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addition to these unpleasantries, her eyes, ears, and squeakers had been surgically removed when no one was looking. Piper didn’t have the heart to throw Zoe away, and although Chloe constantly tried to sneak her inside, Zoe was banished to the great outdoors, so whenever Chloe went outside and saw her, she acted as if she’d found a long-lost friend.
    â€œChlo, leave Zoe here,” Piper repeated firmly and Chloe gently set her down. “Good. Let’s go.” Piper started to trot down the driveway, but when she looked back, Chloe had picked her up again. “Leave Zoe,” she commanded, and this time, Chloe set her down for good and trotted after Piper.
    Piper glanced back at the house. She’d always loved the lovely Nantucket-style home her parents had left her—as the only unwed daughter, they’d wanted to be sure she always had a place to live—but what Piper loved even more about the house was its location. It was right next to the bike trail and within walking distance of Rock Harbor—one of the best places on the Cape for watching the sun set. In fact, Birdie’s husband, David, an ornithology photographer, had often taken a picture of the Quinn sisters every year at Rock Harbor when the sun was setting, and he always teased Birdie, “I’m taking a picture of my big bird today!”
    Chloe led the way down the path, and as they neared Bridge Road, sat down and waited for Piper to clip her leash to her collar. The sun was just starting to slip behind the trees, and as they turned toward the harbor, Piper’s thoughts drifted to the next day. Nat had called from the marine sanctuary—where they both worked—to tell her there’d been a possible sighting of a loggerhead turtle near First Encounter Beach. He said he’d already been out looking but hadn’t seen anything so they’d need to head out first thing in the morning to make sure the turtle—if there was one—wasn’t in distress.
    Sightings of loggerheads off Cape Cod were rare, but not unheard of—a female, weighing nearly three hundred pounds, had been found on First Encounter Beach two years earlier. Unfortunately, she’d already been in distress for some time—she’d had only one good fin, compromising her ability to swim—and she’d died before they could help her. Twenty years before that, a smaller loggerhead, weighing just a hundred pounds, had washed up onshore in the same area. There were also recordings of leatherbacks—weighing up to seven hundred pounds—in Cape Cod Bay, but the most common turtles in the Bay were Kemp’s ridleys, and she and Nat had rescued countless numbers of these smaller sea turtles.
    Piper had worked at the Cape Cod Marine Sanctuary ever since she’d interned as a rising senior at the University of New England in Maine. It was during her internship that she first met Nat, the soft-spoken marine biologist, eight years her senior. . . and engaged. It hadn’t occurred to Piper that Nat might be involved with someone else, and by the time she figured it out, it was too late—she’d already fallen for him.
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    Piper would never forget that first day. Nat had been wearing faded red swim trunks and a snow-white T-shirt, and he was already very tan—even though it was only May. She’d been standing on the dock with the other interns, admiring his sun-streaked chestnut brown hair and carefree demeanor when he looked up and asked if she would hold the turtle he was trying to untangle. Piper had knelt next to him, her heart pounding, and held the turtle—whose legs were churning as fast as they would go—and watched as he carefully snipped the fishing line and gently unraveled it from the little turtle’s shell and fin. “Thanks,” he said, smiling at her with slate blue eyes that seemed to see right through her.
    â€œYou’re welcome,” she said,