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maybe he took Daddy’s boat.”
    â€œWhat?” I asked, even as Cal bolted for the back door where a row of keys hung on pegs. I heard him shout, “Dammit!” and knew his second set of keys, on their ubiquitous red-and-white buoy key ring, weren’t there.
    I left Meghan, nearly shaking with the unknown outcome of her revelation, and met up with Cal in the outbuilding where he stored all of his charter equipment and kept his records in a small office. He’d already raised Marshall on the radio, and I hung back as I listened to him yell at him, reminding myself that my son deserved every bit of it. After pinpointing Marshall’s location, Cal arranged for Sea Tow to haul him and the boat, simply out of gas, back to the marina.
    When Marshall arrived home, things only got worse, and we all suffered with it. Marshall had been allowed to take the smaller boat, McKale’s Ferry , by himself since he was fourteen, but it had always been arranged beforehand, and never had he been allowed to take it after dark. I was just glad he’d left the large boat, Trillium’s Edge , designed for overnight trips out in deep water, at the marina and was now safe at home.
    But Cal took it as a personal affront, a slap in the face of his trust in Marshall, in his assurance that his son knew the dangers of the water and boating in the ’Glades, how quickly things could go wrong. He hadn’t been allowed to take the boat on his own since, and hadn’t asked.
    Ada gaped at Cal while Meghan slipped lower in her seat. Marshall simply nodded. “Maybe we can talk about it later,” he said, calm and reasonable, to my surprise, deflating the tension like a pinprick to a balloon. Cal flicked his gaze my way and I raised my eyebrows at him. He seemed nearly ready to laugh.
    â€œYeah, later,” he finally said. “Like when you’re forty.” And at that Marshall was the one to laugh, causing Ada and Meghan to glance between them in confusion. I was a little confused myself. Ada recovered first.
    â€œWhat sort of art do you restore?” she asked me, and I silently thanked her for the change of topic.
    â€œI mainly work on oils, but I can do just about anything,” I replied. “I’ve wound up specializing in Highwaymen for the past few years. Word gets around with collectors.”
    â€œHighwaymen?” she repeated.
    â€œThey were a group of artists who specialized in Florida landscapes back in the sixties,” I said. “Their work wasn’t very expensive at the time, and it wasn’t always treated very well. I clean them up, fix some paint loss, kill some mold.”
    â€œIs that what you went to school for?” she asked. I shook my head.
    â€œNot really. I sort of fell into it by default; I was an art history major. What about you? Marshall says you’re pre-law?”
    She nodded, keeping her eyes on her plate. “Well, there’s not actually a pre-law major or anything. There’s just classes they suggest you take. I’m a political science major, so law schools can tell that I’m serious about being a lawyer. I’d rather do something like what you do though.”
    â€œWhy don’t you?” Meghan asked.
    Ada shrugged, color splotching her cheeks unevenly. “I don’t know. I used to want to be a writer, or an artist. It’s more important that I become a lawyer though.”
    â€œWhy is that?” I asked. “The world needs writers and artists more than it needs another lawyer.”
    â€œNot where I live,” Ada said. “Anyway, my scholarship is for political science, so that’s sort of a lot to concentrate on.”
    â€œYou lose your scholarship if you’re not going to law school?” Cal asked. “That doesn’t seem very supportive.”
    â€œNo, everyone is really supportive,” she replied quickly, her color heightening again. “I do want to be a lawyer.