Page 36 of Take Your Breath Away

Greg: About a minute’s walk. If that.

Detective Hardy: Can you see his place from yours? And vice versa?

Greg: There’s a line of trees between the two cabins. At night you can see some light through the leaves. If it’s the fall, when the leaves are all gone, there’s a pretty clear sightline through, but not now.

Detective Hardy: Did you notice any lights on at Mr. Mason’s through the night?

Greg: I didn’t look.

Detective Hardy: You can make the drive from Milford to Sorrow Bay in, what, ninety minutes or so?

Greg: If there’s no traffic.

Detective Hardy: So, if you’d decided, say, for the sake of argument, at ten that night to drive back, you’d be in Milford by midnight. And if you wanted, you could turn around and come back in time for breakfast.

Greg: Yeah, well, I didn’t do that. I stayed. We went back Sunday, like I said.

Detective Hardy: So let’s talk about Saturday night.

Greg: We had some dinner at my place. I did some burgers on the barbecue. Didn’t catch any fish, so it was a good thing we brought food. Had some drinks. And around nine or so he went back to his place. We were pretty bushed. And my leg was throbbing some. Took some Advils for it.

Detective Hardy: And you saw Mr. Mason in the morning.

Greg: He came over for coffee around nine, ten, I guess it was.

Detective Hardy: You didn’t see Mr. Mason between nine the night before, and the following morning.

Greg: Um, no.

Detective Hardy: Did you hear his car start up after he left?

Greg: No.

Detective Hardy: You’re sure? Nothing at all?

Greg: Well, even if a car did start I’m not sure I’d hear it from my place. And anyway, I slept like I was in a coma. And I hadn’t even had that much to drink. I didn’t even get up in the night to take a piss, which, you know, sometimes I have to do.

Detective Hardy: You normally sleep that soundly?

Greg: Now that you mention it, no, not usually. Maybe it was all the fresh air, being out on the water, the booze, and the painkillers. Or maybe Andy slipped me some knockout drops.

Detective Hardy: Are you suggesting—

Greg: That’s just a joke. Sorry. I guess there’s not much about this that’s funny.

Twelve

Andrew

I had to know this day would come.

Now that it seemed to be upon me, I needed time to think. So I drove around town, doing just that.

Thinking.

Honestly, it was amazing things hadn’t started to unravel before now. The fact that Jayne had been with me for this long and still did not know my history was nothing short of a minor miracle. It helped, of course, that she hadn’t lived in this part of Connecticut when it all happened. While Brie’s disappearance occasionally attracted national interest, it was, for the most part, a local story. By the time Jayne had come from Providence to Stratford, next door to Milford where it all happened, my notoriety had diminished.

And I couldn’t have been more grateful.