“More good luck: he hooked up with me,” Paul said. “I was at the Pine Island Marina looking for a ride to Bonefish Key, checking out boats and desperately hoping someone had left a key in the ignition, when Dooley saw me and asked what I was doing. When I mentioned your name, he jumped at the chance to take me to Bonefish. He then noticed that two kayaks were missing, and figured out where you might have gone.”

“Thanks, Dooley,” Gamay said. She gave him a peck on the cheek. “You’re probably wondering what all this is about.”

“You learn that it’s healthier to mind your own business around here, Dr. Gamay, but I’ll admit to being a little curious about what’s going on.”

“You’re not the only one.”

Gamay glanced at Song Lee, who had been huddled on a seat during the trip to the mainland.

Dooley tied up the boat and led the way to the trailer. He extracted a six-pack of Diet Coke from the refrigerator, passed three cans around along with a bag of Goldfish crackers. Without saying a word, he took his shotgun out of a locked cabinet. With the 16-gauge slung over one arm, he ambled out to the dock with the rest of the six-pack.

Song Lee and the Trouts went into the trailer and sat around a Formica-and-chrome kitchen table. She sipped her Coke like an automaton and stared into space.

Gamay sensed that Lee was in shock from the violence she had witnessed.

“It’s okay, Dr. Lee,” she said. “You’re safe now.”

Lee turned her head, and Gamay saw tears glistening in her eyes.

“I’m a doctor,” Lee said. “I’m supposed to save lives, not take them.”

“You saved our lives,” Gamay said. “That man and his friends would have killed us both.”

“I know that. Still . . .”

“Do you have any idea who they were?” Paul asked.

Lee wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.

“He said he had been watching me for days,” she said. “He was waiting for me where I had left the kayak and forced me to go to the house. We were waiting for people coming to take me away. I pleaded with him. We argued. That’s when I grabbed the knife and ran.”

Gamay put her hand on Lee’s forearm.

“I think you had better start at the beginning,” Gamay said.

Lee gulped down her Coke like a thirsty longshoreman, then began to tell her story.

She had been born in a rural part of China, excelled in science as a college student, and went to study in the U.S. on a grant from the Chinese government. She had seen firsthand the ravages of disease among the poorer citizens of China and wanted to do something about it. She specialized in immunology at Harvard Medical School, and did her residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.