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meat to you?”
    “Exactly right. I only praise your mind so your fragile male ego doesn’t collapse.”
    “Oh, is that right?” And with that, he began to tickle her relentlessly, despite the pleas for mercy that rose and fell over her giggles. Only when she was gasping for breath and her eyes streaming tears did he stop, kissing her lightly on the tip of her nose.
    Rob shifted himself to a seated position and pulled her onto his lap. She leaned her head into his shoulder and sighed deeply, a sigh born of contentment and the all-abiding release a spectacular laughing fit can provide.
    “How did we get so lucky?” she asked, her voice soft, as she lifted a hand to stroke his cheek.
    “We must have been very worthy souls in our last life,” he replied. “People like Mother Teresa or Gandhi, who sacrificed so much personally to help fellow members of humanity.”

    “Are you comparing yourself to Gandhi?” Her nose crinkled to hold back her laughter.
    “Not me. Past-life me. And I could compare you to Mother Teresa except that you have a way more developed sense of style. And I don’t think she reached quite the level of perfection you have with a blow job.”
    “Oh, is that all I am to you? A good BJ?”
    “Exactly right. I only praise any of your other qualities so your fragile female ego doesn’t collapse, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the BJ.”
    “Maybe I better give you one, then. You know—just to keep our equilibrium.”
    She smiled slyly at him as her fingers worked the zipper of his fly open.
    “Who am I to argue with maintaining equilibrium?” he asked as her head descended.
    His eyes closed and his head dropped back as her mouth found his cock.

Detective Lucien Broussard of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force begins his day with the dream. The dream is always the same. In the dream, he is asleep. In his sleep, he hears the sound of a child crying. Lucien tries to wake up, but his body feels heavy, immobile. He can’t open his eyes; his eyelids are weighted. He finally wrests his leaden hands up to his eyes and pries his eyelids open. When he does, he realizes he is blind. His eyes are open but he still can’t see.
    He wakes for real, gasping and sweating.
    Detective Broussard has been having the dream ever since the first child disappeared. Seven months ago, 219 days. Three more boys have been reported missing since then, a total of four small children, their families first frantic, then as time went on, sodden with grief, guilt, and the loss of hope. The latest report had been filed just four days ago, another boy, aged five, who had been with his mother in an outdoor market, drawn to the sounds of the steel drum band playing nearby, and then simply gone. Little Olivier Cassiel, last seen in jean shorts and a red T-shirt. A little boy lured by the carefree, spirited music of the island to an unknown fate. Lucien rubs his eyes hard as if trying to erase the image of the photo of the boy the child’s mother had given him: impish smile, frizzy curls, scrawny arms braced in a classic muscleman pose.

    Lucien’s wife, Agathe, is already up; he can hear her softly humming along to the radio playing in the kitchen. He is relieved; he does not want her to see him like this, unnerved and distressed. He showers and dresses. As he does, he desperately catalogues what he knows about the missing children, raking through the facts as if doing so will somehow provide the answers that have so far proved elusive. Four boys, taken respectively from an outdoor market (Olivier, five), a playground (Jacob, six), a harborside diner (Pierre, four), and most eerie, the boy’s own trundle bed in the dead of night (Sebastien, three). Little boys, there one minute and gone the next. The dark shadow spiriting away these children stalked the island with no apparent fear of getting caught. No one had been spotted and no clues left.
    Then there were the places the St. Lucia police had searched for the kids: