Where would he have gone? He never wanted anything more than he had—that was his way. He’d never wanted fancy. Even when he could afford it, he didn’t want it. There was the time Colleen yearned for an expensive prom dress. The rest of the schoolgirls were sharing photos of their chosen gowns, making sure no one bought a duplicate—sequins and feathers; halters and taffeta. Dad had told Colleen, “Mother will sew you a beautiful dress. Who needs to cover up the real beauty of who you are, my Lena? No fancy dress can make a girl beautiful inside.” And in the end, it was a simple satin shift with thin straps that looked fragile enough to break. It was a gown that other girls wanted and believed came from a fancy-pants store in Atlanta, which was what Colleen had told them.

“See?” Dad had said. “One doesn’t need more to be more.”

He hadn’t taken off in the boat for something more or better. That wasn’t the reason. So why had he gone? To prove that he could still navigate? Had his delirium put him in a dream? Was he looking for something?

She spun around to Beckett and placed her hand on his shoulder. “He’s not in the marsh anymore. He’s not in the river. He went to the open water.”

Beckett pulled back on the throttle. “Why do you think that?”

“The open water, where this ocean leads to another. He talked about it; one of the last things he told me was that we were connected to that place by water, to the place where I was born by another bay. The place where Colleen, the first Colleen, died. And when I interviewed Bob Macken, he told me that the only time Dad went into the sea with his little boat was after Mother died. He went there for solace. Maybe he’s gone there again.”

Beckett pulled his phone from the storage compartment over his head and dialed quickly. “The police,” he said to me before speaking into the phone. “This is Beckett and I’m with Colleen Donohue—I believe we need to quit looking in the river and head to the open water.”

Something was said on the other side of the line and Beckett answered, “Yes, I’m with his daughter.”

Beckett hung up without another word and throttled forward again, heading toward the sea.

Colleen lifted her face to the wind, tasting the Lowcountry air she loved so very much. Someone could have put her in this boat with a blindfold and she would know where she was. The fetid pluff mud, the salt-soaked air and stinging aroma of rich sea life would tell her. This was her dad’s lifeblood and he’d headed out into it when he hadn’t known what else to do.