“No.” Balaton seemed supremely confident, at least of that. “She won’t. You see, Sarah believes in me. She always has. Goodbye, David.”

“Balaton, trust me—nobody cares what you did thirty years ago.”

“Yes, David, someone does: Bartholomew Wakefield.”

“So I’ll talk to him—”

But Balaton had turned his back, and he eased the boat away from the teetering dock, out into the gray ocean, picking up speed. There was a roar from its engines, and then it was bouncing over the rippling waves. Soon it disappeared. Lying on the dock, aching and utterly shaken, David listened. In the distance, he could still hear the faint sound of the racer’s engine, and the zing-zing-zing as it skidded across the bay.

What bay?

Where the hell am I?

One crutch was hanging halfway over the edge of the dock. He slid forward on his side, reaching for it, but a board gave way beneath his elbow, and as his arms shot up and out to brace him his hand just nicked the tip of the crutch. He watched it topple into the water. A wave slammed it against a rock, and it fell back into the water, and it was slammed again and again and again.

David lay flat on his stomach and searched for the strength and the will to make himself move. He was afraid the dock would cave in...afraid he’d lose the other crutch when he went after it...afraid of the agony that came with every movement.

“Ash,” he cried, his voice carried down between the treacherous boards, into the swirling sea beneath him, lost. The wind was slicing through him; he wondered idly how much exposure to the cold and the damp his leg and battered body would tolerate. “Barky!”

What if Balaton had already brought Ashley out to this Jude’s Paradise and dumped her? She could be hurt, in pain, needing him....

He saw the other crutch. It was lying parallel to the edge of the dock. If it moved just an inch in the other direction, it would be lost. He had to swing his arm down in an arc, to shoulder level, and then maybe stretch a bit to get it. Slowly...move slowly. Wiggling his fingers, forcing the tension in his arm muscles to ease, he edged it downward.

Don’t lunge, jackass!

Then his arm was straight out from his shoulder. Looking down the length of it, he could see the top of the crutch just half a foot from his fingertips. Too far to stretch. With the bulky cast, he couldn’t easily roll onto his other side, which left maintaining his present position and sort of sidling his whole body in that general direction. But he had to distribute his weight carefully as he moved. If he moved too suddenly, or too heavily, the dock, the crutch and he could go crashing into the ocean.

And that, he thought, would be that.

“To hell with it.”

He sidled; he grabbed the crutch; he tucked it under his arm; he got himself to his feet—or more precisely, he thought, with his gallows humor, to his foot. The going would be slow, awkward and painful with just one crutch. But you acted, goddammit.