Chapter 13: Casting Off

Brynn's weekender was already in the trunk of her car.

I saw it when she popped the lid for her sunglasses, a navy bag, zipped, with an airline tag still looped on the handle.

The tag had September fourteenth printed on it.

She had packed for this trip before the gala.

Tobias drove home for a duffel and came back in forty minutes with a clenched jaw and nothing to say.

Finnegan did not hurry any of us.

He walked the Marigold's deck in his boots, touching each line, and checked the fuel and the water.

Then he screwed a small black camera onto a bracket by the compass and showed the three of us its red light.

"Cockpit and deck are on," he said. "The cabin is dark, always. That was the deal with the donors, and it's my deal with you."

"Whose deal?" Brynn said brightly.

"Everyone's. Mrs. Kemper, will you take the mizzen?"

"Samantha," I said. "And yes."

We motored out past the breakwater at ten, with the sun flat on the harbor.

My father's gold letters flaked on the stern behind us.

Finnegan had the tiller.

I had the mizzen sheet in my hands and nothing to think about but the rope.

It was the best ten minutes I'd had in a month.

Then the camera's light blinked, and Brynn stood up in the cockpit.

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