Hallie nodded. “I’m an awful person.” These words were said with such uncommon force that Colleen backed away, taking steps from her sister.

“No, you aren’t. We’re all scared to death.” Shane exhaled and took two steps toward the dock before turning back to them both. “We will find him. He knows what to do. We will find him.”

But they didn’t find him. Hours passed and no one discovered him in a creek or estuary or sandbar. Harry from next door. His best friend from the marina who knew his favorite fishing holes. His buddy from the pub who lollygagged with him on Saturday mornings through the tidal creeks pulling crab traps out of the river. The Coast Guard. The neighbors.

Time stretched and collapsed. Minutes became hours. Hours were seconds. The sun moved across the sky and one sentence was repeated over and over by them all. “We’ll find him.”

By midafternoon, Beckett arrived in a small motorboat, coming in too fast and slamming into the dock before calling out Colleen’s name. She ran to him. “Get in,” he said.

Yes. At least she could be out on the same waters as her dad, looking instead of waiting. She would be doing something aside from walking into the house, walking out, walking to the water and then to the grass. She hadn’t had a single thing to eat. Egg whites had dried like sticky glue to the bottoms of her bare feet. Her thoughts flew everywhere—had her dad taken a thermos of water with him? A hat? Was he keeping out of the direct and glaring sun on this cloudless day?

“Your wrist.” Beckett lifted her hand gently to look at the black-and-blueness of her hand and arm. “What happened?”

“I fell.” Colleen gently pulled her hand away and cradled it as she settled onto the cushioned seat at the back of the boat. “Go!”

Beckett revved the motor. It was high tide, as it had been when Gavin left in the middle of the night. A cycle had already passed: a tide out and a tide in. “If he’s out here, we’ll find him,” Beckett hollered over the wind and the water slapping the sides of the fast-moving boat.

The marsh passed by, the islands of green and waving grass, the maze of waterways, blue and gray and winding, isolating the islands from one another, keeping them apart even as they were bound together below the water. Each narrow, oyster-edged waterway led to another. Many people became lost in these waters, as the landmarks were few once you were in the thick of the estuaries. But Dad knew every landmark, every star and horizon view that would guide him home.

Home.

It was his mantra and his guiding light.