Chapter One You You would think that with the police the FBI and the Coast Guard all in the same building nobody would be able to quietly step out a side door and disappear Chris Kingsolver said For once he wasn’t talking about Dr McRae who was sitting stoically on Detective Hermann’s desk and had been since before Chris and Carrie had arrived at the station In the interest of not having everyone’s stories get mixed up Agent Grey had very firmly placed the Kingsolvers at one desk and the McRaes at another and ordered them not to talk to one another So Chris wasn’t absolutely certain that 5
Dr McRae wasn’t doing anything suspicious But he really meant Robin Redd Somewhere between the Coast Guard meeting the Meandering Manatee at the mouth of the harbor and Chris and Carrie being escorted into the police station by a federal agent who had her hand glued to the gun on her hip Robin Redd had managed to disappear It’s not disappearing exactly Bethy sighed I think at least He said Oh my goodness the Grey Cove shots and made a beeline for the rental car place and to be honest he really has to be at Grey Cove or we won’t be able to shoot there and I’m not sure we’d get anything coherent out of him anyway so Detective Hermann looked like he wanted to argue but had met Redd before and so couldn’t really If we could just get a clear story out of each of you that would be very helpful he said instead looking from Carrie to Chris to Bethy Chris and Carrie shared a worried look They had both spent several weeks trying to keep different 6
things secret from different people had told several different variations of what was essentially a lie and if not quite a lie a very misleading statement and were now not entirely sure what they had told to whom and when Chris felt very much like that time he had tripped over a rubber bouncy ball while carrying a fully loaded tray of tea cups in the split second just before all of the cups hit the floor and shattered when he saw what was about to happen but couldn’t do anything to stop it Well he said You see Carrie started I have absolutely no idea what’s going on Bethy admitted One desk over Dr McRae looked like he would rather be anywhere but there and Maddison looked as though she’d had a minor revelation revelation Detective Hermann looked from one desk to the other and sighed Well this is going to be a loooong night he said 7
