He pulled out a bread bag, folded tight and taped at both ends, the kind Gary kept his licenses in. Inside was an envelope gone soft from damp, and a small brass key on a loop of fishing line. My name wasn’t on the envelope. Neither was Nate’s. It just said, in Gary’s square carpenter printing, Read this on the water.

Arnie held it out to me, then pulled it back an inch. “I didn’t open it,” he said. “But I’ve been fishing forty years, ma’am, and I know every lock a boat like this could have.” He turned the little key over in his rough palm. “This one doesn’t fit anything on her. Your husband hid it where only somebody cleaning her out would ever find it. And he hid it there on purpose.”