Ten minutes later—Nell in her bathroom, putting on her pearl earrings, almost ready for work—the wrecker drove up Sandhill Way.
Through the window, Nell saw Norah hurrying toward it across the lawn. She raised the window.
“Norah, where are you going?”
Norah turned. “Out.”
“But where?”
“I’m nineteen years old.”
“I know, but—”
Joe Don stuck his head out the window of the cab. “Just goin’ out for a little breakfast, ma’am,” he said.
But she just ate.
Nell somehow kept that reply, so idiotic, inside.
She gave them a little wave. Joe Don waved back.
Nell left the
museum at five, picked up three small New York strip steaks—Clay’s favorite cut—on sale. Driving up Sandhill Way, she checked the rearview mirror, saw Duke’s Porsche coming up fast. She
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parked in the driveway. Duke pulled in behind her, jumped out of his car, a bottle of champagne in hand.
“Hi, darlin’,” he said. “Clay home yet?”
“Any minute now,” Nell said.
“Mind if I wait?”
“’Course not—come on in.”
They went into the house. Duke set the bottle on the counter. He was practically jumping up and down.
“Something up?” Nell said.
“What makes you say that?” He laughed. “Can you keep a secret—just till the news hits?”
“What news?”
“We’re going to come out clean. Absolutely spotless.”
“Come out of what?” said Nell. “Who?”
Duke laughed again. “The company. DK Industries. The Corps of Engineers’ report’s out tomorrow and we’re cleared, one hundred percent.”
Had Lee Ann said something about this? Nell couldn’t remember.
“Cleared of what?”
“Cleared of what? My God—hasn’t Clay discussed this with you?”
“Discussed what?”
“We could have been ruined,” Duke said. “Lost everything.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because we built the ship canal—the beginning of everything, our first big project.”
“Where the flooding started?”
For a moment, Duke didn’t look so cheery. “
One
of the places the flooding started,” he said. “But I don’t deny if we had known certain things, the dikes would have been higher and the Canal Street gates stronger. The opposite—I guarantee it.”
“What things?”
“Technical things.” He waved them aside. “All kinds of geologic data we didn’t have and—this is the whole point—couldn’t have been expected to have had by any regulating agency. Not back then, twenty
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years ago. We built, quote, according to acceptable, customary and legal standards of the time, end quote. Meaning it was an act of God, end of story.”
“That . . . that’s great, Duke.”
“Thanks, Nell. Can’t tell you how good it feels. Calls for a celebration—one of the reasons I’m here, in fact. I was hoping we could fly over to Little Parrot tomorrow for a day or two, just the four of us, take a quick break.”
“That’s very nice, Duke, but I don’t—”
She heard the front door open. Clay walked in, holding a big bouquet of roses.
Duke shook his head. “You two lovebirds,” he said.
Nell felt herself turning red; Clay’s face was reddening, too.
Nell wasn’t a gambler, had never made any kind of bet in her life, but she would have put almost anything on Clay turning down the trip to Little Parrot Cay.
“Sounds good,” he told Duke.
Duke popped the cork. They finished off the bottle in a minute or two, all of them drinking fast, as though they’d been living through a drought.
“See you at the strip,” Duke said on his way out. “Seven sharp.”
“What about Norah?”
Nell said when he’d gone.
“It’s only a day or two,” said Clay. “She’ll be fine.”
“I don’t like leaving her.”
“Then we’ll bring her along.”
Norah was in the family room, talking on the phone. “Oh, I’d never do something like that,” she said, then saw Nell. “Call you back.” She hung up.
Never do something like what? Who was on the phone? Nell swallowed both questions. “We’re going to Little Parrot for a day or two.”
“Have fun.”
“We were hoping you’d like to come.”
“No thanks.”
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“But you loved it there—remember when we went, that Easter?”
Nell could picture Norah, bursting through the surface of the water, a conch held high.
“It was all right.”
“You could . . . bring a friend, if you want.”
“I’ll just hang out here.”
“I don’t know, Norah. It just seems to me—”
“Mom. I’m nineteen.”
“I know, but—”
“Say it—you don’t trust me.”
“It’s not that. But you’ve been through a bit of a rough time and—”
“Take the keys.”
“The keys?”
“To the Miata. To all the cars. I’ll be safe and sound, watering the plants.”
At that moment, Nell came close to canceling the trip, or trying to persuade Clay to go without her. Norah was watching her; Nell could almost feel her daughter reading her mind.
“Do I live here or not?” Norah said.
“Okay,” Nell said. “But don’t screen my calls out.”
Norah said nothing.
“I mean it.”
Norah nodded, just barely.
“Say you won’t screen me out.”
“I won’t screen you out.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Clay sat in
the cockpit with Duke; Nell and Vicki in back. Vicki’s per-fume smelled of orange blossoms, orchards and orchards of them.
“I’m so excited,” Vicki said.
Nell smiled at her. Vicki was wearing a tiny dress, high heels, lots of makeup.
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Vicki lowered her voice, said something that was drowned out by engine noise. Nell leaned forward, put her hand to her ear.
“This is my first time,” Vicki said.
First time? In a plane? In a small plane? Nell waited for more.
“Going to this Parrot place. How come everybody says key when it’s spelled cay?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Are there parrots?”
“I’ve never seen one.”
Vicki shrugged, her breasts almost spilling free. “Don’t like birds anyway,” she said. “I’m so excited. He’s never taken me there before.
And look.” She held out her hand, displaying a small emerald ring.
“Beautiful,” Nell said.
“He gave it to me last night. He’s in such a good mood—this engineering report or whatever put him over the moon. You hear about it?”
“Yes.”
Vicki opened her tiny purse, took out some mints, offered one to Nell. “It’s such a great story,” she said. “So, you know, American.”
“The report?”
“Nah. Duke and Kirk, the whole ball of wax. Two brothers starting from zilch, mortgaged up to their eyeballs for that first big deal.
And now all this.” She waved her hand. Outside the round window lay nothing but empty blue.
Vicki sat quietly for a few moments, sucking on her mint, looking thoughtful. Nell closed her eyes, started worrying about Norah right away. After a while, Vicki spoke, Nell missing whatever she’d said.
She opened her eyes.
“Sorry?”
“I was just wondering if you were around. Like back then, when they started. DK Industries.”
“I was still in grad school.”
“The art thing?”
“Yes.”
“Art is cool,” Vicki said.
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“You should come to the museum when we reopen.”
“Count on it,” Vicki said.
Nell gazed out the window. Far below, the ocean looked like solid blue steel, a false image—at least for her—hard and uninviting.
“They worked so hard,” Vicki said, offering more mints. “He’d make a great governor.”
“Who?”
“Kirk. Mayors sometimes go on to be governors.”
“Kirk wants to be governor?”
Vicki glanced at the cockpit. “Maybe it’s supposed to be a secret.”
“Safe with me.”
Vicki thought that was very funny, exploded with laughter. Up front, both men turned to look. Vicki gave them a little wave, pinkie raised high. “I’m so excited,” she said. Both men tapped their earphones, meaning they couldn’t hear. Vicki said it louder.
Bahamian air: Nell’s
favorite smell on earth. She lay under a palm tree on the beach at Little Parrot Cay, tiny waves sliding up the sand and sliding back down with a sound like a sigh; out on the reef bigger waves made sounds more like shushing. Duke and Vicki had disappeared into the master bedroom a minute or two after arrival; Clay was in the kayak, on an exercise paddle to the nearest cay, Big Parrot, and back, about three miles; Nell was alone, almost at peace. An electric-blue dragonfly darted by. An idea came, out of nowhere but somehow obvious at the same time: Why not meet with Alvin DuPree?
She began to plan her part in a conversation with Alvin DuPree.
A plane appeared in the sky: the daily flight from Nassau to North Eleuthera. It droned slowly by, disappeared from her field of vision.
How to begin? With an apology? What words could ever—
Something scraped on the sand. Nell sat up, fastening the top of her bathing suit, saw the kayak on the beach, Clay climbing out. He pulled the kayak across seaweed marking the high-tide line and came over, a drop of sweat rolling down his chest.
“How was it?” she said.
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“Great.” He gazed down at her. “You look nice.”
“You, too.”
He sat down beside her. “Anything going on in the house?”
“Probably.”
Clay laughed. Then he grew quiet. He put his hand on her leg; her mouth went dry, as though whatever was going on in the house had spread. A look of desire that had passed between them many times was exchanged once more.
“Not here,” Nell said.
But here turned out to be good, much better than good. Something exotic and tropical was going on, and the knowledge that it was going on up in the house at the same time heightened everything, as though at an orgy; and this was the closest someone like Nell would ever come to attending one. How long it lasted, up and up, she didn’t know, but somewhere in there she caught a strange expression in his eyes, one she’d never seen before. It only rammed her up even higher, lust feeding on mixed-up emotions good and bad, love and doubt.
Was she becoming perverse? She cried out, very loud, and didn’t care.
Somewhere down the beach a bird answered.
“Oh my God,” said Clay, sliding out from under her. “That was incredible.”
Nell rose, caked here and there with fine white sand. She walked into the water, spread her arms and legs, sank to the bottom, hard and ripply. An orange starfish lay inches from her face. She flipped the starfish over and a crab scuttled out of its dead insides.
A buzzing started up in the ocean. Nell rose, saw a boat coming around the point at the end of the beach.
“Water taxi,” Clay said, trunks back on. He brought her bathing suit. “Glad we’re here, baby?”
All at once Nell wanted to get right home, but she said yes.
The water taxi—an old wooden Abaco boat with a broad stern that took passengers landing at the North Eleuthera strip to the nearby cays—headed for the dock. The boatman wore a red ski hat; the face of the only passenger, standing in the bow, seemed to be covered with something, maybe a handkerchief. Then Nell saw it was just his unbuttoned tropical shirt flapping up in the breeze.
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“Funny,” Clay said. “Duke didn’t mention it.”
“Didn’t mention what?”
“That Kirk was coming.”
Nell looked again: yes, Kirk, with his distinctive swept-back blond hair, swept back more by the breeze. She hadn’t recognized him.
Kirk came ashore.
He seemed excited about something. “Sorry to bust in,” he said, and hurried up to the house. Clay and Nell followed, found the brothers already talking on the terrace. Now Duke seemed excited, too.
Nell took a shower. No hot water in the house, but what ran from the well out back was always warm enough. And there, under that warm flow, all soapy, relaxed for the first time in many days, she was struck by a fresh idea, coming out of nowhere.
“Clay?” she said, stepping out of the shower, wrapping her hair in a towel. He was shaving at the sink, back to her but foamy face visible in the mirror. “What do you know about hypnotism?”
“Not much.”
“Think it works?”
“Didn’t work for Bobby.”
“Bobby Rice?” Nell started feeling less relaxed.
Clay nodded. “He gave it a try, to quit smoking.”
That should have stopped the ebbing away of the relaxed feeling, but for some reason it did not. “I was thinking more along the lines of recovering memories.”
“Yeah?” In the mirror his eyes shifted, found her.
“Haven’t you ever used it—hypnotism, I mean—to help a witness remember?”
“Almost never admissible in court,” Clay said.
“But what about just to sharpen the memory, even if the result can’t be used directly?”
Clay tilted his head back, ran the razor under his chin. “What are you saying?”
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thing about percentages that made Kirk laugh. Nell reached for her bra, hanging on a towel rack. “Do you think it’s true that all our experience stays in the mind somewhere?” she said.
“No idea.”
“Because if it does, then maybe I could really see his face.”
“Who are we talking about?” Clay said.
“The killer,” Nell said. “His bandanna slipped—I’m sure of that—meaning I got a good look at his face. I must have. Don’t you see? If that’s imprinted somewhere in my—”
Clay made a little grunt of pain, set down the razor and turned to her, a cut under his chin. “Enough,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
Clay’s voice rose. Blood seeped into the shaving foam, sending a pink trickle down his neck. “We’ve been through this and through this. It’s over, finished, done.”