Beckett throttled back and the boat came to idle, bobbing in the water as he walked to the front of the little Boston Whaler and took Colleen in his arms. “I don’t know where to go. Tell me where he’d go. Is there a fishing hole? A quadrant?”

She shook her head against his chest. “No. He never left the river with me. He rarely left the bay or the marsh. All of his favorite spots were there. He liked to know the ocean was here, but he didn’t take that tiny boat into it. Only once as far as I know.”

“He would have run out of gas by now,” Beckett said.

“Then follow the current.” Colleen pointed east. “Follow that.”

“Okay. Okay.” Beckett let her go and stared toward the horizon, his eyes scanning just as Colleen’s were.

“He liked the beach only once every year or so. He always preferred . . .” Her voice skipped over the next words like a rock skimming on top of the water in jumps and dips. “The safety of the river and bay.”

“But not now.”

“No.” She turned to him and knew the wetness on her face was not the splash of ocean water. “We must have set something loose in him. This is our fault. We asked him all those questions and made him talk about the past, something he had kept safe in his own way, inside his own mind, and lived in his own secrecy. We should have left well enough alone. We unraveled something wound tight and, in his confusion, in his dementia, he went off looking for it.”

“This is not in any way whatsoever your fault.”

“It’s my fault in more ways than one, Beckett.” She looked toward the water, willing her eyes to see her dad’s boat, his gray hair set against the blue water. “I heard someone get up last night and I should have gotten out of bed to check. But instead I rolled over, all happy and satisfied because I thought it was Hallie. I thought Hallie was going outside to look at the stars like she does when she’s upset. I was wrong. So deadly wrong.”

“How could you have known?”

“I could have checked. Taken five seconds to get my ass out of bed. I didn’t think . . .”

“Stop.”

“Go!” she said. “Keep going. He’s out here somewhere. I know it.”

•   •   •

When day began to fade from the sky and evening crept near, Beckett idled the boat and took her in his arms. “The day is almost over and I don’t have lights on this little boat. It wasn’t built to be this far out. There are professionals out here—we need to go back in.”