Reverend Mosby spoke the words for Ben and LuAnna on their day. It was a beautiful wedding attended by everyone from both Smith and Tangier Islands. Knocker Ellis, with his half of all the gold, was now the single richest man around. He accepted the honor of giving LuAnna away.
Only once did Ben cast an eye around the assembled well-wishers for sign of Dick Blackshaw. Nowhere in sight. For a moment Ben wondered if Dick had become Magwitch, the criminal benefactor lurking unseen in the marsh, to his Pip. Regardless, his father had certainly delivered on the promise of great expectations. And yet it appeared he was gone again. Perhaps for now. Maybe forever. No way to tell with that one.
The joyful wedding was soon followed by tragedy. A terrible accident. The local papers said a deadrise called Miss Dotsy was discovered swamped near the Martin Wildlife Refuge. The occupants were missing, presumed drowned in a storm. They disappeared at the start of their wintry honeymoon cruise on the Chesapeake they both loved. Their bodies were never found. No one on Smith Island asked what possessed them to tour the Chesapeake in a small open boat in January. Yet that is how the lovely bride, Natural Resources Police Corporal LuAnna Bryce, Retired, and Ben Blackshaw, her waterman groom, were lost; vanishing together on the very same day, and in the very same flaw.