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knows.”
    Naturally the drawbridge is up. He tries the phone again; he’s stopped caring what they say to each other, he needs to know she’s OK. There’s crap reception out here even on a good day, which this is not. He dies a dozen times, squirming until the drawbridge closes and he and the few cars backed up behind him go across to Poynter’s island.
    The main drag in Poyntertown is packed solid with cars and pissed-off drivers trying to get somewhere. Given the lay of the land, it’s expected. As a kid, he came out here to Earl’s house so often that he knows the island by heart. Anybody who’s been crabbing in the swash knows there’s another way to the Kraventown causeway. Never mind that it’s longer, and there are wet patches that you have to ford and places you can bog down, depending on the tides. It beats stasis, which is what this is.
    He peels off and heads for the beach road. The crushed oyster shells will rip the hell out of his tires and that’s the least of it, but he doesn’t care. He’ll be at the Kraven island ON ramp and on the causeway before those poor suckers jammed up in Poyntertown figure out that in terms of forward motion, they’re screwed.
    Making his way around the island, he plans. Merrill left for work hours ago, so he’d better think up a terrific explanation for him leaving without stopping to kiss her goodbye and make up for whatever that was that fell between them last night. Think, asshole, it had better be damn good. He needs to pick up something at Weisbuch’s— wait. A late lunch won’t make up for what they said to each other. No way. He needs to drop into Fowler’s Gems on Bay Street and find her something terrific, grin like he drove all the way in to Charlton before dawn looking for this essential pretty Thing, wasted the morning shopping in town and got hung up in the monster traffic jam. He’ll play up the trouble he went to, trashing his undercarriage on the oyster shells, throwing palm fronds into the road to keep from sinking into the sludge, and guess what, all that time wasted and your present was right here, in the front window of Fowler’s jewelry store.
    Who cares what it costs, he owes her. Tennis bracelet, he thinks, linked baby diamonds, because until they make up for things they said to each other. Wait. Given the last thing she said to him. Well, a diamond ring might be cheaper, but it would be all wrong. Wrong, he thinks, rounding the last bend, uneasy and distracted. Wrong, he tells himself, trying out and discarding a dozen possible right things to say.
    Everything I said and did last night was wrong. I have to make it better, I have to do this right, I  …
    Never thought the trouble that brought half the rolling stock in South Carolina to these islands was at home.
    Holy crap!
    The Kraventown causeway ramp is blocked. Yellow plastic barrels bar the ON ramp. Beyond them, yellow tape protects the police vehicles lined up across the causeway, closing off all four lanes. Uniformed personnel guard the barricades, while others lug in sawhorses stenciled POLICE LINE — DO NOT CROSS to keep back the growing crowd. Angry islanders and frustrated commuters tangle, running up each other’s heels.
    Compared to this, the mess at Bartlett Circle looked like the Azalea Ball. Uniformed personnel stand on the raised causeway between here and the Kraven island bridge.
    The cops and troopers marshaled on the causeway look to be at a loss. The ones on the bridge beyond are at the rail, peering into the dark waters like they expect to see something down there that they don’t know about. Others are bent double, looking under cars that look like they got caught in some storm and froze solid in mid-crossing. Every vehicle he can see is dead empty, and this bothers Davy for reasons he doesn’t want to think about.
    If the drivers bailed for some reason after they left Kraventown,