“This is it? Taking your own advice to travel light?”

“Yup.” She grinned at his reference to her article.

“Colleen.” Shane rubbed the stubble on his face. “You are going to be here for a while. This isn’t a quick in-and-out. Not this time. I know you can work anywhere—no excuses.”

“I know, Shane.” She slipped her arm through his.

Shane raised his eyebrows in question. He wasn’t used to her being so agreeable.

Colleen felt the cold fingers of panic tickle beneath her throat. Her worst fear escaped in a quiet voice. “Is he . . . dying or something and you’re not telling me?”

“No!”

“Okay.”

Once in Shane’s banged-up navy blue Jeep, Colleen settled into the seat and rolled down the passenger-side window, letting in a blast of hot, humid air. “Dang,” she said. “And I thought New York was miserable in August. Now I remember why I’ve never come back in summertime.”

“Sorry Dad’s crisis didn’t coordinate with your schedule.”

Colleen studied her brother’s profile. “Are you angry?”

“No,” he said quietly as he maneuvered the Jeep out of the parking deck. “I’m sorry. It’s just scary and I’ve needed my big sister.”

“I’m here,” Colleen said and reached to pat his shoulder. “I’m here. Now tell me everything.”

While Shane drove the thirty minutes to Watersend, through miles of green marshland set against gray-blue estuaries, and under Spanish moss dangling from live oaks, Colleen tried not to think about the day she’d driven away from this beloved place. She turned away from the scenery to her brother, who spoke.

“It began a few months ago. You know I’ve been living above the pub for a while now, so sometimes I don’t go to the old house for weeks. One afternoon, a rare free one, I decided to take out our old johnboat. At the house I found three weeks’ worth of unopened mail and a burner on the stove that had been left on for God knows how long. After that, things started to make sense—now he forgets names, repeats questions, wears the same outfit for days in a row, and more.”

“Oh, Shane.” Colleen set her hand against her heart. “What if that burner had caught something . . .”

“Don’t even play the what-if game right now, Colleen. It’s too terrible.” Shane turned left to drive over the Savannah bridge, a sailboat of a structure winging its way over the moving waters of the Savannah River, dividing Georgia from South Carolina. Below on the right were the spires of the grand dame city and to the left the smoke-chugging port of Savannah. Colleen held her breath as they crossed—an old childhood habit from when Shane had told her that ghosts could get them if they took a breath while crossing a river.

“Welcome home,” he said as they passed the wooden sign declaring they’d entered South Carolina.