And now, for the third night in a row, he was dreaming of her again: they held hands in the snow and went swimming in a frozen cove, through a hole in the ice. The water was hot, and they held each other, kissing. . . .

Patrick moaned and woke himself up. He had thrashed the covers off his bunk. His chest and legs were soaking wet, his heart beating out of his chest. Swinging his legs out, he sat at the edge of his bunk, his head in his hands. Flora, his big black Lab, lay on her dog bed, watching him with huge eyes.

“Do you know what dreams mean?” he asked her.

She just thumped her tail.

The night was warm and still. He grabbed a bottle of water, headed up on deck. The air was cooler up here. He sat in the cockpit in his boxer shorts, letting the breeze evaporate the sweat from his body. The dream was so vivid, even now—he looked around, almost surprised to be in this protected Connecticut boatyard instead of lost in the northern wilds with Marisa.

He drank water, leaning his head back to look up at the sky. The stars were so bold, pinpoints of fire in the black night. Patrick grounded himself by finding the North Star. There it was, Polaris. He wondered whether he could follow it straight to Marisa. All he would have to do was cast off his lines—his boat was seaworthy enough to make the trip.

Sighing, he went back down to his bunk and waited for sleep to come again. His grandmother used to tell him stories about an angel who flew over the world at night, spreading her white wings to protect everyone, hold everyone together, bring the lost ones home. She'd point at the Milky Way, tell him it was the angel's shadow. Patrick hoped that she could bring Sam and Marisa together again.

“That's bullshit,” he said out loud when he woke up the next morning. Maybe angels worked for grandmothers, but cops knew that the only way to get something done was to make it happen.

Picking up the phone, he got the number for Johns Hopkins, asked to be connected to Global Care.

“Hi,” he said to the woman who answered the phone. “My name is Patrick Murphy.”

“Yes?”

“I'm calling in regard to a nurse who is with your group in Peru. I need to get hold of her.”

“Is this a family emergency?”

“No, no it's not,” he said, frowning. He paused. This person didn't sound as if she'd be impressed by the phrase “retired detective.” But he thought of Marisa and Jessica, and knew he had to go for it. “Listen, I'm a detective with the Connecticut State Police.”

“Oh—what happened?”

“The woman I'm looking for is not in any trouble,” he said quickly, mindful of what Marisa had said about Sam's work. “I'm trying to contact her because—”