“Where do you want to look?” Daniel asked as they walked up the dock, back toward land.

“I think we need to check the shore.” She swallowed hard, realizing what she was suggesting. “She may have washed up…”

“Is there a certain part that she likes more?” Daniel asked. “Maybe somewhere she would have gone to rest if she got too tired for the ride home?”

“I don’t know.” Harper shook her head and shrugged. “I thought she might’ve gone to your boat, since she trusts you. But … I don’t know. I have no idea what she could’ve been doing out all night on the water.

“Well, I do have ideas.” She sniffled and rubbed her forehead. “The only things I can think of aren’t pretty, though. She has no good reason to be out here. Gemma would only stay if something bad happened or if somebody hurt her.”

“Hey.” Daniel touched her arm, causing Harper to look up at him. “We’ll find her, okay? Just think about places she would go if everything was all right. What does Gemma do out here? Where does she go?”

“I don’t know!” Harper repeated, exasperated and terrified. She looked away from him and out at the bay, trying to think. “She loves coming out here to swim at night. She likes to go out past that rock over there.”

She pointed to a huge rock in the water on the other side of the bay. Harper and Gemma had had a few races to that rock, with Gemma always coming out the winner.

“She likes the other side of the bay more?” Daniel asked.

“Kind of,” Harper admitted. “Tourists and boats don’t go out there because of all the rocks, and she likes how deserted it is.”

“So if she was going to take a break, it would be over there.”

“Yes!” She nodded excitedly, realizing what that meant. “When she drives, she parks over there, by the cypress trees.”

It would be faster to drive over there than to walk, so Harper ran back out to her car, with Daniel close behind. To get around the bay, Harper drove as fast as she could, which meant running a few stop signs and cutting across the grass.

Once she got to the beach, she was grateful that Daniel had rescued her flip-flop. The shore was covered in sharp rocks, and it would’ve been nearly impossible to navigate barefoot. Or at least it would’ve been for her. Harper knew the rocks would not have intimidated Gemma.

She made it out to the edge of the shore, past the trees, so she could have a clear view of the coastline all the way down to the cove. Daniel came up behind her and pointed to a blob of black a ways down.

“What’s that?” he asked, but Harper didn’t wait to answer.

She went so fast she tripped on the rocks a few times and fell once, tearing open her knee. Daniel followed her as quickly as he could, but he moved at a more cautious pace.