by Karin Tanabe
Jane handed me a plain black bikini and we walked through the living room, a study, and the sunroom before opening a door to the pool.
We changed and dove in and I lay on my back and let the water fill my ears. Jane did a few laps, but I just floated. I was so angry at Tyler that I didn’t know what to do with my anger besides let it boil through me. Everything hurt. My brain felt slow, my arteries clogged, my muscles ripped. I tried to take a deep breath but the oxygen felt stuck in my neck. I had two choices. I could do nothing and see if Max did anything. Or I could tell NCIS everything I knew and put it in someone else’s hands. The thought of both made me sick.
Jane lifted herself out of the pool, walked over to the antique beverage cart, and poured me a neat whiskey. She handed me a half-full glass and got back in.
“Here, don’t drown,” she said, resuming her laps. We stayed like that for half an hour, Jane swimming, really swimming, even though it was almost two in the morning, and me lapping whiskey, refilling the glass, and letting my brain be washed over with Tyler.
When Jane gave up on her laps and swam toward me to see how I was doing, I was very drunk. She swam to the wall and stretched her arms out on either side of her, her three gold bracelets dinging together every time she moved her arm.
“Can you take those off? I just can’t hear that right now,” I said, staring accusingly at her wrist.
“But I never take them off.”
I knew she didn’t but all of a sudden I wanted her to. I needed something to hate right then, so I hated them.
“It’s just the jingling. It’s rattling my rattled nerves. They sound like tin cans.”
Jane raised her eyebrows at the suggestion that she was wearing tin and lowered her arm underwater.
“Thank you,” I said, knowing full well that in a few minutes I’d hear them again, a constant reminder of her charmed life. There, standing in someone else’s pool, I was feeling very sorry for myself. There were moments at Christie’s when I felt like I would one day get somewhere close to where I wanted to be. Nothing up to Dalby standards, but something that met mine. There wasn’t huge money to be had working at Christie’s, but if I got high enough, I knew I’d be able to stretch it out into something. Especially if I left and worked as a dealer.
“You’re not going to tell me what’s going on?” said Jane as I poured the rest of my second glass of whiskey down my throat.
“No.”
“You’re going to sit in the pool and drink whiskey.”
“Absolutely.”
“Fine. I don’t want to be around you, then.”
She got out of the pool and grabbed a towel, shaking it out vigorously, her three bracelets clinking together, not like tin cans, but like champagne glasses on New Year’s Eve.
“Those bracelets sound like golden handcuffs right now,” I said, not turning to face her.
Jane continued to shake her towel and said, “I don’t know when you became a mean drunk, but it’s about as becoming on you as a woman with a mustache.”
She walked out of the room, her towel tight around her body, and I screamed out an apology just as the glass door banged shut behind her.
I fell asleep, in the bathing suit with two towels wrapped around myself, on one of the lounge chairs by the pool. I woke up the next morning feeling like my head was in a vise. The bathing suit was still somewhere between wet and dry and my entire body felt like a mix of whiskey and swamp. I passed a clock on the way to the pool bathroom. It was eleven. I was two hours late for work, horribly hungover, and my face hurt from all the crying I did the night before. I would go to work. I would give myself the day. And that evening, I would go to Tyler’s and decide what to do. William didn’t say anything except “I see you’ve decided to work the night shift” when I walked in. I apologized, promised him I’d work until eight, and hoped that I smelled more like chlorine than alcohol.
By eight that evening, I was dragging. I was wearing a mix of what I’d worn the day before and another one of Jane’s cashmere sweaters that had been in the bottom drawer of my desk. I left the store and locked the door under the motion light. Tyler’s words kept sprinting through my brain. I had to be the one to decide. I’d thought about him sober, drunk, crying, stoic, naked, clothed, sweet, mean. And every time I did, I thought about my last day at Christie’s, talking to Nina on the phone, getting kicked out of my office, blackballed from my career. I’d called Tyler selfish, but really, I was about to do something very selfish. I could not make the same mistake just a few months after what happened at Christie’s. If I didn’t say anything, and it all came out and I was part of it, I would never work in art again. Not legally. But Tyler—I needed him to come out of this, too. If I came forward, he could get dismissed; everyone had said that, even him. I knew that would kill him. He’d been in the Marine Corps for eleven years. It had taken him out of a three-thousand-person town in Wyoming and shown him the world. It had given him eyes, and without it, I didn’t know what he would do.
I walked back to the glass table and laid my head on the cool top just like I’d done when I found out I had the wrong bowl. Someone had to save Tyler Ford, but it couldn’t be me. I bit my top lip and called the number I had for the NCIS agent I’d spoken to twice now, Brian Van Ness. He answered after two rings and I explained why I needed to see him.
“Should I meet you at the antique store?” he asked.
“Definitely not.”
“Want to meet at the Blue Hen?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Yes, I’m kidding. How about that meat restaurant on America’s Cup Ave.”
“Smoke House.”
“Yeah, that one. I’ll met you at the bar in, what, twenty minutes?”
“I’ll be there in five.”
I was there in four. And by the time I was sitting at the bar I wanted to take back everything I had just said to Brian on the phone. What was I doing? I should have just let fate dictate.
When Brian came, I explained my regret and he nodded.
“But you can’t take it back now. And you know you’re doing the right thing.”
“Am I? How many tours did Tyler do? Four. And now what? He serves his country and I fuck him over?”
“You’re not. He fucked himself over. And he’s delivering you to give the message. It’s kind of a chickenshit move, if you want my opinion.”
“He already put himself in the position to fail.”
“Yeah, I got that from what you said on the phone.” He cleared his throat and looked at me. “I stopped by Tyler’s house on the way to meet you but he wasn’t home.”
“That seems to be a trend lately.”
“When he wasn’t home, I turned around and looked for him a little on base, but he wasn’t there, either. Have you called him since you two talked last night?”
“No, I was going to tonight. I want to tell him what I’m doing, that I talked to you, but after the fact.”
“Can you try to call him now? I just want to see if he will pick up if he sees your number. He didn’t answer my call. It went to voicemail.”
I took my phone out of my bag and tried his number. My call didn’t go through, either. I didn’t even get voicemail.
“Nothing. Not even a message.”
“No voicemail?”
I shook my head no.
“Fine.”
I waved to the bartender for another drink and Brian asked me to tell him everything I had told him on the phone again.
“Did Tyler say if he worked with anyone else from the military? It seems unlikely that Max would only recruit him to be involved in this.”
“He didn’t say.”
“And what about this other bowl? The fake one, the copy. Where did he get it?”
This was when I had to lie. I put my glass down, looked at Brian, and said, “I don’t k
now. But I know it’s fake.”
“You don’t know.”
“I don’t know,” I said a little louder.
“You do know that all we have to pin Max Sebastian right now is your word that he’s the head of a huge black-market antiquities smuggling ring.”
“What’s wrong with my word?”
“It would help a lot more if we had Tyler’s.”
“But when you talk to Tyler, he’ll get court-martialed.”
“Definitely. That we have enough for. With everything you’ve said, if he admits to it, then we do.”
“You think he’ll tell you something different than I’m telling you right now?”
“Possibly. But I have to find him first.”
“Well, then I don’t know why I’m still here. I told you everything I know. So go to London. Deal with Max. Arrest him.” I finished the drink quickly to numb my escalating nerves.
“You don’t get it, do you. Max is not my problem. Tyler is my problem. This is NCIS. Military law, military crimes conducted by members of the military. Max is, I’m guessing, not a member of the armed forces?”
“He’s fifty-something and British.”
“Right. I’ll talk to the Newport police. Actually, we’ll talk to the Newport police. But tomorrow, when you haven’t been drinking. Now that I say that, stop drinking. Here, have this.” He pushed his water glass toward me and watched me down the whole thing. “I’ll meet you at the Newport police station on Broadway at ten A.M. tomorrow. Can you do that?”
“Of course,” I said, hiccupping.
“Fine. Switch to water.”
The next morning when I met Brian, I was there with a clear head and clean clothes. Brian waved me over to him before we walked in the door.
“You look better.”
“I feel a little better.”
“That’s not going to last long. I found Tyler. Well, kind of.”
“How can you kind of find someone?”
“When did you say Tyler told you all of this?”
“Late the night before last. The night before I spoke to you.”
“Did he ask you to wait twenty-four hours before you spoke to anyone?”
“Of course not. He didn’t ask me to talk to anyone. He didn’t ask me to do anything. I’m sure he would be incredibly pissed off if he knew I did.”
Brian paused and looked away from me.
“He knows you pretty well?”
“I’d go with very well.”
“He knew you’d talk, then, but he also knew you’d wait to do it. You’re not much of a rash decision maker, are you? Kind of a slow boil?”
“I guess so. What are you trying to say?”
“Tyler’s in Turkey. Or at least he landed in Turkey last night. He took a flight from Boston to Istanbul. He knew you were going to talk to me. But I think he also knew you wouldn’t do it immediately. If he thought you’d do it right after you left him, he wouldn’t have gotten on that long of a plane ride.”
I stared at Brian for a long time before saying anything. Tyler knew I was going to report him. I was, despite everything I had always hoped to the contrary, predictable. And that night, I’d told him he’d turned out worse than anyone thought, worse than every cliché about him. And now he was gone. That’s what he’d been doing during the nine days he’d disappeared. He’d been getting ready to run.
“What’s in Turkey?” I asked in a low, tired voice.
“I have no idea,” said Brian. “But he just made things a lot worse for himself. If Max is what you say he is, Tyler could have confirmed that, gotten a deal. Now he looks really bad. And he’s also a deserter.”
“A deserter? He’s been gone for twenty-four hours and he’s already a deserter?”
Brian pointed to the door of the police station. “Let’s just assume he’s on vacation, okay? We need to get through the rest of this.”
The rest of it did not go well. I told the head of the Newport police criminal investigation unit, Captain Jeff Ambrose, everything I knew and that was all I was able to do. When I asked Brian what would happen next, he shook his head and said, “I’ll be in touch. Captain Ambrose might be in touch. Until then, just keep living your life.”
CHAPTER 18
It wasn’t until a month later that I heard from Captain Jeff Ambrose with the Newport police. It was almost mid-June and the town was swelling with tourists and the boats that cut through the water for the America’s Cup qualifying races. The town looked perfect, but my Newport was desolate. I had given the Dalbys, Carter, and William very thin versions of the real story. I hadn’t heard from Tyler. I hadn’t been able to get back on Jane’s boat even with the perfect summer weather. I didn’t think I’d ever get on it again.
“Do you want me to sell it?” she’d asked after I’d declined for the fourth time. I’d shaken my head no and said, “I think I’ll take up windsurfing instead.”
The day Captain Ambrose called was one of the days I’d declined Jane’s invitation, but I had stayed on the harbor. I couldn’t get on the boat, but I could watch it from the shore, the white sails cutting through the wind. I could picture Carter and Jane in her white shorts and thick linen sweaters, her gold bracelets not bothering anyone. But all I could hear when I looked at that boat was Tyler’s voice daring me into something with him. “You always have to jump if someone tells you to jump.” I had definitely jumped.
“I’ve got a question for you,” said Captain Ambrose over the phone.
“Yes, what is it?” I said, looking at the boats cross the water in front of me. I had lost sight of Jane’s dark blue boat. It was gone, in the water at the point that I liked best, when the shore was just out of view and you knew everything was still close by but you felt lost at sea.
“We’ve had someone in London paying attention to Max Sebastian. I told you that, I believe?”
“You didn’t.”
“Well, we do. We didn’t think there would be any interest, but I guess he’s kind of a big deal over there.”
“Has anything happened?”
“I can’t really go into the details. We’ve been watching him for a few weeks now and there hasn’t been anything worth calling about but today he booked a plane ticket to Houston. Do you know anything about that? Or have any guesses?”
My heart dropped.
“Houston, Texas? Are you sure?” I asked, my voice rising like the tide.
“Definitely. Tomorrow at nine A.M. Any idea why Mr. British would be going to Houston? There’s a Sotheby’s consultant in Houston but that doesn’t seem to fit. Would he be going there for work?”
Houston. I hadn’t talked about Texas since January.
“I don’t know,” I said, stretching out the last word. “I have a weird hunch but it’s a very far-fetched one. Can you give me a few hours to look into it before I tell you about it? I need to look at an auction record.”
“Yeah, okay. He doesn’t fly before tomorrow morning, but call me sooner rather than later if you think it’s anything.”
I promised him I would and then dialed a number that I hadn’t used in six months.
Nicole picked up her phone on the first ring. I realized as soon as she said hello that I missed her. I was still mad at her, but I missed her more.
“Nicole, I imagine you’re still banned from talking to me, but I could really use a favor,” I said quickly.
“Oh, hello, Aunt Irene. How are things in Maine?”
“Fine. I’m Aunt Irene and you can’t say anything because I’m guessing you share an office with someone new. Someone who is far more boring than me.”
“Rain! How devastating,” said Nicole. She sounded far too convincing. She had probably spent half her time having fake conversations when I was in that office.
“I would be forever indebted to you if you could send me
Adam Tumlinson’s auction record. The whole thing, every department, from his first bid to his last. Could you do that for me? I know it’s a huge ask but it will help me immensely. I can’t explain now, but—”
“No explanation needed. You should go to your favorite hotel in town. The one you told me about all those times. I think they have just the remedy for the bad weather at the bar. Why don’t you go there in an hour or two?”
“Fine, fine. Castle Hill Inn in an hour or two. Thank you so much, Nicole.”
“Let’s say two. Lots of love, Aunt Irene. Keep in touch.”
Maybe it was because she knew she’d been deplorable and owed me a favor, but as soon as Nicole hung up the phone I forgave her for forgetting I had a heartbeat all these months.
The Castle Hill Inn was the most charming hotel in Newport. If you liked luxury you stayed there. If you liked something quaint you stayed there. And if you were broke, you didn’t even come for lunch. I walked up the familiar stairs and went to the concierge, who knew me well.
“I think someone faxed something here for me,” I said.
“Just let me check, Ms. Everett. It’s nice to see you back at the hotel.”
The Castle Hill Inn was one of the places where if you grew up in Newport, you knew everyone who worked there, and everyone who worked there knew you, especially if you were best friends with the Dalbys and their money.
“Here you are,” he said, reaching out and handing me a very thick manila envelope. “Can I help you with anything else?”
“That’s all. Thank you very much.” I walked out the front door of the gray storybook property and onto the wraparound porch that overlooked the water and rocks. I walked halfway down the big grass hill and sat alone in a slightly weathered white Adirondack chair. There was no one near me and even the people far away didn’t seem to notice me. They were too busy absorbing old New England through their pores. I unhooked the string loop of the envelope and placed the pages on my lap, gripping them tightly so they didn’t fold or fly away with the wind.