Instead of being pleased with how much in control Gustave had been, it began to bother her. When she replayed the conversation in her mind, she hated that Gustave had sounded so cold and detached, as if she had been giving him a report on one of his patients and not on his wife. It made her suddenly wonder if the problems spawned by the infertility treatments were such that Gustave was relieved to some extent by Wendy’s untimely death.

Rethinking Gustave’s conversation made Marissa do the same with Robert’s and with a similar result. The idea that Robert wouldn’t volunteer to come instantly to Australia, knowing what kind of trauma she’d experienced, was unforgivable. Taxes! What an absurd excuse. After all that had happened, she would have hoped that he would make their marriage a priority.

Marissa got up from the bed and walked to the window. The ocean glistened in the late afternoon sunlight. It was hard to believe that Wendy had met such a brutal fate in so serene a milieu. She wondered what her own fate would have been had nausea and fatigue not forced her back to the boat. Maybe she’d be dead as well. Maybe that had been the idea: to get rid of them both.

Marissa’s throat went dry. She swallowed hard. She was thinking dangerous thoughts, maybe even crazy ones. Her mind went back to the vicious Chinese security guards at the Women’s Clinic. Could they possibly be related to the sinister Chinese aboard the Oz? Marissa wondered if there was any connection between the Women’s Clinic in the States and the FCA in Australia.

Marissa went out onto her balcony. She sank into the chaise lounge. That Wendy died for nothing hit her hard. How could she just let it go and return to Boston? Her thoughts drifted to the elusive Tristan Williams. Why would a trained pathologist make up the ridiculous data that could easily be proven false, all for the questionable benefit of publishing an article? It just didn’t fit.