Archie peered into the store and listened. But if there was something to be heard above the sound of the choppers and the car alarm and the roaring water, Archie couldn’t make it out.

“Elroy?” Archie yelled. “This is the police. The river has breached the seawall. This area is flooding right now. I need you to give me the woman and the boy, so we can get you out of there.”

He directed his flashlight’s beam into the store. The water was bleeding in, finding every means of entry. It covered the store’s floor, reflecting the blue gleam of the aquariums.

Archie drew his gun and stepped over the knives of glass that still held in the doorframe.

The car alarm swelled in volume as Archie turned and looked past Flannigan to see the car in question float by, honking madly, parking lights flashing, half submerged in the water. Then the alarm stopped, the lights extinguished, and the car was gone in the darkness.

He took a step and raised his weapon.

“Susan?” he called.

Aquariums lined every wall, marine worlds encased in blocks of glass. They were fitted with black lights to highlight the neon of the colorful fish and exotic coral. Bright pink rocks. Fish of every size and color, feathery, plump, tiny, long. The tanks bubbled and gurgled. If Archie never saw an aquarium again, it would be too soon.

He took another few steps inside.

“You like fish, Elroy?” he called. “I like fish.” He tried to think of names of fish, and could only come up with the ones he liked to eat. “Salmon. Halibut. Black cod. Filet o’.”

“I like Leopard Wrasse African Blue Stars,” a small voice said.

Archie swung his flashlight in the direction of the voice, and saw Patrick Lifton sitting cross-legged on an orange molded plastic chair in front of a large tank of small red fish. He was wearing dark rain pants and a dark raincoat, but the hood was down. He had something in his lap.

A plastic bucket.

The hairs on the back of Archie’s neck bristled.

The kid appeared to be alone. Out of the corner of his eye, Archie saw Flannigan duck down an aisle to get at the kid from the other side.

“What do you have there, kiddo?” Archie said in as calm a voice as he could manage.

Patrick’s eyes flicked past Archie to a point somewhere behind him. “He wanted another one,” Patrick said.

Archie snapped his flashlight around, tracking the gun after it. But he saw only more fish. They jerked around in their tanks like anxious spectators. “Where is he?” Archie asked Patrick.

“I know you,” Patrick said.

“I’m Archie,” Archie said. “We met in the river.”

The kid blinked in the light, but his eyes didn’t waver. He looked directly at Archie. His eyes were a startling dark green, with a brown rim around the irises.