Sergeant Jeremy sat beside the big man patiently, listening to his breathing. He had caused quite a ruckus forty minutes before, and Sergeant Jeremy, always reluctant to make an arrest, was hoping that the drunken tourist was about to finally fall into a restful slumber. He was beginning to edge away when the big man snorted himself awake.

“Where is she? Where is she?” the man said with German or maybe South African–accented English. “Is she back?”

“Not yet, but I am sure you will see her soon,” Sergeant Jeremy said with soft encouragement.

“Why aren’t you taking me seriously?” the man said, punching on his own thigh. “She was kidnapped, I tell you. Kidnapped!”

“Yes, I know. I remember,” Sergeant Jeremy said quietly.

Sergeant Jeremy nodded as the man mumbled to himself incoherently. He had been called to investigate such kidnappings before. It usually happened after the rum began to flow. Boyfriends and girlfriends and sometimes, as in this poor man’s case, even spouses would disappear. But in almost every case, such disappearances were the result of the victim voluntarily heading into the bedroom of another inebriated guest.

“Then why aren’t you doing anything? Shouldn’t we fill out a report or something?” the large man cried.

“We were just about to, sir,” Sergeant Jeremy said, lifting the clipboard in his lap.

He had taken out his pen and was about to click it when he finally heard the best possible resolution to the situation. Incredibly loud snoring. The man had slumped over with his sweating head against the palm pot beside him.

“Is he okay there for now?” Sergeant Jeremy asked, walking over to the desk clerk.

“Is he really asleep this time?” the clerk asked.

“Out for the count, I would say.”

“Not so fast,” the clerk said, tossing a chin.

Sergeant Jeremy turned to see a skinny middle-aged blonde woman come in off the beach. He thought there would be some fireworks as she started shaking at the large man. But he was wrong.

“Another kidnapping successfully solved,” Sergeant Jeremy said with a click of his pen as the two tourists stumbled off down the corridor together, singing and laughing.

He was heading back up Sherman’s Highway near Tarpum Head in his Jeep when he came up on his friend Michael Gannon’s cul-de-sac turnoff.

He found himself putting on his clicker. There had been some break-ins in nearby Rock Sound and on White Road Beach to the south, and he thought he’d do a quick spin past.

He was approaching the second-to-last old bungalow when he saw the light in the window of Michael’s house. It was blue and flickering, his friend watching TV perhaps.

Home early? Sergeant Jeremy thought, rolling up.

He had parked the car in front of the house and was coming up the path when the blue light suddenly shut off.

That was strange, he thought.

He stood there in the darkness for a moment waiting, listening. The clicking sound of some kind of bird in the distance had just started up when the door to the house opened silently. A man appeared in the threshold. A tall man. He was smiling serenely in the moonlight.