Chapter 20: The Call She Didn't Make

Dane drove the duty sedan the way he used to fly, with every muscle awake and nothing else in his head.

Signe sat beside him with her hand on the dash and her phone in her lap, and she said nothing until the Old Harbor lot.

"Left," she said. "The tide's over the first ramp. Take the service road."

He took it.

He had not asked her how she knew.

He had stopped needing to ask.

Brooke's gray hatchback sat at the end of the pier with its driver's door hanging open.

The harbormaster stood at the rail in a yellow slicker, pointing, and Dane read his mouth before he could hear him.

"She's on the float."

The float was the floating dock at the end of the basin, a long gray platform on chains.

Brooke stood at its far edge in her black coat, with her back to the pier and her shoes in her hand.

The surge had snapped two of the chains.

The float swung slowly out on the others, away from the pilings, with the gap of black water widening by the minute.

"The calls," Signe said beside him. "She made every one from there."

"I know."

"She's not calling now."

"No," Dane said, and that was what frightened him.

All those months, every drunk, tearful call had carried a request in it, and he had come every time.

Now she had asked for nothing.

He felt in his jacket for the blue envelope, and it was there, soft at the edges.

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