“I should be with her now,” she said, over and over. Halfway through the afternoon, Tyler was willing to oblige her. Her pacing rubbed his nerves raw.

Dinner that night didn’t happen—at least, not in the way he had gotten used to. He sat in his armchair, swirling whisky in his glass, listening to his wife pacing and mumbling in their bedroom upstairs.

When the doorbell rang, he was prepared to ignore it. Karen came tearing down the stairs and through the house to answer it.

“Ignore it,” he said. “We don’t need any more newspapers.”

“It could be her,” Karen said, clinging to the landing banister as her feet fumbled over the edge of each stair.

Of course, he thought. She could still be alive, bringing her baby home. Must remember.

The door hinge squeaked. Karen wailed.

He pushed himself out of his chair and staggered to the doorway.

Mandy. Her skin the color of bleached coral, eyes dark, iridescent Tahitian pearls. Stomach as flat as the deck of the boat where he’d strangled her.

Karen’s look of shock quickly contorted into rage. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you call? What have you done—where is the baby?”

Tyler couldn’t speak. He didn’t move, except to sway slightly as if his whisky had undone him.

The girl stepped over the threshold, face a blank mask, enduring the barrage of questions. She didn’t answer.

Karen repeated her questions as Mandy sat on the couch and stared out the window. Finally, she turned her head and looked at her mother. “Water,” she said. Her voice sounded like pebbles scraping each other smooth in the surf.

The ice in Tyler’s glass rang as his hand shook. He knew the girl couldn’t actually be Mandy. He knew, and he was the only one who knew, and he must remember that.

“Answer your mother, Mandy,” he said. Her name chafed his mouth.

Her eyes snapped to him, and he felt the impact of that dark, glossy gaze as if it were a fist on his heart.

“Water,” she croaked again. Raindrops dribbled from her hairline and crossed her face.

Tyler backed away. “I’ll . . . I’ll go get her some water,” he said, and hurried to the kitchen.

He leaned against the counter and panted, felt his gut flip.

Karen was screaming in the living room again, her voice rising in shrill octaves that set his teeth on edge. “What have you been taking?! What’s done this to you? Where is the baby?!”

“At the bottom of the sea,” Tyler said—whispered, to his own white knuckles that gripped the countertop. “With her mother.” Saying it out loud calmed him. No, this wasn’t Mandy. This was some stray that looked like her, trying to manipulate them. Trying to claim a vacant spot in their warm home—some con artist.