“I’m so happy James found you,” Parker said to me after dinner. By that point, he’d had quite a bit to drink and was slurring his words. “I didn’t think he was ever gonna get over Hannah. There was a time when I thought losing her would actually kill him. Then he met you . . . and it’s like the old James is back.”

Deep down, buried in the dark recesses of my thoughts, I wasn’t sure my husband had ever gotten over Hannah Nilsson. And even as the years passed, and we built a life together—a good life, a happy life, complete with an adored child and a beautiful home—that fear festered inside of me.

Chapter Three

James came home late that evening, so late that he missed dinner. That wasn’t unusual—he often got called into last-minute emergency surgeries, or saw patients after hours at his office. But normally, he breezed in looking as fresh as he had when he left in the morning. His work had always energized him, no matter how many hours he put in.

Tonight, though, he looked like hell.

There were dark smudges under his eyes, giving his sharply hewed features a shadowed look. He also hadn’t bothered changing out of his scrubs, which was unusual for him. They were light blue and had his name and the logo of his practice embroidered on the left breast of the short-sleeved top: Shoreham Orthopedics.

“I made a quiche, if you’re hungry,” I said when he walked in. I was in the kitchen, rinsing off my solitary dinner plate and loading it into the dishwasher.

James kissed me, as he always did when he returned home. But when he embraced me, he held me for a few beats longer than usual.

“The police were here today,” I said into his shoulder. James released me and turned away.

“I know. They came to see me, too.”

“They said it was about—” I stopped and swallowed. We almost never spoke about Hannah. Saying her name out loud felt like breaching an unspoken agreement. “Hannah Nilsson.”

“Yes.” James ignored the quiche I’d left out on the counter, and went straight to the cabinet where we kept the liquor. He took out a bottle of Scotch and poured himself a large portion into a crystal lowball glass. This concerned me: James rarely drank, and never during the week, since he operated nearly every day.

“Don’t you have surgery tomorrow?”

“I’ll just have the one.” James took a long sip of the light-amber liquid.

I studied my husband and waited for an explanation.

“They found remains,” he finally said. “Human remains. On Key Largo.”

I inhaled sharply. “And they think it could be Hannah?”

“They already made a positive ID,” he said. “So, it’s definitely Hannah.”