"Tell me about the woman," he said.

Hargrove stopped mid-sentence about debris patterns. "I'm sorry?"

"Scarlett Hale. Tell me about her."

"I-I assumed you'd be primarily focused on the search parameters-"

"I am simultaneously focused on multiple things. Tell me about the woman."

Hargrove had, to his credit, clearly done some homework. Twenty years old. Born on the island, raised in the Mitchelville community on the north end. Father deceased since childhood. Mother passed away the previous spring, some kind of cardiac event. The woman had essentially no family left-one stepfather, a Dale Hale, who according to county records had accumulated significant debt in connection with gambling obligations and had been, on at least one occasion, the subject of a creditor complaint that had been dropped without explanation approximately fourteen months ago.

"The debt was paid off," Ethan said.

Hargrove looked at his phone. "It would appear so. The-the records show the outstanding obligations were settled in full around that time, yes. I'm not sure who-"

"Reid paid them." Ethan said it flatly. "He met her here, he paid off her stepfather's debts, and he hired her. She's been traveling with him since."

A brief pause. "You knew this already."

"Most of it." Not all. The file his people had assembled was comprehensive but not complete-the speed of the research had left gaps, and there were things about a person that didn't show up in county records or travel itineraries. There were things Ethan was here to determine in person.

He opened the folder on his knee and removed a single sheet of paper.

"Have you seen this," he said, and handed it to Hargrove.

Hargrove took it. Read it. His face did several things in rapid succession-confusion, then comprehension, then a careful neutral expression that men in public office developed as a survival mechanism.

"An insurance policy," Hargrove said.

"Accidental death and dismemberment. Eight-figure payout." Ethan retrieved the document. "Taken out fourteen months ago, approximately two months after my brother met Scarlett Hale. The beneficiary is Scarlett Hale." He paused a moment to let the arithmetic work itself out. "She was the only person on the boat with him. She is the only living witness to the accident. And she stands to inherit a very significant amount of money if my brother is declared dead." He put the document back in the folder. "I would like to speak with her."

Hargrove said nothing for several seconds. "Mr. Calloway, I want to be careful here. She's been through-she survived a boating accident, she's been in the hospital four days, the situation is-"

"I understand the situation." Ethan looked at him. "I'd still like to speak with her."

The county official sat with this for a moment, conducting an internal calculation whose result was visible on his face: the potential benefits of refusing a Calloway's request weighed against the potential consequences, arriving, as that particular calculation usually did, at a strongly affirmative answer.

"Of course," Hargrove said. "Of course. I'll call ahead."

The nursing director outside room 214 was a compact woman in her forties whose expression conveyed a specific form of professional stress: not the anxiety of someone who feared she'd done her job badly, but the exhaustion of someone who'd done her job excellently in the face of a sustained and creative assault on her ability to maintain it.

"Mr. Calloway," she said. She had his name before Zach had introduced him, which meant Hargrove had called ahead as promised. "We've done our utmost to accommodate Miss Hale's needs while also ensuring-"

A crash from inside the room. Distinct. Something knocked over, something struck.

The nursing director's left eye twitched once, precisely.

"How many times has she attempted to leave," Ethan asked.

"Counting today?" A pause. "Four."

Zach, beside him, made a quiet sound that might have been admiration.

"The most recent attempt involved our laundry service," the nursing director continued. "She apparently established, over the course of three days of observation, that the laundry van departs the east loading dock at five-forty each morning and makes a stop at the northern marina before completing its route. She was in the van." A pause. "She'd been in the van for approximately six minutes before Walter in receiving realized she wasn't a new hire."

"What stopped her," Ethan said.

"Walter." A pause. "Walter is sixty-three and has worked here for twenty-two years and is not a man who makes exceptions to protocol, regardless of the circumstances."

"All right." Ethan put his hand on the door.

"She's-Mr. Calloway, she's been through a significant trauma. She survived an accident that by all reasonable measures should have-"

"I understand," he said. "Thank you."

He pushed the door open.

The hospital room had the particular disorder of a space that had been fought over repeatedly and recently. The IV stand lay at an angle, its tubing dangling free, the catheter removed and left on the pillow with a kind of deliberate finality. The window above the visitor's chair was closed but showed evidence of having been tested-a handprint in the dust on the sill, recently made. The secondary door at the far end of the room was locked from the outside; through its narrow window he could see a nurse's aide posted in the corridor beyond, key card in hand, watching the room with professional wariness.

And in the center of the room, between him and that locked door, was Scarlett Hale.

She was not what he'd expected. He'd built a picture on the plane: someone canny, someone who'd seen opportunity and methodically worked toward it, someone whose apparent fragility was more performance than reality. A woman who'd attached herself to a wealthy, generous man and positioned herself carefully over fourteen months for exactly this moment.