At the stately white spires of a small village, tucked five miles off the highway.
    And look at you: a thirty-four-year-old woman in a sprightly silver Toyota, driving fast, toward a new life.
    A life without Jonathan.
    Twenty minutes later she came to Dannerville and braked for the first of the town’s two stoplights. As her car idled, clutch in, she glanced to her right. Her heart did a little thud at what she saw.
    It was a store that sold boating and fishing gear. She’d noticed in the window an ad for some kind of marine engine treatment. In this part of coastal Maine you couldn’t avoid boats. They were in tourist paintings and photos, on mugs, T-shirts and key chains. And, of course, there were thousands of the real things everywhere: vessels in the water, on trailers, in dry docks, sitting in front yards—the New England version of pickup trucks on blocks in the rural South.
    But what had struck her hard was that the boat pictured in the ad she was now looking at was a Chris-Craft. A big one, maybe thirty-six or thirty-eight feet.
    Just like Jonathan’s boat. Nearly identical, in fact: the same colors, the same configuration.
    He’d bought his five years ago, and thoughMarissa thought his interest in it would flag (like that of any boy with a new toy) he’d proved her wrong and spent nearly every weekend on the vessel, cruising up and down the coast, fishing like an old cod deckhand. Her husband would bring home the best of his catch, which she would clean and cook up.
    Ah, Jonathan . . .
    She swallowed hard and inhaled slowly to calm her pounding heart. She—
    A honk behind her. The stoplight had changed to green. She drove on, trying desperately to keep her mind from speculating about his death: The Chris-Craft rocking unsteadily in the turbulent gray Atlantic. Jonathan overboard. His arms perhaps flailing madly, his panicked voice perhaps crying for help.
    Oh, Jonathan . . .
    Marissa cruised through Dannerville’s second light and continued toward the coast. In front of her she could see, in the last of the sunlight, the skirt of the Atlantic, all that cold, deadly water.
    The water responsible for life without Jonathan.
    Then she told herself: No. Think about Dale instead.
    Dale O’Banion, the man she was about to have dinner with in Green Harbor, the first time she’d been out with a man in a long while.
    She’d met him through an ad in a magazine. They’d spoken on the phone a few times and, after considerable waltzing around on both their parts, she’d felt comfortable enough to suggest meeting in person. They’d settled on the Fishery, a popular restaurant on the wharf.
    Dale had mentioned the Oceanside Café, which had better food, yes, but that was Jonathan’s favorite