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“You’re trying to catch the 8:20?” the woman says after Emma blurts out her request. “You’re cutting it awfully close.”
“Please, it’s an emergency.”
“Okay, ten minutes.”
“I’ll be at the end of the driveway.”
Exhaling, Emma tucks herself behind a tree and peers through the dusky light back at Tom’s office outbuilding. The lamp is still on and there’s no sign of movement in the main house, meaning he’s probably still in the office and hasn’t discovered she’s missing.
The wait for the taxi is hell. She’ll make it, she tells herself, and then a second later, she despairs, sure she won’t. Finally, two minutes later than promised, Emma hears a car roar up the hill. She steps out of the driveway and waves, her heart beating hard. Tom might be looking up, she thinks, wondering who’s headed in his general direction. She wrenches open the back door and nearly hurls herself inside with her bags.
She’s expecting a weather, wizened driver, but it’s a blond surfer type, early thirties, his skin already the shade of a walnut and flecks of it peeling off his nose.
“The ferry, huh?” he says, turning the car around in the driveway.
“Yes, please.” She twists around, making sure through the rear window that Tom hasn’t stepped outside of his office, curious, but there’s no sign of him anywhere.
The driver’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror and take her in.
“You’re supposed to bearrivinghere Friday night, not leaving.”
“Right. I just have to get the ferry, okay?”
He gets a move on at least, spraying stones as they descend the hill. She checks her watch every fifteen seconds. They’re on the shore road now and finally she spots the white-and-blue ferry boat up ahead, still moored at the dock and a few people bunched near the ticket window. She actually has time to spare. She pays the driver, shouts a thank-you, and bolts toward the gangplank, flashing the ticket on her phone.
Once on board, Emma finally exhales. After taking a second to untangle the straps of her purse and duffel bag thattwisted together on her frantic race here, she glances around. The western sky has brushstrokes of filmy pink and lavender, lingering traces of the sunset. Below her the waves lap gently against the hull of the boat, and from somewhere she picks up the coconut-tinged scent of suntan lotion. She can’t believe that only hours ago she stood on a deck just like this one, thrilled to be getting away for the weekend with Tom. Now she’s fleeing from him, her life totally unraveled.
Better to sit inside this time, Emma decides. Not only will she be warmer that way, but if Tom comes into town looking for her, she won’t be conspicuous. She climbs to the second deck and locates a seat in the enclosed area. There’s only a small crowd onboard tonight, mostly day-trippers returning home, she guesses.
From her perch inside she scans the marina and the tiny town of New Shoreham just beyond. Things are as bustling as expected for a Friday night—people strolling around the marina and along the main street of the tiny town, some spilling out of boutiques with shopping bags or gathered with friends out in front of the bars and ice cream shops. The women are all in shorts or flirty summer dresses, the men in khaki pants or shorts and weathered T-shirts. There’s absolutely no sign of Tom, she’s relieved to see.
But a short distance away one man catches her eye. He’s striding down a weathered dock where the private boats pull up, leading a bicycle on foot and, in sharp contrast to everyone else, wearing black jeans and a black sweatshirt with the hood up over his head. He steps off the dock and starts across the ferry parking lot.
As he pauses beneath one of the outdoor lights and leans the bike against a post, Emma realizes she’s looking at something completely familiar: the man’s build, his gait, the stick-straight posture.
And in one brief, terrifying moment, she puts it together. The man standing in the marina parking lot is Derrick Rand. The husband she buried twenty-seven months ago.
