Just then the ferry began to slow her engines. They were pulling into the slip on the other side of the strait. T.J. excused himself, went into the wheelhouse to take the controls. Patrick drifted toward the back of the deck. He watched people getting into their cars.

The whole operation took about fifteen minutes—the deckhands directed cars and trucks off quickly, and then loaded up the Cape Hawk–bound vehicles. Patrick breathed in the sea air, feeling the ferry rise and fall with the easy onshore waves. He found himself staring across the narrow passage, eyes on the shop door. And he made up his mind. When he got back to Cape Hawk, he'd head right over and ask Marisa out to dinner. He couldn't leave without talking to her, taking the chance.

Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a white van driving onto the ferry. White vans were anything but uncommon, especially during the ceili—lots of bands were still arriving, and many of them needed vans and panel trucks to hold all the musicians and their instruments. Their vehicles had windows and passenger seats, and were decorated with the band names and illustrations of shamrocks, harps, guitars, maps of Ireland.

But this particular van, the one that had Patrick's attention, was quite different. It had no windows in the back, but it contained a refrigerator unit; Patrick saw the vents above, and the trail of water dripping on the ferry's metal deck below. Its logo, far from being Irish or musical, showed a lone dolphin: smiling, standing on its tail, balancing a beach ball on one flipper. Patrick reached into his pocket, pulled out the picture he had printed out from the police website. He checked it to be sure, and he felt that click he always felt when police work yielded something interesting.

Most interesting of all: Gerard Lafarge was in the driver's seat.

After such a short time of rehearsing with Sam, Marisa felt they were almost ready to play. They ran through all their old favorites, and by the end of the afternoon, Sam knew “Storm Tossed” by heart.

Marisa felt so tender toward her sister, so glad they were together again. She remembered starting the violin in fourth grade, coming home from her lessons and teaching her younger sister everything she had learned. The next year, when Sam was ready for music lessons, she had amazed the teacher by already knowing how to play vibrato—while the rest of her class was dutifully plucking, pizzicato, the notes to “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

After so long apart, it seemed amazing to have Sam here now. Marisa thought of what Anne had said, about sometimes sisters needing to separate for a while. Although she never would have believed it possible, it seemed they had come back stronger than ever. And she knew she had Patrick to thank for it.