I carefully closed the window behind me and sank to the floor, breathing hard. The place was stale and warm out of the wind. Moonlight came through the window and lit the room. It was just as I imagined it would be: small and safe. The entire structure seemed to be one room. There were benches with cushions around three walls of the room, a table against the fourth wall that seemed to double as a bed—I could see the Murphy bed in the wall above it that lowered onto the table. Above me were two bunks, just big enough for beds.

I huddled there, catching my breath, with the smell of damp things all around me, a thick stench of mildew and disuse. I breathed in and out and tried to think how I was going to get out of this. There was only one way back to shore, that was clear. But when could I go home? How did I know Cole wouldn’t be waiting for me, whenever I made my way back? I’d have to stay all night. I would strip off the sopping clothes and wrap myself in curtains. I could do jumping jacks until I warmed up. When it was day, when it was light, I would swim home, or even to the landing.

I concentrated on the sound of my breath, an almost violent rhythm. Then suddenly, I realized the rhythmic sound was not my breath. A slow even thwack, almost like a slap on bare skin. Then silence for two or three seconds, then thwack. It was a strange sound but also completely familiar. I struggled to place it, all the while hearing it become louder, nearer, with every thwack.

All at once, I knew. It was the rowboat. It was the sound of the oars slicing the water. The rowboat coming closer. Thwack. He couldn’t possibly know where I was; he couldn’t have seen, not through the fog.

Then the rowboat bumped up against the side of the houseboat.

I held my breath. I heard his footsteps on the ladder. The door was locked, I told myself. And he couldn’t fit through the window. He would think I’d jumped back in the water. He would go after me again in the water.

He was on the other side of the door. His hand on the knob. I waited for him to swear when he realized the door was locked. Instead, a small sound of metal on metal. The doorknob turned, the door opened, and Cole walked into the cabin.

I don’t know how much of me he saw. Maybe I was just a dark shape on the floor of the cabin. He was bright and clear in the doorway, illuminated. We looked at each other across the dark room.

“How did you get in the door?” I asked, as if that were the thing that mattered most.