“And your boyfriend swims here regularly?” This came from the male policeman, who’d introduced himself as Officer Stevens before we’d given them the facts as swiftly and succinctly as possible. Stevens was about my age, maybe a year or two older, with four moles on his neck, arranged in a perfect square as if it were a connect-the-dots game for toddlers. As he talked, I caught the sweet scent of maple syrup. It made me think of pancakes, and how Jack and I were supposed to be at my apartment, making love again before lunch, or snuggled up watching Netflix. Where was he? Where was he? I took a breath, and another, then a third, fast and shallow, my head spinning.

“Lily?” Sam put a hand on my shoulder. “Does he swim here often?”

“Yes,” I whispered, repeating the word twice to make sure I’d said it out loud. I exhaled, trying to keep the tremble from my voice. It didn’t work. “H-he swims most days. Here, and other beaches. It...it depends.”

The woman, who’d told us she was Detective Heron, and whose tone and handshake had already asserted she was senior to her colleague in rank, raised an eyebrow. “On what?”

“On the day. How busy the beach is. He likes swimming in peace. He says it lets him leave anything bad behind.” I shrugged, looked at my sand-covered sneakers, mumbled, “He says the water makes all his worries sink to the bottom of the ocean.”

“Would you say he has a lot of worries?” Heron said gently.

“No. Not at all.” Anger surged at the question. What was she doing, trying to twist my words around and imply something that wasn’t there? They had to call for backup. Start looking for Jack, now, not ask me a bunch of stupid questions. I wanted to say all of this, shout at them as loud as I could, but my history with cops made me stay quiet, tongue-tied.

Stevens rubbed his goatee with his thumb, and I noticed a shiny gold wedding ring on his finger. I wondered if his spouse had ever gone missing. If he or she had disappeared the way Jack had. Did Stevens understand what was happening any more than I did?

“So, he usually swims alone?” he said.