Behind me on the kitchen charger, my cell phone springs to life, buzzing with a string of incoming texts. I ignore it, and so does Micah.

“What time was what, when I got up?”

“No. When you went down to get whatever it was you left in the boat.”

“Oh. Sometime just after six thirty, I think. The sky was still dark, but it was beginning to lighten up at the bottom. I yelled for you on the way up the hill, but I’m pretty sure you were already gone.”

He sips his coffee and nods, both as confirmation and as a sign for me to continue.

“Anyway, I didn’t see her until I was climbing out of the boat. She was facedown under the dock, and like I told the operator, she looked like she’s been there a while. I didn’t touch her.”

My cell phone starts up again, the ringtone for my brother, and Micah tips his head in its direction. “You need to get that?”

I shake my head. “It’s just Chet.”

Micah knows Chet, too, and he can probably guess what he’s calling to say. A long-winded account of some self-inflicted disaster, a desperate plea for a loan—and he always calls it a loan even though everybody on the planet knows he’ll never pay me back. Like everyone else in this mountain town, Chet thinks I’ve hit the jackpot.

I step around the counter to my phone, tap the screen to Ignore and flip the side button to Silent. Two seconds later, it lights up again.

I let it clatter back onto the charger just in time for Micah’s next question. “Were y’all home last night?”

“Yes. We got home around five, I think. Maybe a little later. We came by boat, and before you ask, she wasn’t there when we docked. Paul was driving, and he would have seen.”

I think back to how carefully he slid the boat up to the dock, how he leaned over the edge to tie the ropes and hoist me out, and I’m sure of my answer. I didn’t notice anything in the water, but Paul would have. He pays attention to everything.

“Okay, so how about once you were inside? Did either of you hear anything out of the ordinary on the lake? Voices. Splashing, maybe, or the hum of a boat engine?”

“It was cold, and there aren’t that many boats still out on the water, so I definitely would have noticed the sound of an engine.” I pause, trying to remember. “I don’t think so. Did you?”