We waited for the stranger to respond, but he just looked at us, doe-eyed. Lambert said, “He’s probably in shock.” Nevin yelled, “HOW LONG WERE YOU IN THE WATER?” perhaps thinking a raised voice would snap him to his senses. When he didn’t answer, Nina touched his shoulder and said, “Well, thank the Lord we found you.”

Which is when the man finally spoke.

“I am the Lord,” he whispered.

Land

The inspector put out his cigarette. His chair creaked. It was already hot on this Montserrat morning, and his starched white shirt stuck to his sweaty back. His temples were throbbing from a hangover headache. He gazed at the thin, bearded man who’d been waiting for him when he arrived at the police station.

“Let’s start again,” the inspector said.

It was Sunday. He had been in bed when the call came. A man is here. He says he found a raft from that American yacht that blew up. The inspector mumbled a curse. His wife, Patrice, groaned and rolled over on her pillow.

“What time did you get home last night?” she mumbled.

“Late.”

“How late?”

He dressed without answering her, made instant coffee, poured it into a Styrofoam cup, and kicked the door frame as he left the house, banging his big toe. It still hurt.

“My name is Jarty LeFleur,” he said now, sizing up the man across the desk. “I am the chief inspector for the island. And your name is . . .”

“Rom, Inspector.”

“Do you have a last name, Rom?”

“Yes, Inspector.”

LeFleur sighed. “What is it?”

“Rosh, Inspector.”

LeFleur wrote it down, then lit another cigarette. He rubbed his head. He needed aspirin.

“So you found a raft, Rom?”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“Where?”

“Marguerita Bay.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

LeFleur looked up to see the man staring at a desk photo of LeFleur and his wife swinging their young daughter over a beach towel.

“Is that your family?” Rom asked.

“Don’t look at that,” LeFleur snapped. “Look at me. This raft. How did you know it was from the Galaxy?”

“It’s written on the inside.”

“And you just found it, washed up on the beach?”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“Nobody with it?”

“No, Inspector.”

LeFleur was sweating. He moved the desk fan closer. The story was plausible. All kinds of things washed up on the north shore. Suitcases, parachutes, drugs, fish-aggregating contraptions that swept into the currents and floated across the North Atlantic.

Nothing was too strange to roll in with the tide. But a raft from the Galaxy? That would be a major event. The huge luxury yacht had sunk last year, fifty miles from Cape Verde off the West African coast. It made news around the world, mostly because of all the rich and famous people who’d been on board. None of them were found.