Adrift

by Micki Browning

  “Couple hours. It’s ten-thirty.”

  Wow. She’d been asleep for close to five hours. She combed her fingers through her hair and sat up.

  Selkie perched on the opposite edge of the bench. “I didn’t want to wake you. You fell asleep the moment you sat down.” He sat ramrod straight, not looking at her. “But we can head back now if you want.”

  In the moonlight, Mer made out the gnarled fingers of a nearby mangrove. Water lapped along the shallow flats that surrounded the key. To starboard, lights from shore winked behind palms that rustled in the slight breeze.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Rodriguez Key.”

  The Devil’s Advocate gently rocked in waves that swelled rather than broke. The sensation felt as comforting as a lullaby but was too quiet to overpower the noise of their unspoken words.

  “So what happened back there?” Mer finally asked.

  He took his time answering. “Rob got away.”

  “Not that. You.”

  “I’m not sure you want to hear that story.”

  She slapped the seat cushion. “Quit trying to protect me.”

  He flinched. “I think we can both agree that I didn’t do a very good job of that today.”

  “You saved my life.”

  “I underestimated him. Let him get too close to you.” His shoulders slumped. “What if he’d hurt you?”

  “He didn’t. And it wouldn’t have been your fault even if he had.”

  They glared at each other from opposite ends of the bench. The silence stretched beyond the space and remained unbroken until Mer’s stomach growled.

  Some of the tension left Selkie’s body. “You haven’t eaten since breakfast. It’s not much, but I’ve got some cheese and salami downstairs.”

  Her belly felt as if it was about to start cannibalizing itself. “This isn’t the end of the conversation.”

  “Then I definitely need fortification. Inside or out?”

  She pulled her knees to her chin. “Here. It’s easier to talk in the dark.”

  Selkie stood and Mer started to unfold, but he waved her back. “I’ll bring it to you.”

  He returned a moment later and handed her a tray, then disappeared a second time. She settled the tray on the bench and crossed her legs. When he reappeared, he lurched up the ladder with a wine bottle tucked under his arm and two glasses hanging upside down from his fingers.

  “Liquid courage?” she asked.

  “That would be tequila. Wine is more like truth serum.” He handed her a glass and poured as she held it aloft. “I hope you like bold. Fiona gave this to me.”

  “As I recall, she likes to pair the wine to the person.”

  “I’m not a nice person, Mer.”

  “I’ve thought that for years.” She nibbled on a piece of Cheddar. “But a not-nice person would have seriously hurt Rob. You didn’t. You just knocked the wind out of him.”

  “I could have killed him.”

  “But you didn’t. He was going for a knife. I’m not sure he would have shown you the same restraint.”

  “All I did was allow—”

  “You didn’t allow him anything. Rob made his own choices. Just like I did.”

  “He was going to hurt you. A tactical mistake, by the way—I was the bigger threat,” he said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  He laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Want to arm-wrestle?”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant you couldn’t know he was going for me.”

  “His eyes gave it away. As soon as you slid off that seat.” His lips formed a grim line. “I was too slow.” He made a V with two fingers and pointed them at his face. “Always watch the eyes. They’ll tell you things that words won’t.”

  “Your eyes are always so stormy. Does that make you conflicted?”

  “Sometimes,” he admitted.

  “About things you’ve done or things you want to do?” Mer asked.

  He ran his hand across the back of his neck. “Both, I guess.”

  She straightened into alertness. “That movement right there. Your hand on your neck. Are you uncomfortable?”

  “You have an unprecedented ability for making me that way.”

  “But you must know how to hide your feelings.” She sipped her wine. “Wasn’t that a part of your training?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you got more than most, based on your graduate work,” she pressed.

  “True.”

  “So how come I make you uncomfortable?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Wrong question.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You detected a tell—a nonverbal clue to my discomfort. Well done.” He raised his wineglass and clinked it against hers. “But the question that should follow is why did I allow you to see the tell, not why am I uncomfortable.”

  The intellectual riddle intrigued her. “Two possibilities. Either you aren’t as good as you think you are, despite all your training, or you planted a false tell.”

  He sipped his wine. “A third possibility exists.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Perhaps I just want to be honest with you.”

  “Can you be?” She heard the unintended accusation in her voice and flushed, although considering her sunburn, maybe he wouldn’t be able to tell. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. What I meant to ask was how honest can you be when your job requires keeping secrets?”

  “There is a difference between not divulging information and being honest.”

  She put down her glass and considered her choices. “So which is it? Why did you let me see your discomfort?”

  “That, Dr. Cavallo, is for you to figure out.”

  She layered a slice of soppressata with some Brie on a bread crisp while she thought. “I’ll need to collect more data,” she said.

  “I’m at your disposal.” He swiped her creation and popped it into his mouth. “Enough about me. Why did you choose the Keys?”

  “It’s warm. I’ve spent the past two years in the Arctic.”

  “Why’d you leave?”

  “Funding cuts. Unfortunately, unless you work for Big Pharma loss of funding is a fairly common reality.”

  “So why the dive shop? You have a Ph.D.,” he said.

  “I like teaching people to dive.” She canted her head. “It’s the only time I feel really comfortable with other people. I get to show them a new world. Watch their faces. It’s incredible to share that moment.”

  She made another soppressata-Brie crisp and handed it to him. “I got lucky. I mean, with Bijoux and Leroy and all. They’re incredible.”

  “You were comfortable with me once.” Selkie reminded her.

  “We were young and stupid.”

  “I was the stupid one.”

  She didn’t know how to answer that. Occasionally she wished she could trade a bit of her intellect for some emotional savvy. This was one of those moments. Then she had a new thought. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “I suspect making a trip to Key West to talk to Mrs. Wimpleton and find out more about her erstwhile son,” he replied.

  She sat back. “How did you know?”

  “Your eyes. A cunning gleam entered them the moment Rob mentioned Ishmael’s mother.”

  “Cunning.” She stared into the distance. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been called cunning before.”

  “I meant it as a compliment.” He cut more salami and handed her a slice as a peace offering.

  She grabbed another cracker. “Of course it’s a compliment; it means ingenious.”

  “It also describes a devious or evasive methodology.”

  A stray crumb caught in her throat and she coughed. “I prefer ingenious.”

  “Of course you do.”

  They descended into silence again, but this time it held none of the earlier awkwardness.

  “Maybe Mrs. Wimpleton will be able to give us some answers,” Mer
said at last.

  “You may be disappointed. Not many mothers want to rat out their child.”

  She pulled the beach towel tighter around her shoulders. “There’s still so much I don’t understand.”

  “You know more tonight than you did this morning,” he said. “That’s progress.”

  “Yet I still don’t know what happened on the Spiegel Grove.”

  “Maybe not, but at least you’ve found a couple more pieces of the puzzle.”

  “What if there’s more than one puzzle?” She nibbled around the edge of a piece of salami. “I was right about Rob. He never saw a ghost.”

  Selkie dropped his napkin on the tray and leaned back. “Nice plan. Wonder who thought of it?”

  “I think we can rule out Rob. He doesn’t strike me as a mastermind.”

  “We’ll let Josh figure that out. I called him while you were sleeping. Made sure he’d heard about the Second Chance.”

  “Will you get in trouble for hitting Rob with the beer can?” Mer asked.

  “No. He’s not the kind of guy to talk to the cops unless there’s something in it for him. Divulging his participation in a hoax doesn’t fit that bill. Nor does the use of his boat as a weapon. Anyway, he’s long gone.”

  “His eyes told you all that?”

  “No.” He broke off another chunk of Cheddar. “The Second Chance blew out of the channel not long after we did. Last I saw, Rob was headed toward Miami.”

  “Oh.” Several questions swam around her like a school of baitfish, all clustered together, until one broke away from the group and she pounced on it. “Why does Detective Talbot mistrust you?”

  The moon cast a swath of light across the surface of the water, and it looked to Mer as if Selkie wished he could follow the path and disappear.

  “My wife’s name was Esma. You’d have liked her. She was a doctor, too. Medical, though.”

  “What’s that got to do with Talbot?”

  “Her family emigrated from Turkey when she was a teen. Lived next to Josh here in the Keys. We met in Monterey. She was teaching a class on bioterrorism.”

  “Let me guess, you became teacher’s pet?”

  “Tried, but she’d have none of it. Said it would shame her family.”

  “I see her point.”

  “Funny lady.” He tipped his glass at Mer. “She, on the other hand, was very serious. Focused.”

  “Was she military as well?”

  He stared into his wineglass. “No, but she was engaged to Josh.”

  The revelation shocked Mer into silence.

  “After grad school, we got married. Moved to the Keys, but she wanted to go home. Visit Turkey.” His voice flattened. “While we were there, she was shot. Josh blames me for her death.”

  “I don’t understand. You certainly didn’t pull the trigger.”

  “No.”

  “Then how can Talbot blame you?”

  He bowed his head. “The bullet was meant for me.”

  Chapter 28

  Mer dressed carefully for the trip to Key West, selecting khaki shorts and a brown T-shirt with a tan hibiscus flower stenciled on the chest. She’d tried complementary colors, but the brightness of the contrasting hues pulled her out of her comfort zone. She’d carefully tended her hair and even fastened sea-glass drop earrings that matched her pendant to her lobes. All in all, the image reflected in the mirror pleased her. Maybe just a touch of perfume.

  She and Selkie had planned to leave by eight in the morning. At a quarter after, she decided to roust him. Outside her door, she found a bundle of flowers and a note. His script was tight and orderly, his apology terse. He couldn’t accompany her to Key West after all. No explanation, no closing salutation beyond a simple “S.”

  Her earlier enthusiasm dimmed. Maybe he regretted last night’s revelations. He’d bared himself to her. Truths shared in the darkness didn’t always like to be examined by the light of day. She carried the flowers into the kitchen. Unable to locate a vase, she stoppered the sink and turned on the faucet. Waiting for the water level to rise, she removed her earrings and set them on the counter. They seemed frivolous now. She gathered her keys, left the flowers in the sink, and departed.

  The area from the tip of the exclusive Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo to the southernmost point of Key West spanned a hundred and thirty-seven miles, and, depending on how one counted, crossed an arguable number of other Keys. Two lanes separated the bright-colored island shops of Islamorada, four lanes plowed through the more industrialized Marathon, and long expanses of bridges linked the islands together. Mer enjoyed the soaring vista along the Seven Mile Bridge best. She slowed through the Key Deer Refuge, accelerated through Sugarloaf Key, passed Stock Island, and when the road refused to go straight anymore she turned left.

  A plane descended from the clouds and landed at Key West’s tiny international airport. Expensive resorts dotted the road on her right. Beyond Higgs Beach, the road narrowed and then doglegged into a congested neighborhood.

  Bicycles rocketed past her as she negotiated the narrow streets until she found the retirement home. She had to circle the block to get a parking spot, and she wiggled her Subaru between a well-loved VW van and an Audi. When she got out of the car, the heat hit her like a blast furnace and simultaneously wilted her clothes and frizzed her hair. By the time she’d walked to the address, sweat trickled between her breasts.

  An oval sign on the gate welcomed her to the Banyan House Senior Retreat. Strangler fig trees, a couple of silver palms, and a blooming orchid shaded a short brick walkway that cut across the lush lawn, but she didn’t see a single namesake banyan tree.

  Mer climbed the four steps to the porch of the sprawling wood-framed home in Old Town. Inside, she checked in with a receptionist, who directed her to a woman seated by the front window.

  “Mrs. Wimpleton?”

  A halo of silver hair framed cataract-clouded hazel eyes that lifted, unseeing, toward Mer’s voice. She clicked off the portable CD player that rested in her ample lap, but not before Mer recognized the audio of a Sue Grafton novel.

  “I’m Mer Cavallo, are you Mrs. Wimpleton?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about your son.”

  Mrs. Wimpleton pinched a small fold of her housedress. “Edgar?”

  “Yes, ma’am. May I sit down?”

  “Of course. Sit, sit.”

  Although spacious, the dayroom looked as if a chintz factory had exploded and splattered floral-patterned shrapnel down upon every surface. To add to the carnage, ivy-and-rose drapes choked the windows and multihued fabric suffocated the chairs. It made Mer dizzy.

  “How can I help you, dear?” Mrs. Wimpleton said.

  Now that Mer was here, she didn’t know how to begin. For the first time, she realized that she might have to be the one to tell Mrs. Wimpleton that her son was missing. “Ma’am, I’m afraid I have bad news to share with you about your son.”

  “Don’t you worry yourself—how bad can it be? He’s dead.”

  The bluntness of the statement contrasted sharply with the sweetness of the old woman’s face.

  “You know about the Spiegel Grove?”

  Confusion weighed down the corners of her mouth. “What’s a bunch of trees got to do with Edgar?”

  “Not trees. The Spiegel Grove is the name of a shipwreck off Key Largo. Your son was diving on it when he disappeared.”

  “Child, I don’t mean to be rude, but you’ve confused my son with someone else. Edgar’s been dead for over twenty years.”

  The information stole Mer’s breath for a moment. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to be so indelicate, but how did your son die?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Why, in the fire, when our store burned down.”

  Mer searched the cluttered surfaces. “Let me get you a tissue.”

  “Oh, don’t worry yourself. I’m just a foolish old woman.” Mrs. Wimpleton reached into her pocket and withdrew a lace-edged hanky. “Even after all t
hese years, it still hurts.”

  An egret-shaped orderly landed at Mrs. Wimpleton’s shoulder and glared disapprovingly at Mer. “Miz Ruth, are you okay?”

  She patted the orderly’s hand. “I’m fine, Sarah, thank you.”

  Sarah’s head jutted forward on an impossibly thin neck. “You let me know if you need anything.” She eyed Mer and pressed her lips tight. Mer had the distinct impression that the orderly would enjoy evicting her.

  Mrs. Wimpleton waved her off and leaned close to Mer. “She’s an old fussbudget, but she means well.”

  “You mentioned a fire.”

  “Yes.” Her blind eyes focused on a memory. “My husband and I ran a little tchotchke shop. Edgar used to love working in it when he was old enough.” She sighed. “They think it was a faulty pilot light, but they were never certain. George, my husband, well, he died in the fire, too.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “The two of them. Thick as thieves. George taught Edgar his first magic trick. You should have seen Edgar’s face. I thought for sure he’d be disappointed to learn that it wasn’t real, but I was wrong.” She placed her elbow on the armrest and leaned toward Mer. “Truth is, I think he liked pulling the wool over his friends’ eyes.” She settled back into her chair. “He would have been forty-six this May.”

  The woman sitting in front of Mer had to be at least ninety.

  She cackled. “I can hear you thinking, honey. I bet you have a very expressive face.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “George and I adopted Edgar when he was just a baby. Just as sweet a child as you’d hope to have. In college, he studied theology.”

  That didn’t sound like Ishmael.

  “Let’s see, that must have been…well, math never was my strong suit. But he only attended a year before the fire. A shame. He could preach to save the Devil.”

  “He sounds like he was a wonderful person.” And not at all like the Ishmael she knew.

  “Oh, he was. Always concerned with the people who came in the store. Went out of his way to help them.” She laughed again, softer this time. “We had some real loony tunes visit, but he was always so pleasant. Course the young ladies came in just to gaze into his eyes. But he was a good salesperson. Charming. Never pushy. People liked that, especially if they were grieving because they’d lost someone close. I think that’s why he decided to pursue theology.”