“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.
I nodded at first, stopped and brushed the sopping strands of hair from my face. Last time I’d mentioned I was getting it trimmed, Jack begged me not to, insisted the longer, the sexier. I’d told him in that case he was welcome to let his hair grow past his chest and deal with all the knots, the bird’s-nest bedhead and ultra-bad hair days, before instructing the stylist to lop off a good three inches. Jack had loved it all the same, but in that moment, standing with Sam, Stevens and Heron near the beach, I made a silent, desperate promise. If Jack reappeared here and now, I’d never cut my hair again. When Sam squeezed my arm, I saw them watching me, and he had to repeat the question.
“Does he usually swim alone?”
“Not always,” I said. “Sometimes I go with him.”
“Why not yesterday?” Stevens said.
“I told you.” I raised my voice this time, I couldn’t help it, and it had the same effect on Heron’s and Stevens’s eyebrows. I lowered my eyes, mumbled, “He was supposed to go for a quick swim before heading back to work.”
“To the place he got laid off from,” Heron said.
“Yes, but—”
Stevens jumped in. “You said Jake’s thirty-three?”
“Jack.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, fought hard to keep the anger inside because if I let it out, there was no telling what I might do, or if I’d get it back under control. They were wasting my time. Jack’s time.
“His name’s Jack Smith,” Sam said, his voice firm with more than a touch of authority, and I was grateful for his gravitas to counterbalance my near hysteria. “And Lily clearly stated he’s almost thirty-three. Shouldn’t you be taking this more seriously?”
“Sir, we are, I promise,” Detective Heron said before turning to me. “Have you called Jack’s friends?” The emphasis on the name wasn’t lost on anyone but she still shot her colleague an unmistakable get it right next time, you idiot look, which made him wither for no more than a split second.
“Of course I did,” I whispered.
“Miss Reid—”
“Lily.”
“Lily,” Heron repeated, her tone still even. “Could Jack have had car trouble and called someone to pick him up? A friend or family member, maybe? Perhaps he—”
“No. I told you. I called everyone. Besides...what about those?” I pointed to the keys and wallet in her hand, the items I’d given to her within moments of their arrival at the beach. “Anyway, Jack would’ve called me. He doesn’t have family here. His, well, ex-boss is away for the weekend somewhere, and as for other people...” I let the rest of the sentence die, didn’t want to admit Jack hadn’t any close friends in the area, had chosen not to develop those relationships since he’d arrived in town two years prior because he’d been let down by people too often before. Telling them would invite too many questions I couldn’t answer. Things I’d never pressed Jack about because I’d recognized his need to leave history behind, and because we were focusing on a future together, not our separate pasts.
The minutes ticked by, dragging us from Saturday morning to afternoon, and the rain had finally slowed to a steady trickle. At some point, more police vehicles arrived, and Jack’s truck had been searched. When Heron had played the increasingly desperate voice mails I’d left for him on his phone, I turned away, not wanting to hear the terror in my voice.
A while later the local press interviewed me, but I couldn’t remember what the immaculately made-up journalist had asked, or what I’d said. I felt like I’d gone numb from the inside out. The coast guard was alerted, something I became aware of through snippets of conversations overheard on the police radio, and well before Heron or Stevens filled us in. All this time, Sam stayed on the beach with me, dressed in his pajamas, listening, watching, hoping. I didn’t want to leave. If I went home it meant abandoning Jack, but Sam insisted there was nothing we could do, I needed to at least try to get some rest.
“You’ll be the first to know of any developments,” Heron assured me in her calm yet efficient manner, and so I’d
