There were police to talk to. Antonia muttered something about pulling another faint to get out of it, but she handled all the questions with a calm and directness Hank had come to expect of her, and knew he would always admire.

Carine, it turned out, had let herself into her sister’s apartment in Boston and found shredded lingerie hanging out of Antonia’s dresser drawer, and that was it. She called the police. The evidence led them to Robert Prancer. They got a warrant to search his apartment and found it wallpapered with pictures of Antonia. There were some of Hank, too. Most were smeared with red paint.

A missing E.R. doctor. A missing senate candidate.

“That’s when the shit really hit the fan,” Carine said with a faltering smile as they finally gathered in a local tavern to ride out the storm. It was too late to make it over the bridge to Boston, or farther inland to higher ground.

“Gus was already on his way?” Antonia asked.

“He was already there. Ty called him. The bastard.”

Hank suspected no one had told her that Ty had participated in the rescue—the media hadn’t got hold of that one.

Gus shifted in his chair. He was drinking hot chocolate—no alcohol, he said, until the storm was over. No one else paid any attention. He glowered at the older of his two nieces. “You should have come to the mountains. What do you know about the ocean? We could have pitched this Prancer asshole right off a cliff.”

She smiled. “I love you, Gus. And Hank and I handled him.”

“Yeah. You and Hank.”

Carine raised her pink drink—a cosmopolitan. “I think you and Hank make a great couple. An E.R. doctor and a U.S. senator. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” She sipped some of her drink, of which she’d already had too much. “To an autumn wedding for a Winter!”

“Carine!” Antonia blanched, sinking low in her chair. She’d popped a pill—pain medication, Hank suspected—and was avoiding alcohol. “We’ve all had too much excitement, I think.”

The wind howled and whistled outside, but the inn they’d picked had been around since the late eighteenth century. It was filled with various rescue and work crews ready to go out after the storm had passed, and they all were making no pretenses about listening in.

Carine was unapologetic. “Oh, come on, Antonia. No time to be repressed. Hank’s so in love with you. What’s the word I’m looking for, Gus? Besotted?”

“Sloshed,” her uncle said. “Time to keep your mouth shut, Carine.”

Hank, sitting next to Antonia, leaned in close to her. “Your sister’s right. I am in love with you. Besotted.”

“I’m feeling light-headed.” Antonia sipped her water. “I think it must be the medication. I forget what I took—”

“You didn’t forget,” Hank said.