Then I saw Sampson’s face looming above me. Close, very close. It gave me strength.

His head was framed against a few stars and the blue-black of the sky. “Sugar,” he called as I finally came up for air.

He held me up, let me get my breath, my precious breath. We both treaded water for a while. My mind was reeling.

I let my eyes explore the surface for some sign of Shafer. My vision was blurred, but I didn’t see him. I was certain he’d drowned.

Sampson and I slowly paddled back to shore.

I hadn’t gotten what I needed out there. I hadn’t been able to learn the truth from Shafer before he drowned.

Once or twice I glanced back to make sure that Shafer wasn’t following us, that he was gone. There was no sign of him. There was only the sound of our own tired strokes cutting into the tide.

Chapter 120

IT TOOK TWO MORE exhausting days and nights to finish with the local police investigation, but it was good to keep focused and busy. I no longer had any hope of finding Christine, or even discovering what had happened to her.

I knew it was remotely possible that Shafer hadn’t taken Christine, that it had been some other madman from my past, but I didn’t give that possibility more than a passing thought. I couldn’t go there. It was too crazy an idea, even for me.

I’d been unable to grieve from the start, but now the monstrous finality of Christine’s fate struck me with all of its brutal force. I felt as if my insides had been hollowed out. The constant, dull ache I had known for so long now became a sharp stab of pain that pierced my heart every waking moment. I couldn’t sleep, yet I felt as if I were never fully awake.

Sampson knew what was happening to me. There was nothing he could say, but he made comforting small talk, anyway.

Nana called me at the hotel, and I knew it was Sampson’s doing, though both of them denied it. Jannie and Damon got on the phone, and they were both sweet and kind and full of life and hopefulness. They even put Rosie the cat on for a friendly long-distance meow. They didn’t mention Christine, but I knew she was always in their thoughts.

On our final night on the island, Sampson and I had dinner with Jones. We had become friendly with him, and he finally told me some facts he had previously withheld for Security reasons. He wanted me to have some closure; he felt I deserved that much.