“Conclusions?” The word tasted foreign and bitter in Annabelle’s mouth, like a food she’d never tried before. “I had so many of them. Conclusions and assumptions—lots of both of those. Until now, that is.”
Mrs. Thurgood closed her eyes. “We all travel with them, and frequently they are like poorly packed luggage—falling apart and needing to be redone as we journey through life. You aren’t any different than any other woman. We take our conclusions and our assumptions and set them aside until we pick up new ones, and then we set them aside until we realize we shouldn’t ever carry either.”
“Then,” Annabelle said on an exhaled breath, “what do we carry?”
“Faith,” Mrs. Thurgood said.
“In what?”
“That, my dear, is for you to decide. But you should have faith that we will find out who was on that plane. Okay?”
“What if . . . ?” A question traveled from a long way off and crash-landed directly on Annabelle’s heart, right in the center of her body, where she had always trusted Knox.
“What if . . . what?” Mrs. Thurgood asked.
“What if none of it is true?”
“None of what?” Mrs. Thurgood came out from behind her desk, which she rarely did because it meant grabbing her cane.
“Everything I’ve ever believed about my life.” Annabelle bent forward with the words, which must have been forming since Wade left her porch. “What if everything I’ve ever believed about my marriage, my life, was a lie? What if all I trusted and relied on wasn’t true?” Her hands shook when they landed on the desk to steady herself.
Mrs. Thurgood touched her elbow. “Oh, Belle. That is, of course, a dreadful thought.”
“Can you at least wait to publish the story until I’ve had time to call family, friends . . . ?”
Mrs. Thurgood nodded. “You’ll have the rest of the day—it won’t be in the paper until the evening edition.”
Annabelle dropped her head. “I’ve got to go. . . .” She retreated from the office without saying more.
Light and shadow danced across Cooper and Christine’s porch in an afternoon choreography. Annabelle held her hand in midair before the door, wanting to find the perfect words to ask her friends about Knox’s woman. She didn’t want to emotionally spew the news and questions as she just had in Mrs. Thurgood’s office.
Christine opened the door and smiled before Annabelle could knock. “Hey, Annabelle.” Christine hugged her. “I swear I cannot mix white wine and boat rides. I’m getting too old. . . . I have a horrid headache today. How are you?”
“I’m good. . . . I was hoping I caught y’all at a good time. I was wondering if I could talk to both of you for a second. Or is Cooper traveling today?”
“He’s leaving in about an hour for a plane to Phoenix. Let me see if he’s done packing.”
Annabelle pictured the newspaper headlines, the gossip that would surely flow, the phones ringing across town. “I just need five minutes to talk to y’all . . . if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all. Let me get Cooper.” Christine motioned for Annabelle to follow, then shot a teasing look over her shoulder and laughed. “I can’t believe you jumped in last night.”
“God, that already seems a million years ago,” Annabelle said.
“What do you mean?”
“I got some news today. . . . Get Cooper so I don’t have to keep saying it. . . .”
“Okay.” Christine walked down the hall to the bedroom. She’d met Cooper in college and had set her sights on marrying him after their second date. Christine was from Florida—a place, she said, that was in the South, but wasn’t Southern. She fell in love first with the Lowcountry and then with Cooper, as though he were a piece of the land broken off and given to her as a gift.
Annabelle remembered a long-ago New Year’s Eve party when Christine had told her that she knew Cooper loved her because he’d stayed with her when he’d had the chance to reunite with an old girlfriend who had once broken his heart.
When Christine had told Annabelle this story—following too many glasses of champagne, after both of them had been married for years—Annabelle experienced a rare moment of doubt about Knox. Would he have left her if he’d
really
had the chance? She’d watched Knox across the room talking to Shawn, and laughing. Then he’d glanced around until he found her, met her eyes and smiled. So many years they’d been married by then—ten—that she knew he was looking for her, seeking a point of comfort in the crowded room. But, she wondered, was she merely that for him: a source of comfort and familiarity?
Now standing in Christine’s foyer, Knox dead and gone, Annabelle remembered Knox’s smile for her as if she had just received it.
Cooper came from the back bedroom, hair wet and buttoning his shirt. “Hey, Belle, what’s up?” He kissed her on the cheek.
“Can I talk to y’all for a few minutes?” Annabelle asked.
“You sound so formal—you don’t have to ask to talk to us. What is it? You don’t look so . . . well.”
“Thanks, Cooper,” Annabelle said, punched the side of his arm.
He waved toward the kitchen. “Come on, let’s get coffee.”
Annabelle followed him into the kitchen—newly re-modeled to look antique. An oxymoron: Christine’s new old kitchen. It had heart-of-pine floors, granite counters honed to look ancient, a black Viking stove with a false patina of age and custom-built mahogany cabinetry.
Cooper poured coffee beans into the grinder, Annabelle seated herself on a bar stool at the counter and Christine paced the kitchen as though she were looking for one more thing to put in its proper place.
The grinder noise kept them silent for a moment, and then Cooper tapped the coffee into the brewer and turned to Annabelle. “Shoot, girl. What’s up?”
Christine sat, too, now, across from Annabelle at the discreet family desk with the roll-down top that hid the bills and paraphernalia of family life.
“Sheriff Gunther came to visit me this afternoon. It seems they’ve found Knox’s plane, his body,” Annabelle said.
Cooper came around the counter, hugged Annabelle. The simple fragrance of soap and toothpaste clung to him. He didn’t say anything at all, and for this, she was grateful.
When he stepped away, she added, “There was another person with him. A woman.” She thought she might as well get to the point quickly. “I’m really hoping you can tell me who she is. . . .”
Cooper leaned down to look her in the eye. “You’re kidding, right?”
In that single moment, she understood that he had no idea who was on that plane. “No, I’m not kidding.”
Christine abruptly stood up on the other side of the room, walked toward them. “Damn, Cooper, of course she’s not kidding.”
Annabelle faced Christine. “Do you know something, anything about who this woman was?”
Christine held up her hands as though Annabelle had thrown her empty coffee mug at her. “No, I just meant that no one would joke about such a horrible thing.”
Annabelle turned back to Cooper. “God, who was it?” “Let’s retrace here,” Cooper said. “Knox said he was going hunting in Colorado. Alone. He did it . . . how often—once a year, every other year?”
“Yeah, no real pattern.” Annabelle twirled her empty mug on the counter. “No exact dates every year.”
Cooper walked over to the coffeepot, filled three mugs.
Annabelle blew on her coffee. “Listen, I know you have a plane to catch, but if you think of anything, even one thing that would help me know who she was, please tell me. Now, more than any other time in my life, is not when you should spare my feelings—you have to tell me everything. The FAA is trying to identify the body—it will end up in the papers.”
Cooper shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea whatsoever who this woman was. I thought I knew everyone Knox knew. If he lied to you about this—then he lied to me, too.”
“I’m not sure what he did or didn’t lie about. I’m just sure that . . . Actually I’m not sure about a damn thing.” Annabelle took a swig of coffee.
Cooper sat down next to her. “Don’t let this make you doubt what you knew about Knox. There is probably a very logical explanation.”
Annabelle stared out the window, across Cooper and Christine’s yard to the creek running behind it; a yellow chickadee sat on top of an iron bench. “Can you think of even one explanation that doesn’t involve deceit or betrayal?” Annabelle asked. “Because I can’t. Every explanation I come up with includes one of those two things,” Annabelle held her palms up as if weighing something, and then dipped her right hand downward. “Deceit”—she dipped her left hand—“betrayal.” She dropped both hands. “I’m not particularly fond of either option.”
“Didn’t he stop somewhere on the way to Colorado? Refuel or something?” Cooper asked.
Annabelle sat up straight. “Yes, he did. Newboro, North Carolina. He stopped there. . . .”
“See? Maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. . . . Don’t get yourself all worked up about things you don’t yet know.”
“Okay, I grant you—it doesn’t make sense,” Annabelle said. “I’ll try to believe it still might make sense at some point.” Annabelle closed her eyes, dropped her forehead on the counter. “Please let there be a good explanation.”
“We’re here if you need us.” Cooper placed his palm on top of her head.
Christine came to his side and sat next to Annabelle. “Please let us know if we can do anything.”
Annabelle lifted her head and forced a smile. “Thanks, y’all.” As she stood to leave, she wondered about the next logical step in this unchoreographed dance. A dance whose steps she didn’t know.
Back home, Annabelle made all the phone calls she had been dreading: to her mother, her in-laws, cousins and aunts. Each time she repeated the story in a false upbeat voice, she felt as if she were taking apart her life, removing building blocks from the foundation of her marriage.
Afterward, she needed to hear that Jake was okay, that this news was not piercing him as it was Keeley. She dialed his number and got his voice mail. “Hey, Jake, it’s Mom checking in. Call me. I love you,” she said, and hung up.
Schoolwork kept him busy. He’d been the only one in his high school class accepted to the University of North Carolina’s political science school. His grades and activities, his father’s reputation and Jake’s own amiable personality had won him a spot in the prestigious program. Jake had once wavered about his college major—until upon his father’s death he firmly resolved to continue his father’s work of bringing justice to those who’d been denied it.
Annabelle sat on the living room couch and closed her eyes. Her own strength dissipated, she wished for something, anything to help her in her unbelief. Yet even as she formed the thought, doubt began its long, circuitous journey into her soul.
THREE
SOFIE MILSTEAD
The waters off Newboro, North Carolina, changed personality with every movement of cloud, every shift of wind, every pull of the moon. The rich sea bound Sofie Milstead to this place where the dolphins had become her hope and balm in a world of human misunderstanding and loss.
She’d spent the day on a commercial fishing trawler recording dolphin calls. The water was rough and her gear rattled against the metal hull. Overhead video cameras were positioned to record the dolphins’ behavior around gill nets—the huge weighted nets used to capture species-specific fish. Sofie desperately desired to prevent the deaths of the hundreds of thousands of dolphins that were caught in the fishing nets every year. The goal of her research project was to gather enough information about dolphin behavior around the boats to support new legislation that would save the lives of these mythical creatures.
The boat captain, John Morris, hollered at her across the deck. “Hey, Sofie, there’s a pod starboard.”
“Thanks, John. It’s the Delphin pod. I already have so many of their recordings—now I can make some comparisons.” She smiled at him and pulled her raincoat closer, adjusted the controls on the passive acoustic monitoring system. She yanked a logbook and camera from her bag, placed them on the seat. John and several of the other commercial fishermen were kind enough to allow the researchers on their daily fishing trips; this was Sofie’s favorite boat.
“Why do you call it the Delphin pod?” John asked.
Sofie looked up at him. “I named the lead dolphin after one from a Greek myth—a love story.”
“Ah,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to ask. You think he likes your name for him?”
She shrugged. “Probably not. I didn’t like his name in the catalog—Spike, after his torn dorsal fin—but, hey, I might not like the name he’s given me either.” She laughed and ducked her head against the wind as she flipped the switch on the machine.
She became lost in her work as she photographed the identifying dorsal fin of each dolphin, then logged their movements around and behind the boat. She carefully noted the exact times so that the visual and sound records would coincide. She could never tell how many hours had passed when she worked like this—usually John had to call to her that the boat was ready to dock. Time collapsed in on itself, disappearing like morning mist without warning.
Water burst over the side of the boat as the crew pulled up the fishing nets. Sofie looked up from her logbook and realized that the sky had darkened. As John came to her side, another splash of cold water across the bow hit Sofie full in the face. She backed up, wiped her eyes and stared down at Delphin, who had clearly just sprayed her. “Not funny,” she said.
The sleek gray dolphin’s fluke shot out of the water, which meant he was going deep for food—probably for the bycatch of the nets. Sofie sighed. Swimming so close to the nets was how the dolphins became entangled and injured in them, was probably how Delphin had lost that chunk out of his dorsal fin. The pods were becoming accustomed to eating the bycatch off the fishing boats. If she only knew their language, knew how to tell them to steer clear of the nets.
The water began to churn, and the dolphin pod shot from the water and swam in a quick group toward the mouth of the sound, riding one another’s currents and calling out. Each dolphin had a signature whistle, which she matched to a prerecording so she could be certain who was calling and who was initiating the movements of the pod. Years ago she’d learned that the hearing part of the dolphin brain had twice the number of nerves as the human. Maybe that was why she believed the dolphins understood her soft, whispered words.