Dominic’s smile was twisted. “I was. That’s why it took a little while for it to sink in when Dr. Symon said I must’ve gotten Miriama pregnant the first time we were together, for her to be three months along.” He stared at the bracelet with a fixed gaze. “He was doing that -nudge--nudge -wink--wink thing between guys, congratulating me on my prowess. And he was so involved in it that he didn’t notice I’d gone silent.”

Dropping his head, he said nothing for long, -wind--lashed minutes. When he looked back up, -tears—-silent and -hot—-ravaged his cheeks. “I hung up soon afterward, then I went through all our photos together just to be sure I wasn’t wrong. I knew I wasn’t wrong. But I had to be sure, you see, I had to be absolutely sure.”

His breathing was uneven now. “I always took photos on our dates. And I took a photo the night Miriama and I -first… when we were first together that way. It was of the two of us sitting on the beach, her hair blowing back in the wind while I wore this goofy look on my face. Just after that photo was taken, she put her arms around my neck and kissed me and said, ‘Let’s go to your place.’ ”

One hand dug into the sand by his side, clenched hard. “I’d been hoping, but I’d never pushed because I knew how much her faith meant to her. But that day, the same day she got back from an appointment with Dr. Symon, she said yes. And I didn’t know how brainless I was then, didn’t know how she was using me. I was happy.”

“Why?” Will asked, so that Dominic de Souza could no longer lie to himself about ending the sunshine.

“Because she already knew she was pregnant,” he said. “Before we ever slept together. I wonder how she planned to explain the baby to me when it arrived two months early. Did she think I’d buy a premature birth story? I’m a fucking doctor.”

“According to her journal,” Will said, “she thought you were a good man, a man she could have a future with, a man she was starting to love. I think she would’ve told you the truth if you’d given her a chance.”

Dominic turned eyes mad with grief toward him. “Please don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”

“Tell me what you did, Dominic.” It was time. “Miriama deserves that. She trusted you not just with herself, but with her child.”

Dominic’s entire self just crumpled. “After I spoke to Dr. Symon, I didn’t know what to do. I thought about breaking it off with her, but how could I let Miriama go? She was mine. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen and she was mine.”

Perhaps he had loved Miriama, Will thought, but it had been about possession as well. Just like Vincent, Dominic had wanted to capture a beautiful, precious creature and brand her as his.

“She kept asking me what was wrong and I kept saying nothing. I tried to make things like they were before I knew. More than a week passed and it was okay. The -day—-” Gulps of air. “I made her a picnic lunch that final day and we laughed together and I thought it would be all right.”

He exhaled. “But as soon as I left her, all I could think was that she was lying to me each and every minute we were together. The scream kept building inside me until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I came to the cliffs planning to call and ask her to meet me -there… and then there she was, running toward me.” A sick smile. “It was like our meeting was meant to be. She smiled when she saw me.”

“You had an alibi.” Though it wasn’t a perfect one; the timeline was difficult, but not impossible.

“She must’ve sprinted that last part to the cliffs. She did that sometimes. She was out of breath when she -arrived… And my car was right there.”

An extra two, three minutes. The cost of a life.

“Did you go directly to the whirlpool?” That black maw of water and rocks was the only possible scene of death, given the time frame.

“No. We took a short forest track that runs parallel to the cliffs and there’s this bit where it kind of opens up and you’re right by the whirlpool. Not near the edge,” Dominic whispered. “Safe, by the trees.”

Will had looked under the trees, but the -wind--tossed leaf fall there had made it impossible to spot a disturbance.

“Miriama stopped smiling when I accused her of tricking me.” Dominic dashed away tears with the back of his hand. “She begged me to listen, said she’d never wanted to use me. Said I was the best man who’d ever come into her life. I couldn’t hear her, I was so angry. I told her she had to -choose—-the baby or me. I told her she had to get an abortion, that I wasn’t going to raise another man’s bastard. She was mine.”

Will could see the scene in his mind’s eye, wildly alive Miriama on the edge of the cliff, arguing fiercely with this man who thought he’d captured a star in his hands and wanted to own it body and soul. “What happened?”

“The way she looked at me when I said that,” Dominic whispered, “the way she crossed her arms around her middle and just looked at me. Like I was a monster. And I got this red haze across my vision and I don’t remember what happened next. What I remember is that when the haze passed, Miriama was dead in my arms. There were marks around her neck, one side of her face crushed in like I’d punched her, the rest of her face all puffed up, and her eyes bloody.”

Will wasn’t buying the idea of -rage--induced memory loss. Oh, there had been rage, of that he was sure. Dominic hadn’t gone out with a plan to kill Miriama. He’d done so in a fit of anger. Paradoxically, his lack of planning was why he’d almost gotten away with -it—-he’d made no call that could be traced back, altered no plans, bought no weapons.