What was going on? She’d left with plenty of time to get home, right? He doubted they’d been caught. Her father had said he wouldn’t be home until late afternoon, and she’d arrived home before noon, for sure. Unless she’d never arrived home?
His parents were back at the house entertaining friends, but he skipped polite greetings and beelined to his room, searching the Coast Guard website for any accidents in the Sound on Friday. When he didn’t see any, he called the local station to be sure, but they had no reports of a young woman in distress.
So where was she? Was she sick? Was she regretting their night together and avoiding him? Without speaking to her directly, he didn’t know.
He didn’t bother heading to the Pamlico House on Sunday morning to see if she’d turned up for the brunch shift. Instead, he called King Triton Seafood at precisely 10:01 and asked to speak with Laire.
“Who’s this?” asked a man’s voice.
“I, uh, I came in and bought some blue crab last week. I said I’d be back, um, for more today, but the girl there said to call before I came in again to be sure you had more in stock.” It was a lie, but he hoped it was a believable one.
“Huh. Well, Laire ain’t here today, but she knows better’n anyone that we always got blues.”
“Felt like she had a good eye for ’em,” said Erik, trying to disguise his voice to sound more local, more like Laire. “Will she be in later?”
“Negative,” said the man, his voice terse. “Her daddy had a heart attack.”
“Wait! What did you say?”
“Her daddy had a heart attack,” he enunciated, “so obviously she can’t be here while she’s sittin’ by his bedside. You want the blues, you’ll just have to let someone else help you. Okay, then?”
A heart attack. Fuck! That’s why she wasn’t coming to work. He knew how much she missed her mother—he could hardly imagine how much she was suffering if her father was in danger. His own heart twisted painfully, imagining her fear and sorrow.
“God, I’m . . .” Erik gulped, trying to hold back the emotion he felt and sound more conversational. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is he, uh, is he goin’ to be okay?”
“How the fu—I mean, I don’t know, sir. He’s not dead yet. You wanna send flowers? He’s up in Nags Head.”
Nags Head? Laire was in Nags Head?
“Sir, you want those blues set aside, or what?”
“No, I . . . Thank you. I . . . I have to go.”
He hung up the phone and stood up, pacing his room, trying to figure out what to do. Running a hand through his hair, he had a sudden idea and opened a Web browser on his phone.
Hospital. Outer Banks hospital. Nags Head.
He punched the address into his map app.
An hour.
It would take only an hour to be there by her side, offering whatever comfort she needed.
Racing down the stairs, he grabbed his keys from the basket in the vestibule and ran out the door to his car.
***
Laire woke up at the Hatteras Health Center on Friday night, her head aching something awful. When she opened her eyes, she whimpered from the pain and quickly closed them again.
“You knocked yourself out,” said Kyrstin’s voice, flat and low. “Needed eight stitches.”
Laire opened her eyes slower the second time, focusing on Kyrstin’s face. She sat between the two clinic beds on a mint-green stool, looking at Laire over her shoulder.
“Daddy?” Laire gasped, finding her throat dry and scratchy.
“Still out of it.”
“But . . .,” whispered Laire, “is he . . .?”
“Alive?” she asked. “Yeah. No thanks to you.”
Laire gasped from the sudden rush of relief, her eyes instantly burning from tears.
“Awake?”
“In a . . . a coma,” Kyrstin whispered, her voice breaking. Then she turned back around to face their father, lying in the opposite bed.
Laire winced in pain, whimpering softly again before closing her heavy eyes and falling back to sleep.
When they moved her father up to Nags Head the next morning, Issy tried to stop Laire from going with him, claiming that seeing her when he woke up would just upset him all over again. But Kyrstin had been a surprising ally, telling Issy that Laire had as much right to go up to Nags Head as they did. She wasn’t exactly warm and affectionate, but she stood up to Issy until Issy backed down in a huff.