“What was in them.” My voice did not come out steady.

I had been carrying the shape of the worst answer since I stood at the edge of that green water, and I braced to hear it.

Detective Vance glanced back at Maya’s door to be sure it was closed, and then she said the words that let me breathe again.

“Not what you’re afraid of, Robert.

There were no remains.” The bags, she said, had been weighted down with concrete blocks — that was the heaviness Mrs.

Harris had seen him carrying — and inside them were suitcases, Elena’s luggage, and several iron safe-deposit boxes that had been pried open and emptied.