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Tricia let him have a few minutes of solitude before strolling over to him. "Hello, my name is Tricia. What's yours?"

"I'm guessing there's a point to this."

"You're not you."

"Uh, I think I am." Taylor whapped his stomach with his palm. "Yep, still me."

"Do you remember when you and Annie and Susan and I were all around thirteen years old and you blindfolded us and took us down to Munson's Bridge and had us get out on the edge? You were so excited. It was only twenty-five feet up, but it felt like two hundred. You jumped first and watched as each of us jumped, but only if we wanted to. And of course we all wanted to, and when we'd all leaped, you gathered us on the shore?"

Tricia waited till Taylor looked right at her. "Do you remember what you said?"

He didn't answer.

"You said, 'I was so scared to jump, but I was even more scared to tell you I was scared. But if we can't tell each other our greatest fears, then what would our friendship be?' That was profound wisdom coming from a thirteen-year-old. Do you remember?"

"Yes." He looked back to the sky.

"I don't see that Taylor so much anymore. Do you?"

Silence.

Tricia took his hands in hers. "What happened when Annie died? And why is this book business turning you inside out?"

Taylor leaned back against the fence and sighed again. "Maybe I'll never open up. Maybe this is who I am now. Maybe it's all I'll ever be. Am I so bad?"

"You are wonderful in so many ways. But there is still so much more inside you."

"Maybe there isn't, Tricia. Maybe that part died along with Annie and is impossible to resurrect."

"I don't believe that."

"Maybe you should."

Tricia trudged up to the house and tossed her work gloves on the deck. She glanced back. Taylor walked to the shovel and picked it up again. For a few moments she watched him work up a sweat, trying to pay penance for the rooms of his heart he'd shut her out of.

"Break him open, Lord. There's gold inside, but no one can get to it but You."

Cameron glanced at his watch. An hour and a half had come and gone. At an hour-forty-five the bells on the coffee shop door chimed and Ann walked in.

"You're late," he said when she reached their table.

"Are you going to dock my pay?"

"Sorry, I'm a little hyped up here. You won't believe what I'm going to tell you."

"You could use a massage too." Ann slid into the seat next to him and squeezed the back of his neck. "You're tight."

He didn't need that. Cameron shifted in his chair and pulled away from her touch.

"Sorry."

"While you were gone, I did a little research on Vela and Pyxis."

"And?"

Cameron leaned further over the table and tapped his pencil against the constellation map like a woodpecker. "Guess what the translation of Vela is?" He slid a piece of paper in front of her.

"The Sail," she read off the paper.

"And here's the translation of Pyxis." He slid another small piece of paper in front of Ann.

"The Compass."

"Now take a look at this business card from a well-known Three Peaks restaurant."

Ann eyes went wide. "The Sail & Compass Bar & Grill. Oh, wow."

"Great burgers. But we're in the middle of the high desert. Why would someone name their restaurant Sail & Compass when it's 160 miles from the ocean? Bronco Billy's, sure. Pine & Post Bar and Grill, absolutely. But Sail & Compass? It doesn't fit. Unless they were sending out a New York-sized neon sign."

"We need to find out who started the restaurant."

Cameron nodded. "My thinking precisely."

"You already know."

"Yes, I do." Cameron bent the Sail & Compass business card in the middle and spun it on the table like a top.

"Tell me."

"Take a wild guess."

"Taylor Stone."

"He sold the restaurant three years ago, but Taylor still owns—"

"The building."

"Correct. Owned one-hundred percent by him and him alone. No partners. It's the perfect place for him to store all his large secrets." Cameron gathered up his papers.

"Are you saying the Book of Days is inside that building?"

"I'm saying we should