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not sure whether I’m all there.
    “Colin?”
    I manage a nod. “Yeah, I’m up. What time is it? What’s going on?”
    The look on his face is one I’ve never seen before. Not in the NBA films of him in the finals. Not when a business deal meant everything. He gets intense, but never shows panic. Without a word from his mouth, he has me on edge.
    I think about standing, but I’m queasy. I hold my breath a moment, an attempt to control my breathing.
    “Where’s Natalie?” His voice inflection reveals a great shadow of worry.
    Dumbfounded, I look at the seat next to me, expecting her to be asleep. But the seat is empty. There is no sign of her on the boat or in the water. She’s gone.

SIX
    M y nerves run wild and my mind takes a direction of its own. Nothing makes sense now and I hope the world I find myself trapped in isn’t real at all. “I don’t know, Dad. What did she tell you?” I’m practically yelling; my voice carries far over the calm, dark water.
    He looks puzzled. “She didn’t inform me that she was leaving. I thought you talked with her.”
    I shake my head and rise to my feet, looking for sandals. “How long ago did you wake up?”
    “A minute. So what did she tell you?” he says.
    I shrug my shoulders, wishing all of this would end. “She didn’t say a word to me about leaving. She was with me before I went to sleep…her feet were in my lap…she was sitting…”
    “Take your time.”
    I can’t find my sandals, so I sit down and sigh. “She was giggling while I was rubbing her feet…then I don’t remember anything after that…so I must have fallen asleep.”
    My father paces, holding his cell phone at his side. His attention scans the sparsely populated lake—I can only presume most people left when the sun went down. The sun is gone, the moon is full, and a wave of dancing dim light on the water depletes hope.
    Natalie is missing. Natalie is missing. How can this happen? The words keep repeating in my head, as they can’t be said out loud—my lips won’t say them. She can’t be gone. Where would she go on her own?
    “What time is it?” I say, starting to think again.
    “Eight forty-seven.” He takes a seat and his determined stare burns. “Son…do you know when you fell asleep? Or if Natalie went to sleep too?”
    I shake my head, with shallow movement, watching his eyes. Frozen, like in a scary dream, I try to think. “We were…talking for quite a while after the last swim…Both of us were here…back of the boat. She was…sitting there at the back seat…I remember getting tired and resting my head on the side and…she fell asleep before me. Yeah. She was asleep because I pulled her towel over her so she wouldn’t get cold, because it was getting dark out.”
    “If it was starting to get dark and she was still here, that means she was on the boat at six o’clock, or do you think it was later? Closer to dark?”
    The front of my skull tingles. “The sun was over the mountain, over there,” I say, pointing into the distant blackness.
    “What else do you remember?”
    “She was wearing her sunglasses, so it was hard to tell if she’d fallen asleep,” I say.
    “You’ve got friends out on the lake today? Someone she might have gone with?”
    Would she really just leave? Without a word to me? Could someone have taken her or lured her off the boat? That doesn’t make sense. She would have had to—”I’m sure someone she knows is out here today. Her family has lots of friends.”
    My father seems satisfied and pulls out his phone, and then makes a call.
    “Marc? Allan Wyle…did Natalie call home recently?…in the last few hours…no…Christ…sorry, I…no, no idea where she went…well, I’m sure she’s just with some friends having a good…” My father waves his arm about in frustration. “Jesus, Marc, it’s a holiday weekend. We don’t need the sheriff to be…Sorry, I forgot…” He groans. “Fine. Do it. I’ll stay put. I’m thinking