“Ty, wake up! Look!” Karen stood at the side of the bed, shaking him.

Hauck sat up. He’d been unable to get back to sleep for much of the night, troubled by his realization about the boat.

“There’s a message from Charlie,” Karen said excitedly. “He wants us to come.”

Hauck glanced at the clock. He saw it was going on eight. He never slept this late. “Come where?”

Karen, in a hotel robe, just out of the shower, shoved her BlackBerry in front of him as he tried to shake the sleep out of his eyes.

She latched onto Hauck’s hand and clasped it victoriously. “He’s gonna come in with us, Ty.”

They dressed quickly and met in the breakfast room downstairs. That was where Hauck informed Karen, afraid of under-cutting her excitement, that Charles would have to be arrested. Shaving, he had determined that the only way to make this work was to have Charles come back to the States with them of his own accord. Hauck could take him into custody there. Here, Charles would have to remain in a jail awaiting extradition. They’d have to produce a warrant, which meant going through everything with the people back home, including, in no small way, Hauck’s own part and what he’d done. That could take days, weeks. The extradition could be challenged. Charles might get cold feet. And Dietz and his people were already circling nearby.

Shortly before ten he and Karen made their way to the dock. Neville, at the helm of the white-hulled Sea Angel, was just cruising in.

Karen waved to him from the pier.

“Hello, ma’am.” The captain waved back as the boat pulled close. A dockhand from the hotel grabbed the line. He helped Karen climb aboard, Hauck following on his own.

“You’re taking us to Mr. Friedman?”

“To Mistuh Hon-son, ma’am. That’s what he ask me,” Neville replied dutifully.

“Are we going back to the same place?”

“No, ma’am. Not this time. The boat is at sea. It’s not far.”

Hauck took a seat in the rear, and Karen sat across from him as the dockhand threw Neville the line. Hauck felt in his pocket for the Beretta he’d brought along. Anything could happen out here.

They headed west, never more than a quarter mile out at sea, hugging the coastlines of tiny, speckled islands. The sky was blue but breezy, and the boat bounced, the twin engines kicking up a heavy wake.

Neither of them said much on the journey out. A new uneasiness had settled over them. Charles could give Hauck the line onto AJ Raymond’s killer, why he had started out in this from the beginning. Karen was quiet, too, maybe dealing with how she was going to explain all this to her kids.

About four islands east from St. Hubert, Neville brought the engines to a crawl. Hauck checked the map. It was a strip of land called Gavin’s Cay. There was a town on the north side of the island, Amysville. They were on a barely inhabited part, on the south. They came around a bend.

Neville pointed. “There he is!”

A large white boat sat at anchor in an isolated cove.

Hauck steadied himself on the railing and headed up to the bow. Karen followed. The boat was maybe sixty feet. Probably slept eight, Hauck figured. A Panamanian flag flew from the stern.

Neville slowed the engines to under ten knots. He traversed around a reef expertly, obviously knowing the way. Then he picked up a walkie-talkie receiver at the controls. “Sea Angel comin’ in, Mistuh Hon-son.”

No reply.

Charlie’s boat was about a quarter mile away. At anchor. Hauck couldn’t make out anyone on deck. Neville picked up the walkie-talkie again. The tone was scratchy.

“What’s going on?” Hauck called back to him.

The Trinidadian captain glanced at his watch and shrugged. “No one there.”

“What’s wrong, Ty?” Karen asked, suddenly worried.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

At a slow speed, they crept up on the bobbing craft from the port side. An anchor cable stretched underwater from the bow. No sign of life on deck. Nothing.

“When is the last time you spoke with him?” Hauck called to Neville.

“Didn’t.” The captain shrugged. “He left me a message on my cell phone last night. Said to pick you up at ten and bring you here.” He brought the Sea Angel around to within about fifty feet.

Still nobody visible.

Hauck climbed as high as he could on the railing and peered over.

Neville coasted the Sea Angel closer in. He called out, “Mistuh Hon-son?”

Only silence. Worrisome silence.

Karen placed her hand on Hauck’s shoulder. “I don’t like this, Ty.”

“Neither do I.” Hauck took the Beretta from his pocket. He grasped for the railing of the larger boat as the Sea Angel came abreast. He said to Karen, “Just stay where you are.”

He jumped on board.

“Hello?” The main deck of Charlie’s boat was completely empty. But in troubling disarray. The seat cushions were upended. Compartment drawers were open. Hauck noticed an empty bottle of rum on the deck. He bent down and picked his finger at a small stain he noticed on one of the displaced cushions, and didn’t like what he saw.

Traces of blood.

He turned to Karen, who was still on the Sea Angel with a worried look on her face. “Stay on board.”

Shifting the gun off safety, Hauck climbed down to the cabin below. The first thing he encountered was a large galley. Someone had been here. The sink was filled with mugs and pots. Cabinets were open, pawed through, condiments strewn all over the floor. Farther along, toward the stern, Hauck ran into three staterooms. In the first two, the beds had been tossed, drawers open, empty. The larger one looked like the Perfect Storm had hit it. The mattress was askew, sheets ripped all about, drawers rifled through, clothes thrown everywhere.

Hauck knelt. His eye was caught by the same traces of red on the floor.

He went back up on deck. “It’s clear,” he called to Karen. Neville ran a line and helped her climb aboard. “No one’s here.”

“What do you mean, no one’s here? Where the hell is Charles, Ty?” said Karen, agitated now.

“Zodiac’s still here,” Neville said, pointing to the yellow inflatable raft, the one Karen had seen the day before, meaning that Charlie had not taken it ashore.

“Who knew he was here?” Hauck asked Neville.

“No one. Mr. Hanson kept to himself. We just moved our location yesterday afternoon.”

Karen’s face grew tense. “I don’t like this, Ty. He wanted us to come to him.”

Hauck gazed across the bay, toward the island, maybe about two or three hundred yards away. Charles could be anywhere. Dead. Taken. On another boat. He didn’t want to tell Karen about the blood, which complicated things.

“Where’s the nearest police station?” he asked Neville.

“Amysville,” the captain replied. “Six miles or so. Around north.”

Hauck nodded soberly. “Radio them in.”

“Oh, Charlie…” Karen shook her head, exhaling a troubled breath.

Hauck went up to the bow and examined the overturned forward seat cushions, looking at the drops of blood. They seemed to lead right to the edge. He leaned over the side. The anchor line went under the surface from there. Hauck ran his hand along the cable. “Neville, hang on!”

The captain turned back from the bridge, the radio in his hand.

Hauck asked, “Do you know where the anchor switch is?”

“Of course.”

“Raise it up for me.”

Karen inhaled nervously. “What?”

Neville stared quizzically himself, then flicked a switch at the helm. Instantly, the anchor cable began to slowly wind back up. Hauck leaned over as far as he could, holding on by the railing.

“Stay back,” he said to Karen.

“Ty, what do you think is going on?” she asked, a rising anxiousness in her tone.

“Just stay back!” The anchor motor whirred. The tightly threaded cable rewound. Finally something broke the surface. Like a kind of line. Fishing wire. Seaweed wrapped around it.

“Ty…?”

A grave dread ran through Hauck as he looked it over.

The wire was wound around a hand.

“Neville, stop!” he called, throwing up his own hand. Hauck turned back to Karen. The solemn feel in his gaze communicated everything.

“Oh, Jesus, Ty, no…”

She ran to the side to look, panicked. Hauck came back over and caught her, tucking her face firmly into his chest, hiding her from the ugly sight.

“No…”

He held on to her as she flinched, trying to break away from him. He motioned to Neville for him to raise the line a little higher.

The cable wound a few more turns. The hand that came out of the water locked tightly around the cable. Slowly, the rest of the body began to emerge.

Hauck’s heart sank.

He had never seen Charles except in Karen’s photos. What he was staring at now was a swollen, ghostly version of him. He hid Karen’s face away and held her firmly to his chest.

“Is it him?” she asked, eyes averted, unable to look.

Charles’s bloated white face rose above the surface—staring widely.

Hauck raised his hand and signaled for Neville to stop.

“Is it him, Ty?” Karen asked again, fighting back tears.

“Yeah, it’s him.” He nodded. He pressed her face close to his chest and held her as she shook. “It’s him.”