Mom.
I watched her name flash across the screen while the surf moved in and out below me. For a second I considered letting it ring out. I knew, even before I answered, that Benjamin must have called her. He had the kind of conscience that couldn’t let the truth sit still once it was spoken. By now she would know that the “little place” I had mentioned in June wasn’t a rented condo, or a discounted timeshare, or a friend’s beach house. She would know that I owned Seaside Haven Resort. She would know that I had invited twenty-two family members to spend Labor Day weekend here, all expenses paid.
And she would know who hadn’t been invited.
I picked up.
“Amelia?” My mother’s voice arrived thin with disbelief, stretched tight over outrage. “Where are you?”
I leaned back in my chair and looked out at the private stretch of sand, the white umbrellas, the infinity pool that curved like a blue ribbon into the horizon. A server in a cream-colored uniform passed beneath my balcony carrying a tray of fresh coffee to one of the oceanfront suites. Everything below me gleamed.
