Tell me what sin replaces love.

As had always been my tradition, the summer mornings at the vacation home were dedicated to the appreciation of the million sparkling points of light on the water in the morning. Long ago, Andrea had weighed the romance of enjoying the sunrise with her husband against the two extra hours of sleep she would spend between an admittedly comfortable mattress and a perfectly-heated duvet. I could never hold it against her; only my years in the military lent the discipline to leave the various nuptial beds we had made. Never mind that she simply wouldn't understand that a morning run and a short meditation on the whispers of the waves was the reason I never drank coffee on holiday.

Running through the night, allowing myself to slip into a low-level autism... it was wonderful. Before the sunrise, the night almost appears to change color; where the cape's lack of light pollution kept the space between the stars a matte black, the hour before sunrise was when it became ultraviolet, the purple-blue color of our daughter's new car. I smiled at the seagulls, my blasé morning companions, flying in formation in ways that always uncannily resembled the way my fellow officers ran in flocks.

My heart was unstoppable at the finishing point, and with a smile, the locationing watch confirmed my glee: an extra mile, with only seven minutes over my last time. Andrea shook her head and laughed when I pulled it from the box, grinning the way she said reminded her of when we were in college. The results were saved, and I cleared my head, preparing for the sit.

The absolute silence was perfect; the low tide and I were communing at a cosmic level. My vision felt like a camera zooming in while being pulled back: the edges were slowly blurring and sucking toward me as the ocean slowly slipped into oblivion, constantly moving away. An itch on the back of my brain... something simply wasn't right this morning.

That is when I saw him. A quiet man in a business suit, standing with one hand clasped over his other arm's wrist, watching the gulls swoop low onto the water. I could no longer concentrate, so I simply watched him from the corner of my eye. Medium height, medium build; his suit maintained the graceful cut of a man whose employer treated humans as business cards. In one hand, he held a black attaché case as though it were as weightless to him as the arm itself. What struck me was the general sense of violence in his posture: though he would have found much more companionship in the city, calling a client from a corner office and marveling at his ability to fast-track, he was here, holding a briefcase, on a New England beach.

He turned and began walking toward me. Not the walk of a boxer, not the walk of a rough man; the walk of a man who was aware of dire consequences were he to fail at any particular mission. As he raised his hand to draw my attention, the elusive detail nagging at my consciousness was laid bare: a pair of handcuffs, one end around his wrist, the other welded to the briefcase.

"Mr. Scherragio." His voice held a confidence that belied a certain meticulous personality, and with it, the realization that he had been observing my morning ritual for God knows how long.

"Do I know you?" I squinted my eyes and cocked my head, hands on my hips.

"No." He smiled a crude display of crooked teeth, revealing a cut through his upper lip previously unnoticed. He reached into his interior breast pocket, retrieving a small camera, and managing to take a picture of me before I could object.

"Yes, I'm Michael Scherragio. Who are you, and to what do I owe this dubious pleasure?"

His gaze remained on a lit panel on the back of the camera. Suddenly, he flicked the device off, slipped it back into his coat pocket, and pressed his thumb to the broad side of the handcuffs, causing them to deactivate.

"This belongs to you." He tossed the briefcase at my feet before turning around and walking away with the same quiet determination that had carried him to our conversation. I hesitated, eyes running between the receding figure and the briefcase at my feet, not sure what to make of the situation. I was fairly certain I had some cause for concern as to the contents of the briefcase.

It was fairly easy to open; a simple clasp mechanism in two points that deactivated with a startlingly loud clack. My mind and fingers refused to work on the same wavelength, stumbling through the simple action of opening it. The case's interior was stark: two sheets of paper, one with a typed note, the other hand-written, and a manila folder. I opened the folder, and out of it fell three grainy photographs.

It was on viewing the photographs that my heart rushed up my throat; I could barely turn my head quickly enough to avoid vomiting on the briefcase.