FEAR

"She was so frightened of the water," I imagine her telling them. Prone to panic. 

Everyone knows that panic kills, especially at seventy-five feet deep.

In the parking lot after my last lesson, I see Detective Harrison’s Ford Explorer parked next to my car. I notice that it’s dirty, the bottom covered with mud as though he has been off-roading. My insides drop with disappointment and fear. I was starting to think we’d heard the last of him. I walk over to his window. He rolls it down, and a wave of cool, smoky air drifts out.

“Hello, Annie.”

I don’t answer him. He takes a photograph from the passenger seat of his car and hands it to me.

“Do you know this man?”

It’s a picture of Simon Briggs, his face pale and stiff, eyes closed. Dead. I think of the envelope I am still carrying around in my car. I haven’t looked at it, in an effort to preserve the false sense of security I&rsq