“We’ll need forensics, too. For the blood.” It was worth pointing out. This was A-Bay after all, and I couldn’t be sure what I’d get. There were six investigators in my unit, and the region had twenty troopers—plus Sheriff McIntyre and the deputies in Watertown overseeing all of Jefferson County. That was sufficient manpower for a hundred thousand law-abiding citizens. The issue was the island. I noticed Tim didn’t question my decision to bring him along. BCI Investigators, even senior ones like me, largely worked alone, but if ever this job warranted a partner, it was today.

“’Course we will,” Tim said, sounding offended. “With island crimes, it’s closest car—or in this case, closest boat—but the others will be along. I’m sure they’ll all want a look. This kind of thing doesn’t happen much. Nobody around here even locks their doors. This isn’t New York City.”

I cut my eyes at him again, unsure of what I’d see—the trace of a smile, maybe, or a smidgen of quiet glee. Tim was downplaying the situation. A murder, even a missing persons case, on one of the islands was unheard of. McIntyre made that clear when she hired me. So I guess I thought Tim would be excited. I know plenty of cops in the city who’d get a big thrill from a case like this, in a place where they happen every day. If Tim was pumped, he didn’t show it. His expression was solemn, his lips a neutral line.

I turned the wheel, trading the easy swish of the highway for the hard crackle of gravel road, and there was the river. Damn, but the water was high. The summer had broken all kinds of records for flooding, the water level three feet higher than the norm. I’d read it hadn’t been like this since 1973. The damage was already bad, and now, with a nor’easter, it was going to get much worse.

I pulled the car onto a patch of grass waterlogged with rain and peered dubiously at the sky through the windshield one last time. Tim’s eyes were on the boat. The folks at headquarters, Tim included, had been more excited about the police vessel’s arrival than about mine. We came at the same time: the new plaything courtesy of a special fund administered by the U.S. Coast Guard, me courtesy of a fiancé and a need to get the hell out of the city. I guess I couldn’t blame them. Even I could appreciate the boat’s tantalizing, new-toy shine. When Tim saw the size of the waves on the river, the loving look on his face was replaced with a frown.

“Okay, then,” he said brightly while baring his teeth. “Ready?”

“Now or never,” I replied, and we stepped outside. Puffs of breath lingered ghostlike in front of us as we splashed toward the reedy edge of the St. Lawrence River, where the waves smacked the boat against the dock. The thing was small and exposed with a flimsy navy canopy—Tim called it a T-Top—that snapped in the wind. I pulled the hood of my rain jacket over my hair, kinky from the humidity. Acres of naked fields lay to the south of us, endless water to the north. The isolation of the place was jarring.