On Tern, while searching for Jasper Sinclair, picturing the man’s unresponsive body galvanized me. Imagining him in physical peril sharpened my senses and turbocharged my legs. I couldn’t take this same approach with Trey, though, couldn’t bring myself to visualize a child left for dead in the brush. In the water. In the weeds.

What I did do was surrender to the ghastly thrill of the coming search. I urged my brain to fire up like a furnace. My heart thumped as I braced my palms against the wheel. It was all I could do to keep still.

The road unfurled before me, a russet landscape flitting past the windows of my speeding SUV, and before I knew it, I was back in A-Bay. I’d tried calling Tim via Bluetooth on the way, but got no answer. My efforts to contact McIntyre again had proved fruitless, too. There was no guarantee they had stayed at Boldt Castle. They’d need to interview people in the village, too, friends and family close to Trey, as well as search the shoreline. I was counting on meeting up with them on the mainland. No such luck. At the station I was told Jeremy Solomon and Don Bogle, the other two investigators from my team, had handled the interviews in town, and that Tim and Mac were still on Heart Island.

I’d ridden a wave of adrenaline back to the Thousand Islands, but without access to a boat, let alone the ability to drive one, I now found myself at a standstill. I wasn’t supposed to be working, so I couldn’t press Sol or Bogle to put my presence to good use. In the three weeks since my suspension, I hadn’t felt as cowed by my ineffectiveness as I did standing in the station parking lot now.

There was only one way I could think of to release my nervous energy while I waited to hear back from Tim and Mac.

Making a U-turn in the station parking lot, I hit the highway once more.

* * *

I came to karate later in life, picking it up in my midtwenties because I thought it would prove useful for work. As it turns out, I rarely need to deliver a crescent kick to a criminal’s face. By the time I arrive at the scene, the bad guys are usually long gone—but martial arts makes me more self-assured, and when I’m confident in my body’s ability to react, I’m better able to focus my mind. There’s solace in karate’s rules and the precision of its movements. I find the lack of chaos soothing.

My private class with Sensei Sam was on Sundays, but he taught all week long, so I hoped to join as a walk-in. Really, I’d take any class I could get.

Back at the studio, I repeated the same routine of watching my back as I pushed through the door. The foyer was usually quiet, but this afternoon electronic dance music pumped through the speakers. No sooner had I walked in than four students filed out of the studio, bowing to their sensei and dropping to one knee to untie their belts. The teens were the after-school crowd, sporting smiles and a post-workout flush. Again I thought of Trey. These contented kids would get to go home to their parents, who’d steal a touch or swift embrace as they recounted the story of the poor boy’s disappearance and warn their own children to be vigilant.