He shouldn’t have allowed them both to fall asleep. He had been prepared for her flash of shame and guilt when the light came in. He’d prepared what to say—but now she was gone.

He fished in his pocket and found the boat keys. He jumped out the open window and screamed her name. He glanced around like a skilled hunter, checking the ground, spying broken frozen grass. He followed the footsteps to the beach, but then they led back toward the marsh, away from the maritime forest and the house. Oh, God, not the marsh.

Dread flooded him; his toes were numb, his hands quivering more from fear than cold. The moon was still descending even as the sun rose. Nick pulled his coat sleeve back from his wrist: five thirty a.m. She could have been wandering for hours.

He followed her dented footsteps until he reached the soft ground of the marsh where her tracks were camouflaged in the thick grasses. There was nothing else to track.

“Amy!” he screamed.

Only the crickets and owl answered his call.

He jogged back to the boat to find his cell phone, staring at it even as he understood what he must do with Amy lost in the marsh of a barrier island, a maze of dead ends and false exits inhabited by cottonmouth snakes and alligators. Red wolves lived in the thicker parts of the forest, and if she headed the other way—toward the sea—the oyster beds were like razors, sharks played in the shallow surf, and more alligators roamed the tidal stream emptying into the sea.

He punched 911 and closed his eyes on his own fear and tears, feeling as if he were in one of his slow-motion dreams where he could not run, could not correctly dial the phone.

The phone rang and rang; the echoing sound rubbed his nerves raw until the operator answered and he told her there was a woman lost on Oystertip Island and to send the Coast Guard.

He found he remembered the Hail Mary from his childhood, and he uttered this prayer over and over. On his hundredth or maybe thousandth one, sirens blared across the beach; boats pulled up and disgorged men in uniforms, walkie-talkies squawking from their belts.

Sporadically and in broken sentences, Nick told the uniformed men which way he believed Amy had gone. Questions and answers came like gunshots in the flashing lights of the boat, in the beacons they carried.

“How long has she been gone?”

“I don’t know. It could have been hours.”

“You’re trespassing.”

“I know.”

“Was she drunk?”

“No.”

“Is she your wife?”

“No, she’s Phil’s wife.”

“Do we need to call her family?”

Nick rattled off Amy’s home phone number, which he’d long ago memorized. He began to follow the men with the radios and medical kits through the woods.