“I know what I saw,” Brette said again, and a tear slid down her cheek.
“You are mistaken, Mrs. Caslake.”
“Tell me then how Annaliese got off that ship! How did she get away?”
“I owe you no explanation of any kind. You need professional help. That’s what you need. And now I really must insist that you leave.” Simone stood.
Brette made no move to do the same. “Please. Please tell me how you know she left that ship alive.”
Simone walked over to the front door and opened it. She turned to face Brette, a silent summons on her face.
Brette slowly rose from the couch, shaken and numb at the same time. She made her way to the door. “Please? How do you know she isn’t dead? How do you know she got off that ship alive?”
“Because I helped her,” Simone said evenly.
Brette waited for Simone to tell her more, but the woman stared at her, silent.
“But I was led to your stateroom. I was shown that little cabinet. The doors opened and closed on their own . . .” Brette said, as if she needed the old woman’s validation that she wasn’t going crazy like Lucille had.
A flash of unease—or something like it—flickered across Simone’s face and then was gone. She said nothing.
“Maybe she left the ship like you said but something terrible happened to her,” Brette continued. “And now she haunts that ship. Maybe—”
“No,” Simone said, her tone flat.
Simone Robinson knew far more about Annaliese Kurtz beyond what had happened on the Queen Mary, of that Brette was sure. But it was also obvious the woman would tell her nothing more today. Brette could only hope that in the days or weeks to come, she’d have a change of heart. Only Simone Robinson could tell Brette what she needed to know. There was no point in going back to the ship until the old woman told her what had become of Annaliese Kurtz. She reached into her purse and pulled out a Walgreens receipt and a pen. She wrote down her phone number and address on the back and extended the piece of paper to Simone.
“Please. If you change your mind, would you contact me?”
Simone stared at the piece of paper. “Change my mind about what?”
“About telling me what happened to Annaliese Kurtz. You know more than you are telling me. Something had been in that little cabinet in your stateroom. There is a ghost on the Queen Mary that is troubled by what happened on your sailing and by what happened to Annaliese. I just need to know for myself now, Mrs. Robinson. I need to know what or who was leading me around that ship.”
The two women stood still and quiet, with Brette’s outstretched arm between them. Simone made no move to take the receipt. Brette laid it on the entry table next to her and then stepped outside into the afternoon sun.
She listened for the sound of the front door closing behind her but did not hear it. When she got into her rental car a moment later, Simone Robinson was staring at her from just inside her little house.
Brette wanted to call Keith so that she could hear his voice and hide away for a few moments in his love and affirmation, but she didn’t want to make the call with Simone standing on her threshold. She started the car and drove away, pulling into the first shopping area on her way back to the airport. The call to Keith went to voice mail and for a just a moment fresh tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away. Perhaps it was just as well. She didn’t know how to tell him how wrong she had been about Annaliese Kurtz. She left a message saying Simone Robinson had been no help and that she was taking the 5:03 P.M. flight back to San Diego if there was room on it. She’d text him if she was able to get a seat.
She held the phone in her hand after she’d hung up and stared out the windshield. A lost soul had wanted her to know that Annaliese Kurtz hadn’t jumped. The Drifter had been real. Brette wasn’t like Lucille. Couldn’t be like Lucille. As she sat there, the phone vibrated in her hand and she flipped it over to see if Keith was calling her back. But the caller was Trevor.
Trevor would be contacting her about only one thing. She let it ring and go to messaging. Then she tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and set the GPS for the airport.
There was only one seat left on the flight back to San Diego and for the one-hundred-fifty-dollar change fee, it was Brette’s. She didn’t care that it had been an expensive day. She wanted answers, not her spent money back in her wallet. The cost of the rental car and the airfare seemed inconsequential compared to the deeper issues she was wrestling with.
She pulled out her phone when she got to her gate to text Keith her flight number. As she was typing the words, an incoming message arrived from Trevor.
Call me. I need you.
“No, you don’t,” she mumbled, and tapped the icon to hear his earlier voice mail:
“Brette, it’s Trevor. I need you to call me as soon as you get this. I’m in a bind. I’m getting nowhere with Emily. We’re still in LA and I’m at my wit’s end. Please call me back.”
Brette deleted the voice mail and opened a web browser to absently prowl home decorating sites while she waited for her flight. She couldn’t help Trevor or his daughter or even herself. She had no idea how to manage the Sight, and the best thing she could do—the smartest thing she could do—would be to let it die with her. She and Keith could adopt a child. It made the most sense. The Sight was fickle, untrustworthy, and nothing that should be passed on to another person.
She was never going to hear from Simone Robinson again, and even if she did, even if Simone told her that she’d helped Annaliese create a new life for herself in America, it didn’t change the fact that Brette had been duped on the Queen Mary, or worse, carried away by her own imagination.
Trevor texted her twice while she waited. She ignored the first and answered the second.
I’ve done all I can do for you, she wrote.
When she boarded, she turned the phone off well before being instructed to do so by the airline attendants. And when she turned her phone back on after the plane landed in San Diego, she ignored Trevor’s return message, deleting it unread.
Keith wanted to hear all about her visit with Simone Robinson. Brette told him it had been a wasted trip and wanted to leave it at that. It wasn’t until he pressed for more details that she told him Annaliese Kurtz was apparently alive and well somewhere, having faked her death seventy years ago with Simone Robinson’s help.
“Then . . . who did you . . . Who was talking with you on the ship?” he’d asked, and she could hear the concern in his voice.
“Apparently not Annaliese Kurtz,” Brette snapped, and then immediately wished she hadn’t. “Sorry,” she said a second later, surprised to feel tears of frustration and anger on her cheeks.
“Brette.”
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she whispered to the window glass next to her and the shimmering lights on the other side of it.
Keith reached across her seat to take her hand. He squeezed it and said nothing for a moment. “Maybe it was another Drifter who just wanted you to know Annaliese Kurtz hadn’t jumped,” he finally said.
Brette had been wrestling with that same thought for the last couple of hours. “They aren’t like that. Drifters don’t care about other people. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. They just . . . they are only focused on themselves. That’s their biggest problem.”
“So, what are you saying, then?”
She had no answer for him. She had no answers for herself. Brette said nothing.
“Let’s go back to the ship,” Keith said. “You and me. Let’s find out who it was you met. You told me before this Drifter was different.”
The thought of going back to the Queen Mary, exposing herself to the strength and will of that lost soul, filled her with a sense of exhaustion. She hadn’t the strength to tangle with that Drifter again.
“I’m tired, Keith.”
&nbs
p; He laughed lightly. “I don’t mean right now. In a couple days. Maybe this weekend.”
“No, I mean, I’m tired. I’m tired of it. All of it. I just want to go back to pretending I’m normal.”
He squeezed her hand and said nothing. But she heard the echo of her own words and even his unspoken thoughts in her head.
Pretending was no way to live.
Her phone vibrated in her purse. She knew without looking at it that it was Trevor. She reached inside, felt for the button to switch the phone off, and pressed it.
Thirty-seven
RMS QUEEN MARY
1946
Annaliese saw no one as she sped along the A-deck corridor, Simone’s convincing insults still ringing in her ears. The grand staircase was empty of other people, and only a few lingered on the exterior of the promenade deck as she made her way outside. The closer she got to the stern, the quieter and more isolated her surroundings became. Simone’s demand that no one see her had been easy to comply with. She exited the covered promenade deck, opening one of two double doors, and was met with an immediate icy chill. She wrapped her cardigan tighter around her middle and headed for the metal staircase that led to the last visible deck before the hull hit water. The night sky was speckled with starlight and the wake behind the ship sounded like a waterfall. Annaliese hurried to the railing and peeled off her cardigan, a gift from Mama many years ago. Without it, she was immediately freezing. She tied the knitted arms loosely to the railing with numb fingers, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one had emerged onto the deck.
She rose to her feet and for a moment considered what it might be like to actually do what Simone was planning to tell everyone: climb over the railing and jump. She looked out over the railing to the inky water below. The frigid Atlantic was a lacy black swath, glistening here and there as moonlight and starshine touched it. The velvet blackness seemed welcoming, in a detached kind of way, almost aloof. The water seemed to beckon her with unspoken promises of empty relief and an end to all sensation—good and bad.
It would be so easy to just fall and forget.
Forget what the war had taken, what Rolf had taken, what an icy road had taken when the car Katrine had been driving tumbled end over end into the ditch.
She leaned out farther to gaze at the water’s serene beauty, and she sensed a tugging on her torso not to give in to the cold pull of oblivion. Annaliese closed her eyes as a strange strength within urged her to come away from the edge.
She stepped back, numb with cold. Her cardigan on the railing fluttered and waved, bidding her good-bye, it seemed. She turned to look toward the crew door she’d been instructed to go through.
Go, now! the force all around her seemed to say.
Annaliese took one last look at the water and then headed for the door. It opened noisily but there was no one about.
Take the hall to your right and then the first set of stairs you see, Simone had told her, after she’d spoken to Marc and secured his assistance. Keep going down until you can go no farther. There will be a passageway that leads to storage berths for the kitchen and laundry. Go along the corridor until you see a door marked Holiday Decorations. Make sure no one sees you. There will be a torch lying just inside on the floor. Don’t turn it on until you’ve closed the door and then only have it on long enough to find the farthest corner to hide in. Marc will have blankets and a pillow waiting for you there. Don’t make a sound, Annaliese. Especially when the ship docks in the morning. It will be quiet belowdecks when the propellers aren’t turning and the engines are still. Marc will come to you when he can. Do not leave the room, or you will incriminate us all.
“When will I get off the ship?” Annaliese had asked.
“You’re not getting off the ship. You are going back to England.”
Annaliese had stared back at Simone in disbelief.
“Everyone will think you are dead. No one will be expecting to see you in Southampton. Or Paris.”
“P-Paris?” Annaliese stammered.
“I know someone in Paris who can help you. Someone who can help you with false identity papers. Her name is Celeste Didion and she helped me when I needed to escape. She will help you. You need to get across the channel and into Paris. If you can do that, you don’t ever need to worry about Rolf again. Marc will keep you hidden on the return voyage to England, bring you food, empty your piss pot.”
“Empty my . . .” Annaliese had gasped, unable to finish. “I couldn’t possibly!”
“Oh, yes, you can. I peed and pooped in a pot for four months when I was stuck in a wine cellar,” Simone had replied. “You can manage it for five days. When you get into Southampton, Marc will bring you a maid’s uniform and help you get off the ship and onto another one.”
“Another one?”
“You need to get to Cherbourg, and you need to get there without a passport. He says he can do it. He has a friend who works on one of Cunard’s other ships. When you get off at Cherbourg, you will make your way to Madame Didion in Paris. I am going to send her a telegram when we get to New York, so she will be expecting you.” Simone had handed her a slip of paper with an address on it.
“Are you sure she will be willing to help me?” Annaliese had asked as she glanced at the paper and then placed it in her skirt pocket.
“She will if I ask her to.”
The two women had been quiet for a moment.
“What if we get caught, Simone?” Annaliese had asked, her gaze on the vast blue sea.
“What if we do?” Simone had shrugged. “What is the worst they can do to us? We shouldn’t be seen talking. I’m going to leave now. Don’t follow me.”
Simone turned to go then, and Annaliese put her hand out and touched Simone’s arm.
“I can’t thank you enough for what you are risking for me, Simone. I know I don’t deserve it.”
Simone had smiled faintly. “We don’t deserve a lot of the things that happen to us, Annaliese.”
Now, as Annaliese made her way down the several flights of stairs, down into the heart of the ship, she wondered if she would ever see Simone Robinson again. It didn’t seem likely. The thought filled her with sadness even as she crept down the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could.
She found the closet that had been prepared for her, and the flashlight. She followed the instructions she’d been given, clicking on the light only long enough to find the far corner where a pillow, several wool blankets, and an empty soup pot were waiting for her. The little room was cold but not as freezing as the open deck had been. She wrapped herself in the wool blankets and huddled against a wood crate marked Garlands and Ornaments.
She did not think she would be able to sleep for the cold and the fear of being discovered, but the gentle rocking of the ship’s belly wooed her to slumber.
• • •
ANNALIESE AWOKE WITH A START.
For a moment she couldn’t recall why she was immersed in darkness, nor why in the nightmare that had roused her from sleep, Katrine’s husband, awash in rage and grief, had been shouting at her. As she rubbed the terrible dream from her eyes she remembered why she was hiding in a closet far below decks, as well as why her mind had conjured the tortured image of John Sawyer: In the frenzy of activity the night before, Annaliese had neglected to tell Simone there was a letter of explanation for John, hidden in the lining of her suitcase.
As this profound disappointment fell across her, Annaliese heard voices in the corridor. The crew was now up and about and talking among themselves as they walked past her door. The voices trailed away save for one.
“You in there. It’s me. Marc.” The whispered voice floated past the tiny seam of light at the door frame. “Don’t come out. Don’t make a sound. I’ll be back later.”
Her arms and legs were stiff and sore but she crawled toward the doorway.
“Am I safe?�
� she whispered.
“I don’t know yet.” He started to move away.
“Wait!” she said, as loud as she dared. “Please tell Simone there’s a letter in my suitcase for John. She’ll know who that is. Please! Tell her she can say that she found it among my things. Please tell her.”
“I’ll try.”
And then the voice was gone. A moment later the great propellers fell silent. The ship had docked and an eerie silence filled the little room.
Annaliese rewrapped herself in the blankets and waited, mentally picturing every dance step for Swan Lake to keep her mind occupied in the odd silence.
Then she moved on to Sleeping Beauty.
And then Giselle.
And then Romeo and Juliet.
Sometime later she climbed out of the blankets, stretched her arms and legs, and clicked on the flashlight to use the dreaded soup pot for a toilet. As she settled back into her corner, she noticed a basket behind the crate that she had missed the night before. Inside was a bottle of water, three apples, and a half loaf of bread.
Annaliese clicked off the light, ate an apple, repeated the ballets in her head, and waited.
The account of her suicide must have been believed. If she’d been spotted coming down to the bowels of the ship last night, the harbor police would have already been ushered aboard and the ship searched. But several hours had passed since the propellers went quiet and the ship stopped moving.
Annaliese dozed for a bit.
When she awoke, stiff and numb again, she stood as quietly as she could and exercised her limbs. She ceased when she heard voices in the corridor again. This time, they were close. The storage berths across from her were being loaded with items for the return trip to England. She heard laughter, shouting, the shuffling of feet and boxes and handcart wheels. She caught the faint whiff of cigarette smoke. But no one came near the storage berth for the ship’s holiday decorations. After a while the corridor was quiet again. She ate some bread and an apple and used her makeshift toilet.
A Bridge Across the Ocean Page 28