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I KILL THE ENGINE, the boat coming to a rest on the bobbing water. Our dog, Lulu, jumps off my lap as I get up and head to the back of the boat, reach down to the hitch, and start pulling the thick rope toward me.

Slowly but surely, the fancy red-and-black tube float in which Grace and Lincoln are nestled moves toward the boat. Grace, her wet hair blown back by the wind, her cheeks sunburned, is beaming. Lincoln raises his skinny arms in the air around his life vest. (Life vests are our friends.) Lulu, she just barks at them until they climb aboard.

“Had enough for today?” We’ve been at it for nearly two hours, Captain Marcie driving the speedboat in zigzags and circles, the kids squealing as they get tossed around the lake.

Which lake? I’m not supposed to tell. Let’s just say that where we live now — well, it’s warm and lush and green. We don’t live on the beach, but we are close to this lake.

Inside the boat, the kids dry off with towels and sip from juice boxes, comparing notes on their favorite parts of the last two hours, while Lulu tries to lick the water off their legs. Me, I sit in the front of the boat, watching the sun’s reflection off the rippling water, enjoying the warm breeze.

I wish he could be here with me. That was the plan, someday, to retire on a lake to a quiet life with children and grandkids. I will think of that every day now. David still comes to me, but only in dreams. I wake up with a wet pillow and a hollow feeling.

I start the engine, the quiet hum as I slowly edge the lever forward and drive toward the dock. The slow rides along the lake are my favorite part of where we live. The apartment we’re renting — well, it’s not much to look at, and the AC is dicey, but the kids think the elevator is cool, and the view from the fourth floor is something to behold, beautiful and serene. I could do with serene for a while.

A man is standing at the dock as we approach. You might think I’d react with fear. I thought so, too — that I’d be jumpy, suspicious of every stranger, guarded in every interaction, flinching at shadows, living in constant fear that our new cover will be blown. But paranoia has not followed me here. For one, I was declared dead from complications after my spill into the Cotton River. There was an official press release, news coverage, even a funeral — a joint memorial service for David and me — in Hemingway Grove.

And two, from what everyone can tell, Michael Cagnina is not hunting for us and never was. He’s old and sick and doesn’t want any part of anything that could send him back to prison. Cagnina wasn’t behind what happened to my family. It was all about an FBI agent who never got the twenty million he was promised for disclosing the location of the secret detention center and an assassin who wanted a cut of the action in exchange for helping him track it down.

“That’s Sergeant Kyle!” Lincoln shouts, joining me at the wheel. “Right? Isn’t that him?”

Indeed, I see as we get closer, that is Kyle on the dock. I bring my hand to my forehead and salute him. He salutes back and waits for us as I tie off the boat in our docking space.

“Howdy, stranger,” he says, squinting into the sun. I’ve become so used to seeing him in his uniform, buttoned-up and alert, that it’s a bit startling to see the T-shirt and sandals.

I give him a quick hug. Nothing that might give him ideas.

“You staying the night?” I ask him as we walk to my car.

“Nah. I’ll probably drive back to the convention tonight. I have to speak on one of the panels early tomorrow. It’s a two-hour drive from here.”

That’s probably for the best. Kyle holds up a phone, showing me a newborn with an anguished look on her face. “Camille had a girl,” he says.

I take the phone. “She’s adorable.”

“She named her Marcie.”

I turn to him. “Really?”

“No. I just wanted to see the look on your face. Her name is Emily. Get over yourself.”

I punch his arm. “Not nice, sir. Hey, what about the father of the child?”

“Still married to his wife. Sounds like Camille’s given up on him. She’s raising the baby herself.”

The kids run up ahead and jump into the car.

“On another note, I hear there might be a taker for the pub property,” Kyle says. “Maybe they’ll take down that damn Hemingway statue.”

Yes, there is a taker, someone looking to start another restaurant. I’m negotiating through a lawyer and a trust — considering that I’m “dead” and all. And they won’t take down that statue until I say so. Because within the base of that statue, hidden from view by the shrubbery, is a secret compartment that opens only via a tiny handheld remote that David left me in the safe-deposit box. That hollow interior currently holds the sum of around fifteen million dollars — the entirety of the twenty million David stole, less what he spent over the last fifteen years between building our house and slowly laundering some through his business, with me oblivious to the whole thing, letting him handle the financials. Eventually, when we sell that property along with the pub, I will have to do something about that money.

For now — well, I took a little bit with me just to get adjusted here. What I do with the rest of the money, I’m unsure. I’ll be generous with charitable donations. I will stash away some for the kids’ college education and maybe keep a little for the family. After all, it kinda feels like “hazard pay” for me, too.

“I could see it,” Kyle says, riding in the front seat, his elbow out the window, as we drive to our apartment building. “I know I’m a hometown kid, but I could see it, living somewhere like this.”

Is that more than a casual comment? Sure feels like it. But I won’t follow up. Not now. All my attention, my entire focus at present, is on two beautiful and promising kids who seem to be finally coming out from under a major shock to their systems. They’ve had good days and bad. Today was a good one. The best I can do right now is try to fit as many days under “good” as possible. And hope and pray for the arrival of that day when mourning turns to loving memories, when tears turn to smiles. It will come. It’s hard to imagine it, but I know that day will come. The kids will be okay. Never the same, always with a piece of their hearts missing, but okay.

So that’s it. That’s how I lost David. There were moments when I didn’t know how we’d carry on without him. But we will. We hit rock bottom six months ago. It’s nice, at least, to feel like the path we’re on leads to a good place, a place that’s real, a place we will eventually call normal.