Walt Jenkins sat at the corner of the bar, shaded by fronds of a palm tree, and stared out at the ocean. A Hampden Estates rum rested on the bar in front of him, the slow-melting ice mellowing the 120-proof spirit. Still reeling from his trip to New York, where he came face to face with the woman he loved, Walt hadn’t been shy over the last few days about his admiration for single-batch Jamaican rum. He didn’t smoke pot, as so many of his friends here on the island did, and he had never ingested a pill stronger than ibuprofen. Rum was his cure-all antidote to anything life threw at him. He drank it in good times and bad, and it affected him differently in each circumstance. This time around, however, despite his best efforts, the rum was not providing its usual soothing balm.

Meghan Cobb remained on his mind. Despite the fact that he still loved her, Walt knew he couldn’t be around her for the simple fact that some part of him hated her, too. He took a sip of the Hampden Estate, stared out at the ocean, and cursed the universe like he always did in the days following his return from New York. Then he allowed his mind to drift back to the day he met her.

In his forties, twice divorced and with no kids, Walt Jenkins had stopped looking for the perfect life to suddenly appear before him. He was more than a decade into his FBI career, content with his status in the world, and approaching the middle of his life and carrying the normal regrets of a man who had never had children and now found himself mostly alone. These were his thoughts as he drove through the Adirondack Mountains. He had tacked a couple of vacation days onto either side of the long Fourth of July weekend, rented a cabin in the hills, and had been enjoying a few days of quiet isolation. He was headed into town to pick up a steak and replenish his beer when he saw the SUV on the shoulder. An obvious tilt to the passenger side suggested a flat tire. Although Walt had been an FBI agent far longer than he was ever a patrolman, his inner psyche would forever carry a sense of obligation when he saw a disabled vehicle.

The SUV had pulled onto the shoulder but was perilously parked just beyond a bend in the road where reckless drivers might not see it as they screamed around the corner. Walt pulled over and kept a good distance between the two cars so that his was visible to passing traffic. He turned on his hazards, climbed from behind the wheel, and walked toward the SUV, making sure to offer a wide berth. The last thing he wanted was to frighten the woman behind the wheel, who was stranded and alone on an isolated mountain road.