“Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done these last few months without you, Ty. I don’t know how you can even stand to stay here. Most people would have run away.”

He pulled her closer. “I’m not most people, love. Now go get some sleep.”

He followed Karen out to the living room and watched her shuffle up the stairs. He heard the bedroom door close.

He went back to the kitchen. He dumped his uneaten breakfast in the sink and went to the pile of newspapers. He tore into them, looking for any reports of bodies found in the bay, of missing people being found. He read chaotically and inefficiently, switching between papers and sections and articles, strewing newsprint across the kitchen.

It was an hour before his feverish concentration broke and he looked up to see his stepdaughter staring at him from the doorway.

He froze.

No, not his stepdaughter. A spy.

“Good morning,” he croaked, choking on his dry throat. “Can I get you some breakfast?”

“Water,” she said, in her burned-out voice.

He rose from the chair and backed toward the cupboard to get a glass. His hands fumbled for the faucet dial, wetting his sleeve in the stream of water. The glass filled, overflowed, wet his knuckles. He walked toward her, leaning out from a distance to hand her the glass. He backed away.

She tilted her head back and poured the water over her face. It rushed through her hair, ran off her shoulders and down her other arm, down her chest and legs, soaking her nightgown and the newspapers at her feet, as if she’d upended a rain barrel.

The wet nightgown clung to her, accentuating the flatness of her stomach and revealing the rungs of her ribcage. Her nipples looked blue, pressed up against the damp whiteness of the fabric.

Tyler tore his gaze from her torso and looked into her wet face, her hair washed back from her features, her eyes now wide open, dark pearls that held him frozen.

“More water,” she said, and extended her arm, elbow snapping, holding out the glass.

He inched forward, his body unwilling, fighting his progress. He took the glass, filled it again, and handed it back.

Again she poured it over herself, further soaking her hair and clothes, the puddle below her spreading into more sheets of newsprint, running the black ink in streams between the floor tiles. The water revived her. She looked more alert, her movements becoming quicker and more precise. She extended the glass again and said, “More.”

He brought her more.

After the fifth glass, he could hear her breathing; see her shoulders rise and fall. She blinked, and her eyes looked clearer, her skin more opaque, hiding the unnerving network of veins.

She raised her hand and pressed it against her chest, between her breasts. Her brow furrowed for a moment, and then she smiled and looked up at him.