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.

LeFleur had been perplexed enough by the mere existence of this notebook—and all the questions it raised about the Galaxy sinking—but now he felt compelled to learn the passengers’ reaction to this self-proclaimed deity. LeFleur had a long list of issues he would raise with God, should he ever have such an encounter. He doubted God would like them.

He thought about Rom. He’d told him to come by the office around noon. The guy doesn’t even have a cell phone. As he pushed the station door open, two figures quickly rose to their feet. One was a rather large man in a navy suit and open-collared shirt. The other LeFleur recognized immediately. His boss. Leonard Sprague. The commissioner.

“Jarty, we need to talk,” Sprague said.

LeFleur swallowed hard. “My office?” he said. He chided himself for sounding defensive.

Sprague was a puffy older man, bald and bearded. He’d had the job for over a decade. Normally he and LeFleur met at headquarters, every couple of months. This was the first time he had come to LeFleur’s place.

“Am I to understand you found a raft from the Galaxy?” he began.

LeFleur nodded. “I was just writing up my report—”

“Where?” the other man interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“Where did you find the raft?”

LeFleur forced a grin. “Sorry, I didn’t get your name—”

“Where?” the man snapped.

“Tell him, Jarty.”

“North shore,” LeFleur said. “Marguerita Bay.”

“Is it still there?”

“Yeah. I had the locals—”

But the man popped up and was heading to the door. “Let’s go,” he barked over his shoulder.

LeFleur turned to Sprague. “What the hell is going on?” he whispered. “Who is this guy?”

“He works for Jason Lambert,” Sprague said. He rubbed his thumb against his fingers. Money.

Seven

News

ANCHOR: Tonight, Tyler Brewer completes his tribute series on the victims of the Galaxy yacht with a profile of a famous name in swimming who, tragically, was lost to the sea.

REPORTER: Thank you, Jim. Geri Reede was most at home in the water. From the age of three, she was swimming at a local pool in Mission Viejo, California. Before she was ten, she was competing in national events. A self-described “pool rat” and the daughter of a swim-instructor mother and an oceanographer father, Geri qualified for the US Olympic team when she was nineteen. She went to the Games in Sydney and won a gold medal in the breaststroke and two silvers in the relay events. She made the team again four years later and captured a silver medal in Athens before retiring from the sport and spending a year as a global ambassador for world hunger.