The young man contemplated the lake: still, peaceful, untainted. The very opposite of his soul, he mused, with a small, involuntary smile. His heart was dead, but his sense of irony was intact.

He could not linger there much longer, he knew. The fragment of his soul that remained urged him to give himself up. To give her family at least a sense of justice.

But no. He would have to flee. From her family and the police, at least. He could not flee from his imagination flashing her wide, trusting eyes, her laughing smile.