Denise squeals one more time, and then the two of them step out of the water, and Amy wraps Denise in a thick blue towel, rubs herself down with another blue towel, then drops the towel and runs up to Tom, wearing a conservative one-piece dark-red bathing suit. He has a brief memory of seeing her wearing that skimpy bikini, her eyes swollen and red, her feet bleeding, her hands shaking.

Amy comes up to him and suddenly sits in his lap. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he says, putting his arms around her. With her wet bathing suit she has instantly dampened his shorts and T-shirt, but he won’t say a word about it.

He hugs her and he whispers, “Amy, I…I’m sorry. I betrayed you, I put Denise in harm’s way, and—”

Amy gently pulls his head into her side, and says in reply, “Tom, I betrayed you, too.”

When I come out of the lake, I see Tom’s sad face and decide it’s time to settle things. I plop myself in his lap and for the tenth or twentieth time, he apologizes to me, and I think I surprise him when I apologize in return.

He pulls his head away, looks up at me. “Apologize? For betraying? What do you mean?”

I stroke his hair. “When we first got married, you asked me never to dig into your work or your computer files. I did that. I had to do that…but I broke a promise. I’m sorry.”

His eyes well up. “Amy…compared to what I did, what lies I told, that’s nothing. I…was desperate for a book deal. I paid money for a dark-web search. I never asked for a specific search for you or your unit. The facts I learned…they just came up…and I followed them.”

I continue lightly stroking his hair, and he says, “If I knew what would happen…”

I lower my hand, put a finger to his lips. “Shhh. We’re done. I forgive you.”

“I forgive you,” he says, voice shaky.

“Good,” I say. A helicopter slowly flies over the lake, and it fills me with happiness, knowing there’s a sniper aboard, keeping an eye on the lake and the surrounding cottages. Out in the woods and on the rural roads and dirt trails, armed US marshals are keeping watch over me and my family.

And for the future? The Army is gone for me, but when I left that conference room, the deeply tanned man who had kept Major Wenner in place slipped me a plain white business card with a Virginia phone number.

“I like your style,” the tanned man said. “Give me a call, anytime.”

I hug Tom one more time, look at my little girl peacefully playing in the lake sand, and I think of Rosaria, dying back there in Florida, saving me, saving my family.