“He’s a good and loyal man, my husband,” she said, her voice cracking. “I needed him to do one last thing for me, and he did it.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I am a little crazy, you know, I think. That’s on you, too, Alice. I was fine before you took my Gina away. I never beat it.”

“What are you going to do?” Alice said. Her mind was beginning to clear, and she realized that something was cutting into her left wrist. It was a pair of handcuffs, attached to a linked chain. She tugged at it. The chain was snaked through one of those large bodybuilding weights, a disc that looked like it was probably a hundred pounds, sitting on the middle seat of the old boat. The chain passed through the weight, stretching across to Mrs. Bergeron, attached to a handcuff around her wrist.

“I’ve already done it,” she said, holding up her arm, showing it to Alice, rattling the chain. “There’s no getting out of these. The keys to the handcuffs are already on the bottom of the ocean. It’s over, Alice. It’s just you and me.” With her free hand, Mrs. Bergeron raised what looked like half a cigarette to her nose and inhaled deeply. Alice thought: smelling salts. It was what she had used to wake Alice up, and what she was using to keep herself going.

Alice’s body went cold. She shook her head, trying to concentrate on what was happening. The sloshing at the bottom of the boat was getting louder, and water was now licking at her ankles. “The boat’s sinking,” she said.

“It is. You don’t have much time. We have the same time now, the two of us.”

Alice tugged harder at the cuff around her wrist. “You can’t do this.”

Mrs. Bergeron smiled and she looked like a skull, her teeth too big for her face. “I am doing this,” she said. “You took my baby away from me, and this is my last wish.” She laughed weakly at this, then said, “It’s my ‘Make-A-Wish.’”

Alice stood, and took a step toward Mrs. Bergeron. The boat lurched, and her foot crunched through the hull. Water began to rush in.

“It’s no good,” Mrs. Bergeron said. “I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. We are going to die together. The only thing you can do now is confess. I can’t make you do it, but it might make you feel better. It’s for you, not me. I already know what you did. I just want you to have the opportunity to know it as well.”

“Gina was a drug addict. She was nuts.”