Archie put his jacket back on over the bulletproof vest and faced Flannigan and the two patrol cops.

Up close, in the light from the headlights, Archie could see the silhouette of fuzz on the blond officer’s upper lip. He was trying to grow a mustache.

“This is a hostage situation,” Archie said. “Protect the victims first. We can always catch the bad guy. We can’t bring someone back from the dead.”

The two officers nodded, their hair already wet.

“Okay,” Archie said. “Follow my lead.”

He leapt, attempting to clear the wide swath of water running along the curbside, but landed ankle-deep and had to take another stride to get to the sidewalk.

Flannigan was next to him, the patrol cops a few steps behind. The trees spit rain at them from their wet, windblown branches.

Archie didn’t draw his gun. He didn’t want the others to. This was a public place, and anyone could appear at any moment. Downtown had been evacuated, but that didn’t mean that people weren’t dense enough to ignore the warnings.

The wet sidewalk sucked at his suede shoes as Archie walked and the cold water squished into his socks.

The name on the Aquarium World receipt was Elroy Carey.

It had been easy to bring up his driver’s license photo once they had a name and address. He was forty-three years old, with a soft, unlined face, rounded shoulders, and eyebrows lifted in surprise. His brown hair was parted on the side. He looked like an overgrown kid.

Carey had gotten his Oregon driver’s license three years ago, and registered a Dodge sedan at the same time. Before that, he’d lived in Everett, Washington, just a couple of hours by car from where Patrick Lifton had disappeared.

Were Archie’s feet somehow getting even wetter?

They had turned onto a side street and were headed down to the parkway. The water on the sidewalk was definitely deeper here. It splashed up Archie’s pant leg as he walked. Standing water. Not wet pavement. Not a puddle. Not storm drain backup. This was a cold inky blanket of water that lapped against the concrete. Archie could see the edge of it slowly creeping up the length of the street.

This water had a current.

Under the noise of the helicopters, under the splatter of the rain, Archie could make out a faint new sound—like a waterfall or a filling bathtub.

Flannigan heard it, too. “What’s that?” he asked.

“The water,” Archie said.

Flannigan squinted up at the starless sky.

“It’s not the rain,” Archie said.

It had started.

Downtown was flooding.

On cue, Flannigan’s walkie-talkie crackled to life. “We’ve got a report of a breach in the seawall,” dispatch reported.