Free Nantucket Nights by Elin Hilderbrand

you had a fight with Ms. Riley before she decided to go swimming?”
    Kayla disliked the way Paul said the words “go swimming.” He said them like they were a euphemism for something else. “No,” she said.
    Paul gave the piece of glass back to the young policeman, who was wearing surgical gloves. The coast guard boat moved farther out, and the WaveRunners zipped back and forth closer to shore. Jack Montalbano watched them, smoking a cigarette.
    “Why aren’t they diving?” Kayla asked. “Jack, why aren’t they diving?”
    “They’re looking above the surface right now,” Jack said. “They’ll dive only if they have to.”
    Paul’s walkie-talkie rasped, and Kayla heard the sound of a helicopter.
    “Coast guard sent a copter,” Paul Henry said. He sounded impressed.
    The coast guard helicopter had a searchlight that swept over the water like the eyes of God. Paul Henry squinted at it, the tendons of his neck stretched tight.
    “That baby has a sensor that detects body heat above the water,” he said. “The helicopter will locate her, Kayla. You can bet on it.”
    They waited while the helicopter circled the area. At one point it was so far away that Kayla lost track of it, and her stomach turned at the thought of Antoinette all the way out there. Everything keeled to one side like a capsizing boat. Kayla vomited in the sand—the champagne, the lobsters, one stinky, lumpy mess. How had this happened? She wanted to hit reverse, rewind, she wanted to rewrite the way the evening had gone. One moment all of them were safe, the next moment not. Raoul patted her back and gave her a towel to wipe her mouth. Paul Henry handed her a thermos of cold water, which was so unexpectedly beautiful and welcome, tears came to her eyes. She drank nearly the whole thing, letting it drip down her chin. Raoul smoothed her hair.
    “Ssshhh, it’s okay.”
    But, of course, it wasn’t okay. The helicopter was out of sight, the rescue boat a mere blip on the horizon, and then the WaveRunners pulled onto shore and the riders climbed off, shaking their heads.
    “She’s not out there anywhere, boss,” one of the riders told Jack Montalbano. “Do you want us to dive?”
    Jack answered them facing the water, so Kayla didn’t hear his response. He pointed thirty or forty yards out and the riders climbed back on the WaveRunners taking masks and snorkels with them. Out looking for Bob —that was what the fire department called it when they were searching for a body. Kayla couldn’t bring herself to tell Raoul the worst part—that, seconds before Antoinette danced away, Kayla had accused Antoinette of sleeping with him. Kayla added to her list of things that money couldn’t buy. It couldn’t buy words back once they were spoken; it couldn’t buy her best friend back from the dark ocean.
    Kayla woke when she heard the helicopter hammering toward them. She was still sitting on the bumper of the Trooper, crushed up against Raoul, who stared at the helicopter as it approached. The Suburbans were parked nearby, but now the men who had formerly been all action sat in the sand or stood with their hands dangling at their sides. Waiting. Then Paul Henry got static over his walkie-talkie, and he moved away as he listened to the report. He looked their way once, and Kayla’s heart fluttered with optimism. But his slumping shoulders suggested defeat. He spoke into his walkie-talkie and slowly headed back to them.
    “They’re not picking her up with the heat sensor,” Paul told them. “They want to start a recovery mission.”
    “What does that mean?” Kayla asked.
    Paul tucked his hands into his armpits so that his arms made an X across his chest. “It’s been almost four hours already, Kayla. The general consensus is that if she entered the water at the time and place you said she did, they would have found her by now. Since the coast guard hasn’t located her yet, it means something very unusual has happened.”
    “She’s