“Rob? My cousin?”

“You’re both lucky,” she said. “You’re luckier than he is. But you are both alive.”

Later I found out that Rob had suffered a brain injury from which he was never likely to fully recover. That kind of truth is a heavy thing on someone. It was my fault. I knew it. I should not have driven. I thought I was in better shape than he was. I was so stupid.

I was also a criminal. Because I’d injured another party, I was charged with a felony DUI, and not a misdemeanor. I was so low that I wouldn’t have fought it if I could. Rob was never mean about it, but I assumed that his kindness was the result of his head injury. That he really didn’t understand the lasting consequences of our day on the beach. I served only one night in jail and was put on probation. The light sentence wasn’t because I wasn’t at fault but rather the result of an overcrowded justice system.

Lucky. Unlucky me.

If God had given me any gifts that day, it was that I hadn’t killed anyone, that those five kids with Mickey Mouse T-shirts and bags of souvenirs returned to Phoenix with a good story to tell and nothing more.

Felonies, however, don’t ever go away. They follow you like the blackest of shadows. With a criminal record, it was no surprise that I didn’t get that job with LA County. In fact, I couldn’t get any job that I wanted. Waiting tables, it turned out, was the best I could do in the short term. In time, the short term became the long term. It wasn’t all bad. I met Kristen at my work, a bistro in the University District. She was just out of University of Washington Law School, and I’d moved up to Seattle for a fresh start. She was four years older, a lot smarter, and had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen.

I really was the luckiest guy in the world when she said yes when I asked her out. I’m still the luckiest guy. Every time I look at my wife, I see goodness. That’s why what’s happened between us over the last few years feels so painful.

CHAPTER FIVE

ADAM

I don’t understand. I told them what happened. And yet the Mason County detectives who answered the call are barely moving. Talking to that grandma and even her grandson when they should be sending out some kind of AMBER Alert or an APB to find Sophie. Something. Maybe they have? Sophie has been missing more than four hours now. Aubrey’s hopped up on sugar from those damn ice pops, and I’m sitting here wondering what I should be doing to find her mom.

Find Sophie.

Bring her home.

Get my wife back.

Save her.

I think of all the things that I should tell them, but when the detectives come at me, it’s their agenda that trumps everything that’s running through my mind.