“Claire and the kids and I came here once. Long, long time ago. Before Davy was born. Tommy was only six, I think. I had to hold Alyssa the whole time, she wouldn’t let me put her down.”
“You must have a lot of fine memories. I envy you that.”
What DeMarco wanted was to stand and join Huston at the rail. He wanted to see the lights across the lake. He wanted to see through the long miles of darkness. He said, “How did you get here, Thomas? You’re a long way from home.”
Huston did not answer, and after a while, DeMarco told himself, You’re going to have to get up now. You’re going to have to try to go to him before he climbs over that rail. But before he could make himself move, Huston spoke, and DeMarco decided to stay where he was for a while longer.
Huston said, “‘I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea. But we loved with a love that was more than love…’”
DeMarco supplied the finish. “Just you and your Annabel Lee.”
A few seconds later, Huston said, “Writers.”
“What about them, Thomas?”
“We’re all such romantics.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean by that.”
“We love our misery. Until it gets to be too much to bear.”
DeMarco sat very still and thought about that for a while. He was sitting with his head against the rounded wall and he had to fight the urge to close his eyes. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion and the left eye was watering profusely in the chilly air. The line of moisture down his cheek was cold on his skin, but the scar at the corner of his eye stung and throbbed with his pulse. He thought it remarkable all the things he could feel when he sat motionless in the darkness without a drink in his hand, all the things he could smell and taste and hear and remember. He did not understand what he was feeling for Huston at that moment—it seemed a peculiar emotion to feel for another man. He wondered how long he might have to sit motionless in darkness before he could understand such a thing.
After a while, he thought about Nathan and Danni sitting by their phones, waiting for Thomas to call again. He thought about the calls he was expecting. As quietly as he could, he eased the cell phone from his pocket. He held it below the top step so that its light would not startle Huston. Then he depressed the button and saw that he had two voice messages. He tapped the Select button and raised the phone to his ear.
The first message was from a sergeant from the Erie barracks. His men’s search of Whispers had turned up nothing that might help DeMarco track down Bonnie. The upper floor was an unfinished attic space, bare but for an overflowing ashtray, a cardboard box full of empty beer bottles and fast food wrappers, and a faux leather swivel chair set between two one-way mirrors, one looking down into the barroom, the other into the stage room. “It’s a pretty standard security setup,” the sergeant said. “Places like this are usually run on the cheap. Anyway, we took in all the bottles and other items. Get back to me when you can and let me know if you want any of it sent to the lab or not.”
The second voice message was from Trooper Morgan. He said the reports had come back on the beer bottles from Bonnie’s apartment. The second set of prints had matched those of an individual in the NCIC database, a man named Inman, a name DeMarco recognized. Trooper Morgan wanted to know if a BOLO alert should be issued for the man as “a person of interest.” DeMarco typed a quick text to Trooper Morgan. BOLO immediately.
DeMarco quietly laid the phone facedown on the step. He let out a long slow breath.
“Thomas,” he said, and was a little surprised by the plaintiveness in his voice, “can you tell me what happened that night?”
Fifty-One
After the dinner of Cornish game hens, after Thomas and Claire had cleaned up the dining room and kitchen and set the dishwasher to humming, after the Monopoly board had been reset for four players, everyone but little Ryan took a turn rolling the dice for the honor of picking that night’s movie. Alyssa won with a pair of sixes and chose Once in a Lifetime. As per family rules, Thomas Jr. exercised his one-time veto option and forced Alyssa to pick again. Her next choice, The Princess Bride, went unopposed. Swordplay and fighting for Thomas Jr., romance for Alyssa, a mix of goofy and sophisticated humor for the adults. The Monopoly game progressed in halting fashion, interrupted frequently with comments such as “Hold on a minute. I want to watch this scene.”