I’ve moved inside the villain’s head for a bit, and am now getting to use a couple of puzzle pieces that I set up earlier in the book. John Masefield’s poem that begins, “I must go down to the seas again, to the sea and the lonely sky …” and Travis McGee and the Busted Flush and John D. McDonald.
The heroine has unknowingly moved in the one direction guaranteed to set off the villain — she’s ended up within rock-throwing distance of the sea, in a house with deep-water docking and no fixed bridges between it and the ocean. And yachts and tall ships go sailing by her windows day and night.
At the moment, she’s enjoying the show. All of that, however, is about to change.
