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needed to hear.
    “No, I’ve lost her. I know that for sure now.”
    “How? You can’t be certain,” Henry said.
    “Henry, Elena and I had very specific plans for our life together. Neither of us have ever been married or in a committed relationship like this before. Everything we’ve decided has been intentional, with a lot of thought and discussion. It’s what made me fall in love with Elena. She taught me to respect women as my equal. We were going to wait three years so Elena and I could continue to grow the business before my father’s retirement. And then we were going to have two babies. We even had names picked out for them. No, I must have hurt her so badly, she couldn’t forgive me.”
    Henry took the white linen hanky he always carried and handed it to Sean to wipe the tears that were rolling down his cheeks.

Chapter Five
    The rocks had been deep enough below the surface for Sabrina to glide the paddleboard over them but were still high enough to snag the lace on the wedding gown Elena had drowned in. Sabrina knew Elena was dead, her limp, lifeless body floating and twirling in whichever direction the waves dictated. Should she try to bring the body back to shore? Was it possible she just had hypothermia and could be revived? She’d read countless stories about people surviving in water for hours. But wasn’t that cold water? And hadn’t most of those stories been urban legends? On some level, she knew she was thinking crazy.
    Sabrina wasn’t sure if she even could or should bring Elena back on the paddleboard, but if she didn’t, somehow she would be blamed for what happened to her—just like she had been blamed for her husband’s death and had been a person of interest in the death of a villa guest several months ago. No, Elena was getting on the paddleboard and going back.
    Sabrina tugged at lace that was affixed to something below the water. The lace felt odd to the touch, almost scratchy. She pulled and pulled at what she imagined was the bottom of the skirt of the dress until she felt the resistance released. Next, she grasped Elena around the waist, grateful that Elena’s long straight black hair was covering her face, and moved her toward the paddleboard, hoisting the tiny woman partially up on it.
    Holding Elena with one arm and the board with the other, Sabrina flutter kicked them toward the shore. She kicked hard and fast, fueled by anger at the dead woman, who had killed herself over a man (something Sabrina couldn’t understand), thereby inflicting trauma on the lives of everyone around her, including Sabrina. Why hadn’t this shrewd businesswoman just dumped Sean and moved on? Why kill herself?
    Kate ran into the water to help pull the paddleboard to shore.
    “Oh dear God, it’s Elena. My Sean will be devastated. Why would she do this?” Kate asked, kneeling beside the slumped pile of lace. Kate rolled Elena over on to her back and grabbed one of her wrists to feel for a pulse.
    “I was a nurse before I married Jack. That’s how I met him,” Kate said, now reaching under Elena’s hair to find her carotid artery, but not exposing the face neither of them wanted to see. Sabrina noticed bruises on Elena’s neck. Several oval spots and then a linear mark. But she didn’t want to think what the implications of that were.She bent over, retching and coughing up salt water she didn’t remember swallowing, knowing Kate was confirming that Elena was gone.
    Sabrina found the flip-flop where she had left her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1, grateful for her new and improved relationship with Detective Leon Janquar, who had presented her with a certificate for heroism for saving a young woman’s life. At least she knew the police wouldn’t be hostile toward her this time and that they no longer blamed her for making the police in Nantucket look foolish when they investigated her husband’s death.
    She told the dispatcher who answered that there had been a drowning at the cove out on