Prologue

WE’LL BEGIN WITH THE INDIAN Ocean. Night has transformed its ultramarine waters to shades of bruise, a navy lick shimmering with the reflections of a billion dead things. Stars, in other words, for dead things can also be beautiful.

Like the body in the water, bleeding into the reef. Even in death, the man is beautiful—especially so, his black hair visited by yellow and silver fish, severed tissues billowing in the current, as though he were an oceanic element. A rare anemone. Everything is more graceful underwater. Even murder is a ballet.

Night brings predators here. There won’t be much left by morning, the human distinction of his corpse erased. Unsuspecting resort guests might take a kayak out, its fiberglass belly slicing over a dark secret.

I relish the thought of that. The drama that lies in the possibility of discovery. It’s a gift of sorts, a sudden treasure I can reward myself with again and again.

All it takes is the flick of a knife.