Still...doubts tried to wriggle their way in through the cracks of my mind, nibbling and distorting what I knew to be true. Jack hadn’t shared much about his past. As I’d informed the police, his parents had died, and he had no siblings, only a few distant family members in England he never saw or stayed in touch with after moving to the US as a teenager. What if only part, or none, of that was true? No. I wouldn’t doubt the man I loved, and with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. The man who’d said he had the same feelings for me.

The beep of Heron’s phone ripped me out of the jumble of thoughts that had turned themselves into a minefield, making me incapable of taking a single step without the risk of blowing what I believed to be the truth wide open. She exhaled slowly, and said, “There’s a hole in the hoodie. Left pocket. About half an inch.”

Before I could process the information, collapse or let out a scream, Stevens walked back in with a dark look on his face. “Another round of storms is coming in, worse than the first. The coast guard has to suspend—”

“But Jack’s still out there,” I said, finding my voice. “They can’t stop looking.”

“The search will resume as soon as it’s safe to go back out,” Heron said, getting up and walking over, her palms facing me in a calm down gesture that did nothing to settle the crescendo of panic. “I promise you, they’ll start looking as quickly as they can.”

I closed my eyes again, tears spilling over my cheeks as my new reality set in. With Jack missing since last night, come tomorrow there’d be no more talk about a rescue mission.

It would be a recovery operation.

5

THE MAN FROM THE BEACH

A little while after the trailer had set off, I’d gone back to the wardrobe and searched through the bottom, where I located a pair of socks and running shoes. The sneakers were two sizes too big, but I pulled them on anyway, wincing when the insoles pressed against my shredded feet. As I closed the door a T-shirt caught my eye. It had the words The White Stripes on it, along with a picture of a guy in a top hat, and a woman with long brown hair, wearing a red dress. Snippets of a music video went through my mind. Images of red, black and white triangles. A woman... M...something. M... Yes, that was it, Meg.