She could just ask him how a detective would go about finding someone who wasn't answering her e-mail. Someone who had once been Marisa's fellow nurse, music partner, and best friend. A sister who seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth . . .

Anne knelt in the inn's garden, transplanting Shasta daisies and gazing down the hill at Lily's shop. While Lily, Liam, and Rose took care of business down south, Anne had set up a schedule for the Nanouk Girls to keep In Stitches running smoothly. The needlework shop had long been a gathering place for the women of the area, so Anne knew it wasn't really much trouble for them to keep it open till Lily got back.

Right now she spotted Marisa and Jessica standing in the doorway—looking across the water, like those women of old, watching for their men to come sailing over the horizon on whaling ships.

“What are you doing, hiding out here in the garden?” Jude asked, coming down the walkway from the inn, a coffee mug in each hand, a hammer stuck in his waistband. “When the whole place is going crazy in there?”

“You're a fine one to talk, about to get on board and go out in the bay all day. Thank you, love,” she said, accepting a mug from her husband.

“Well, we have to find moments of peace while we can get them. Camille is in there, dealing with one band who forgot to book enough rooms, and another who wants to switch places on the roster with yet another, who lost its accordion player in Halifax. . . .”

“Oh yes. Had his nose broken in a fight with the mandolin player—apparently they were fighting over their new singer, a lassie from Dublin. I've heard all about it. That's why I'm out here. Shasta daisies are so much easier to take at nine A.M. than musicians.”

“You've got the right idea, Annie,” Jude said. “Flowers for you, whales for me—leave the craziness aside for a little while. At least till you go back inside. The music's nice to hear, though, isn't it?”

“It is,” Anne said, listening as the uilleann pipes began to play, twining and weaving into a haunting rendition of “Minstrel Boy.”

“Ah, that song . . .” Jude said.

“It's beautiful,” Anne said.

“They played it at Connor's funeral,” Jude said. “I'll never forget it.”

“So long ago. You were only eleven.”

“Aye.”

Anne sipped her coffee, staring out over the placid bay. It was hard to believe that such a brutal attack could have occurred right out there, within sight of shore. The shark had taken Liam's arm and Connor's life—but it had taken something from Jude too. Anne had been in his class at school—one year behind his cousin Liam—and she remembered that when Jude came back after the funeral, his eyes were hollow and his shoulders were hunched, as if guarding his heart.