Sitting on the port settee, she almost gagged on the coffee he had made. She was sick with guilt. She’d told him the first lie in years. No, it was worse than a good old-fashioned lie: a lie took guts. He leaned on the navigation table and ran his pencil along the Bora Bora chart looking for Jean-Paul’s hole.

While she was gone, he had apparently rented a Vespa and putt-putted around the island. Now, he thought he recalled glimpsing the pen behind palms, by the ancient marae. He had assumed that the notch was simply a coral-quarry, cut to repair the coastal road, too shallow for Linda Lee.

“I’ll double-up lines to the coconut trees, bow and stern, and run breastlines—”

“We," she said weakly. “I’m back.”

He studied her for a moment. “OK.” He straightened, stretching exultantly. “That lovely, blue-eyed sonofabitch has saved our boat.”

“He went to sea to get out of the harbor,” she said. “I hope he saves his own.”

The boat trembled to a gust. She heard footsteps creaking along the dock, and bare feet padding aboard. Mitch did not seem to notice, and stayed at the chart table studying the line of the lagoon. A shadow fell across the open hatch above him, and Louie appeared. His hard black eyes challenged her for an instant, turned to Mitch.

“’Allo, my captain,” he said. “I have come for ‘elp you for cyclone. I show you through the reef, OK?”

Mitch seemed surprised but, as always lately with Louie, curiously quite cool. “You didn’t come down for that?"

“I sell camera, yes, for that!"

“We’re not going through the reef, and you’re not going anywhere. Not with us.” He turned to Lindy and told her, after six months, that Louie’s last thanks to her had been an insult.

Her heart began to hammer. She saw it all, now, the truth approaching like the hurricane. Her cheeks went hot and her hands went cold. She tried to beat Louie to the punch, but her throat was so tight that nothing came out.

“I will ’elp you. She is bad womans.” The little black boy drew himself to his full height on the companionway steps. “’Ees right, what I say before.”

“Get lost,” grated Mitch. He took a step toward Louie and jerked his thumb to the hatch. “Now!”

Louie’s eyes bulged with fright, but he stood his ground. “Non! She is bad! Las’ night—” His lips clenched, and his eyes filled with tears.

Mitch grabbed a skinny thigh as the child looked down at them from the steps. “Last night, what?" he growled.

The little boy stiffened. “With the hoopipi of the steel boat...” He made a circle of his thumb and forefinger and thrust his middle finger through it. "Dans l’Hôtel Scott!"