Upstate New York. I’d pictured it as nowheresville, a mishmash of farmers’ fields and dilapidated barns, and I wasn’t wrong. The towns are small, the people as down-to-earth as they come. It’s a patriotic part of the country, but every American flag looked as if it had been flying since the thirties, abandoned to the elements, bleached out and threadbare. Something about those flags seemed vulgar, like Lady Liberty’s been subjected to an upskirt. I keep that opinion to myself. Both Tim and my fiancé are locals, born and bred on the river, so I also don’t tell them it still comes as a shock when I wake up in the morning and find myself here. Instead of investigating homicides with the NYPD on the Lower East Side, I’m fighting crime for the New York State Park Police in a place where violent crime doesn’t exist. Until, one day, it does.

“Weekend on the river’s what the caretaker said,” Tim called from on board the boat. “They’re cutting it real close.”

Manhattan’s chilly in October, but I’d been told it could get arctic in the Thousand Islands. Even a weak fall system’s likely to be nasty. Past the boat the bay was the color of thunder, and rain ricocheted off the water’s surface with such fury I could barely make out Comfort Island a quarter mile away. It was the closest island to that part of the mainland, one of the few I knew by name. Comfort Island looked the opposite of comforting in the stormy morning light.

“Guess you wish you’d taken that trip to see your parents,” Tim said, exposing the boat’s controls and seat cushions, tucking covers into storage bins. Now that I was living closer to my home state, I’d been driving to Vermont on a regular basis. If not for the storm, I’d be there now.

“And miss all this?” I said as a gust of wind doused my face with cold rain.

Tim dug into his pocket and came out with a key attached to a red float. “Flip you for it.”

“Funny. The lines?” I knew what to do with those, at least. Tim started the engine as I waded across the dock, which was six inches underwater, and freed the boat from the cleats. I huddled inside the tiny console and stayed out of Tim’s way while he nudged us out of the slip. Only when we were off did I realize I’d left my gloves in the car. Rain hammered at the T-Top and stung my face as we lurched forward and sped across the water toward the island.

The very first thing my fiancé told me about the Thousand Islands was that the label’s a lie. There are actually 1,864 rocky patches of land along the stretch of St. Lawrence that divides Ontario from New York State. A century ago the area was as posh as the Hamptons, the go-to summer getaway for millionaire titans of industry and the upper crust of New York. Many of them still own property on the river. According to Carson, the proprietor of the Waldorf Astoria once commissioned a hundred-and-twenty-room mansion for his wife only to watch her die before it was done. If the legend’s true, the man never returned to it again. What strikes me isn’t that he lost his bride, but that he didn’t see that outcome coming. He named the place Heart Island. Some ironies are too tempting for the universe to resist.