The next time, about an hour later, staring fixedly out the window at nothing-there was nothing to see-he said: “About where are we now, would you say?”

“About halfway there, probably.”

“Yes, but where, exactly? Can’t you check it on the chart?”

She laughed, a nasty, grating laugh that hurt her throat. How could he have flown so many hours beside her, and beside Gus, and beside his nephew, and know so pathetically little? “What would looking at the chart tell me? What good is it over an empty ocean? There’s nothing to see. And if there was, we couldn’t see it anyway. It’s dark out there, if you haven’t noticed.”

“I was merely asking a question, Claudia,” he said stiffly. “I just wanted to know where I was.”

And something inside her, whatever it was that had been holding her together, snapped. She began ranting, screaming at him in the small cabin. If he hadn’t been too cheap to buy a goddamned GPS, they’d know where they were, and more important, they’d know where Tarabao Island was and how to get there. How many times had she asked them for one? What did they cost, a lousy couple of hundred bucks? But no, the used Grumman Cheetah had come without a GPS in 1986-and without an ADF as well-and Gus had flown it just fine for eighteen years without seeing the need for them, and they’d never had a problem, and what was the point of wasting money The stricken look on his face made her stop. It was the first time she’d ever spoken to him like that. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m a little tense.”

“I understand, Claudia,” he said mildly. “I’m a little tense myself.”

She groped for something to say. “How’s the hand?”

He smiled at her-a sweet, achingly wistful smile. What does it matter how my hand is? “It throbs a little, that’s all. It’ll be fine once I get it taken care of.”