The cabin bore the unfriendly stink of another culture and only deepened her dread. No, terror. Killing a man was different from watching one die of natural causes. Maybe Chino was right about her, that something like this was bound to happen, and inevitably she would become a different person. One thing she knew now: the person she was, was terrified of being killed by Chino. Amy knew what she knew, and what she hadn’t told Sam was that not one, but two events, told her that Chino was alive. The first was Gregory pushing her down to the master cabin and telling her to clean up. Only Chino could have told Gregory to do that and make it stick. As it was, Gregory had pulled a sulk while following instructions. She knew what she knew.

The lights had gone out after Chino had relayed the information that a car was missing and Sam was on the way. And Chino has learned that when he had gotten out of the house himself and saw the car missing. So he was in motion. She knew.

And she knew Sam didn’t believe her. He had said he would go along with her to shut her up. Did you take the garbage out? Yeah, yeah.

Two sail bags, one larger and heavier than the other. Thank you, husband. Now she had to be quick with the jib because she had to get Sam stabilized and comfortable. Chino had to be closer than she wanted to believe. Pointiest end up. She was fighting to keep from falling completely apart. Sam had forgotten the rest of the line, what he said would help her remember: just the way you like me.

Somehow all the steps of raising a jib were unfolding clearly in her mind. She decided she was going to buy Sam a boat of his own, if it took her ten years to pay for it.

She even remembered to open the forward hatch before lugging the jib bag topside.

“We have a radio,” she said.

He gestured aft. “And first light.” A tiny smear of dark gray in the purple of the east. Sunrise was less than an hour away.

“We have more light than that.”

She wanted him to look. Merrill turned, already wary of his shoulder. Headlights raced along the shoreline, following the route he had just taken. Until the car stopped, they had no way of knowing who was behind the wheel. They had almost a mile head start already anyway, halfway to the beacon on the end of the peninsula, where the buildings could hide them. And that distance was closing with every second. The sport fisherman was a big boat for one man to get underway alone, particularly one who had just survived an explosion — if in fact he had.

Amy snapped the jib to the forestay.

“Did you see if this boat had a centerboard?”

“I lowered it and locked it down.”