Mia was asleep, clothes tossed on the deck between the berths. Brandon slid in beside her, felt her naked body next to his. So she hadn’t given up on him. She’d been waiting. He’d let her down twice in one night. Maybe her father was right.

Brandon tried to sleep but couldn’t. Mia. The guy on the street. Chantelle’s eyes. Fatima and her ghosts.

He lay on his back and listened. He could hear Mia’s breathing, soft and shallow. A wake rolled in and the boat rocked, fenders creaking, the float knocking on the pilings. There was a horn somewhere, someone leaning on it. And then a siren, the blip of a Portland PD cruiser. Another.

And then quiet. Brandon started to drift off. The boat rocked so imperceptibly that it might have been imagined. And then he was asleep, dreaming that Bay Witch had come loose from the dock and was drifting and—he heard it.

Crying. He came to slowly, fighting his way to the surface. He listened. Heard Mia breathing. The berth creak. And then the cry, faint and faraway, but somehow close. A haunting cry, high-pitched but falling away. And then another. Closer.

Brandon tensed. Waited.

He heard it again. The sighing cry . . . that turned into a gull’s chattering laugh.

In the darkness, Brandon sighed and closed his eyes. And slept until he heard crying again. Opened his eyes to see Mia, leaning on one elbow, talking on the phone, the crying coming from it. She was saying, “Lily. Lily. Calm down. Please calm down. Who’s dead? Who is it?”