Drift

by Amy Murray

  He sat on his heels in front of me and chewed the inside of his lip. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I dropped my hand and lifted my shoulders. “I don’t know,” I said. The drift was still playing, and Colin’s last words were on repeat. If I believed him, and the necklace wasn’t where I’d last seen it, then Colin was the only one who knew where it was. Which meant Mack was the only one who knew where it was.

  James extended his hand. When I took it, he pulled me up until my body was flush with his. He ran his hand up my arm and settled it at the curve of my neck.

  “What happened?” he asked. Concern burrowed in the crease of his brow.

  “I had a drift.” I leaned into his palm and closed my eyes. The image of Roselli raising his gun to my head played again. “I think I was about to die.” I opened my eyes and James stilled, his body rigid.

  “You think or you know?” Mack asked. His voice was too loud against our quiet.

  I peered around James and saw him standing in the doorway. I had questions, but I didn’t have time to speak a single one before he spoke.

  “Were you wearing a green dress?” Mack asked.

  I didn’t move.

  “Had the clock chimed ten?”

  The events of my drift replayed. I heard the clink of my diamond ring as it hit the shattered glass, and Colin’s words just before Nino lifted his gun.

  “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” I asked Mack. I wanted to step forward, but James kept me from moving. “My death.”

  He looked between me and James and nodded his head.

  “Then you know where it is,” I said.

  “Where what is?”

  “Abby, what’s going on?” James asked.

  “In my drift, Colin told Roselli I didn’t know where the necklace was. He told Roselli he’d never find it.”

  Mack scratched at his neck. “That was a hundred years ago.”

  “Where’s the diamond, now?” I asked, my voice loud with impatience.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You can’t or you won’t?”

  “I can’t.” Mack turned away.

  I took a step forward. “But you can drift, and if you’ve seen where the necklace is hidden, then you can tell me where to find it.”

  “I told you, I can’t.” He ran his hands through his hair and grunted. “Not anymore.”

  James and I shared a sharp look. “What do you mean, not anymore?” James asked.

  Everything fell silent, even the blood humming in my ears. Bits and pieces of our conversations about drifting clinked together until a bigger picture formed.

  “At the gun range, you told me you’d only known one person that ended their drift.”

  Mack nodded.

  “Who was that one person?”

  Mack’s lips twisted, and he rolled his shoulders back.

  “It was you.” I tried to understand, but I couldn’t. “You stopped your drift? How?”

  Mack shrugged. “It wasn’t anything I did. My drift ended the moment I first saw you, and since that day, I haven’t seen anything new. I’ve seen our life together. I’ve seen parts of my life before, but I don’t know where the necklace was hidden. I never saw that. I’d have ended this a long time ago if that were the case.”

  I didn’t know what to say, or for that matter, what to think.

  “Abby, we should go.” This time, I let James pull me toward the door.

  “Do you remember what I told you, when you first started drifting?” Mack was patient, but it did nothing to calm me down. “Specifically, about what would happen if you relived your death?”

  “I remember.” My voice was just as quiet.

  “There’s no coming back,” he whispered.

  “I know.”

  James opened the door.

  “Abby, don’t go looking for it. Stay here. With me. Let me take care of it.”

  “I think you’ve done enough,” James said as he pushed me toward the door.

  “Abby,” I heard him say as I walked out of the apartment. “Abby, Abby!” The door closed and Mack’s pleading words were silenced.

  James and I stood still for a moment, absorbing what had happened. Mack’s drift had ended when he found me, yet mine continued to come. Whatever the reason for my seeing my past, it wasn’t yet resolved.

  “Are you ready?” James asked.

  I looked at him, into his dark, soulful eyes, and all the anger, the anxiety, the confusion I’d felt inside Mack’s apartment melted away. “Let’s go.”

  We headed toward Galveston on Forty-Five South. I’d driven this route so many times, it was likely I could navigate it blind, but knowing why we were heading there made my surroundings look different, almost unrecognizable. Mack, James, and I had an entangled past, and Galveston was where it all began. Hopefully, in a few hours, we’d have the information we needed to end it.

  I dropped my head against the window and closed my eyes. James stayed quiet and thoughtful, and the only sounds were the occasional rock that dinged under the belly as the truck bumped along the freeway.

  “There’s something I need to know.” James paused as if considering his words. “Back in the apartment, you said you thought you were going to die. In your drift.”

  A vision of Nino pointing his gun at my head surfaced. “Yes.”

  “Were you wearing…?” His words faded and the parts left unspoken sat between us.

  Of course James would remember. How could he know I was trying to forget? “A green dress?” I finished.

  James nodded and glanced at me before turning his gaze back to the road.

  I could see every moment of my drift as if it’d happened yesterday, not a century ago. I could smell the lingering cigar smoke in the air. I could taste the fear on my tongue when Roselli pulled out the revolver. I remembered the color of Colin’s suit, and I could feel the weight of his hand on my shoulder. I could see his eyes and all the emotions that flicked through them.

  “It was olive green.” I looked down at my lap. “It had this delicate white lace around the bottom hem.” I shrugged. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I could’ve had a hundred different green dresses and worn them on any of a hundred different days.”

  James’s grip on the wheel tightened. “But it was that day you thought you were going to die.”

  I didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. We fell into silence, and the marshes gave way to the bay. We crossed the Causeway shortly after noon. The skies were a dull gray, and the air, heavy with the smell of salt, wafted through the vents.

  James wound his way through the streets of downtown Galveston. We passed Old City Cemetery, where I knew James was buried, and we didn’t stop until we came upon a yellow clapboard house with a faded turquoise door.

  “Is this it?” I asked as James cut the engine.

  “This is it.”

  I was slow to exit the truck. A sense of panic made my muscles feel loose and disconnected as I stared with uncertainty at the house.

  “Do you have any idea what I should say? I mean, I can’t very well open with ‘I’m looking for a lost diamond.’”

  “We need to stick to as much of the truth as possible. It’ll be easier. Do you want me to do the talking?” James asked.

  “No. I’ll do it.” I pushed off the truck and headed for the porch. Staring at the door, I focused on the splintered wood and fading paint. With my heart hammering in my chest, I lifted a finger and rang the bell.

  It echoed inside the house and fell silent.

  “Maybe she’s not home,” James said.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say “maybe she’s dead,” but I thought better of it. We stepped off the porch and had taken two steps back to the truck when I heard the deadbolt turn. I whipped around and watched as the door widened with a creak.

  “Can I help you?” A woman, too young to be Evelyn, stood in the doorway. Her dark curly hair was pulled back, but strands streaked with gray sprung from her temples in
disarray.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” I began. “We’re looking for Evelyn Bastone. My name is Abigail Swift, and this is James Kingsley.”

  “Is my mother expecting you?” Her voice was harsh and held the gravel of a long time smoker.

  “Um, no, actually. This was pretty last minute.”

  “Can I ask what this is about?” she rasped.

  I looked to James, and he nodded his encouragement. “Well, I was hoping she had some information regarding something I lost.” I internally cringed, knowing I sounded incredibly stupid.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, and her weight shifted to her back foot. “You’re treasure hunters, aren’t you?”

  James and I glanced at each other and back to her within a second’s time. “Treasure hunters? No.”

  “So you’re not here for information about the lost Florentine Diamond?”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Well, not just the diamond. The necklace, actually.”

  The woman laughed, and her voice cracked and wheezed. “You’re not the first, and I’m sure you won’t be the last, but my mother doesn’t know anything about that diamond. Go on now,” she said as she stepped back into her house and closed the door.

  “Wait,” I said, my voice panicked and hurried. I slammed my palm against the door, preventing it from closing. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  The woman opened the door a fraction, her eyes cautious and cold. “It always is, my dear, but I’m afraid my mother can’t help you.”

  She shut the door, and the turquoise paint became my only focal point. I knocked against it. “Please, I just need a minute of your time. It’s about Nino Roselli.”

  Silence.

  “Come on,” James said as he placed his arm around my waist. “Let’s go.”

  My hand fell from the door but I didn’t move. “Please,” I said again. “He’s going to kill me. I just need to ask Ms. Bastone a few questions.”

  Two heartbeats later, the door opened. The woman’s face was torn, haggard even. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” The door opened wider and hope flourished in my chest. “But if my cousin Nino is really involved, you’re already dead, and I won’t risk my life, or my mother’s life, by getting involved. Now leave, and don’t ever come back.”

  She shut the door, and the deadbolt locked into place, and when her footsteps faded away, my heart sank. With the click of that lock, she’d sealed our fates. We had nowhere else to go. The necklace was lost forever, and I feared our lives weren’t far behind.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “How did you know about this place?” James asked after we finished our meal. We were seated at a small table at the back of the restaurant. James’s plate was remarkably clean, but I’d hardly touched mine.

  “I don’t know. It was the only place I could think of.” I sipped my coffee and glanced at James. He relaxed and leaned back in his seat, but in the set of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders, there was strain. “My father and I used to come here. We brought my mother. He thought being near the water would…” I shrugged. “I don’t know, wake her up? Make her see something other than whatever haunted her mind.”

  “Did it work?”

  My lips curved in a sad smile. “In the beginning. I remember being on the beach. I was young. Ten or eleven. She would stare out at the ocean and smile. When she looked down at me, though, it would fade, and confusion took its place, like she didn’t quite understand how I fit into her world. But there were moments she was happy, and that made me happy.” I looked down at my cup. “But, there at the end, nothing helped, and we stopped coming. Though, looking back at it now, I wonder if that coincided with my father realizing her delusions were a result of her drift and not schizophrenia.”

  He thrummed his fingers against the back of the booth. “Do you have any idea what your mother’s drift was about?”

  “No. She never talked about what she saw in a way I could understand. My father told me she’d cry about her baby. He thought that maybe she lost a child in her drift, but to me, she’d babble about time and how it repeats. How life is circular.” My eyes widened. “Doesn’t sound so silly now. I guess I should’ve listened to her. She was just so hard to be around, and she made me so angry.”

  “Why?” James’s question wasn’t accusatory, just curious.

  “Because she was a toddler, and I wanted a mom. I know how it sounds. Bratty, right?” I ran my finger over the lip of my mug. “I should’ve tried to be more understanding about her condition, but it wasn’t that easy.”

  James bit at his lip, his countenance quiet. “You don’t have to feel guilty for being angry. You did the best you could with what you knew.”

  “Are you angry?” I asked. “With your father?”

  “No,” he answered, turning his steady gaze toward mine. “Not anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I saw what my anger could do. I could’ve killed him, and then what? Would that’ve brought my mother back? Would it take all of this away?” He lifted his hands and turned them over once before continuing. “He’d taken away so much already, I didn’t want him taking what was left.”

  “You make it sound so easy. I don’t know how you let it go.”

  The corner of his mouth tightened, and his eyes narrowed. “It’s a choice, but it hasn’t been an easy one—it’s one I have to make every day. I hate what that anger did. I hate that I let it build to a place that turned to violence, but I can’t change it. And, when I think about it, good things have happened since the fire. Things my mother would’ve wanted for me. Things that wouldn’t have happened if the fire had never occurred.”

  “You think so?”

  James sat quiet for a moment. “I know so.”

  I took a breath and could imagine my mother sitting at the table, staring out the window next to me.

  “At home, I’d sit and talk to her for hours, you know? Hoping she’d hear me. I told her everything. Everything a daughter normally would tell her mother and probably more, since she never got mad or made me feel silly.” I smiled, but it was short lived. Unexpected emotion clogged my throat. “I always thought she’d eventually wake up. That she’d hear something, and that would be it—she’d come back. But no matter what I did, it was never enough.” I looked up at James. “I was never enough.”

  James stood and moved to sit next to me. He put his hands on my knees and leaned forward, his voice low and urgent. “Your mother’s illness was not your fault, and curing her wasn’t your responsibility.”

  I shook my head. “I should’ve done more. I should’ve been more for her.”

  James licked his lips and dropped his head. “My father was an alcoholic. Most of my memories of him include me begging him to quit drinking, and when that didn’t work, I emptied bottles and hid the car keys. I became the best athlete, the best student. I thought that if I could be more, he would want to stop. For me.”

  When he looked up, the pain behind his eyes was violent.

  “The thing is,” he continued. “I didn’t make him sick, so I can’t bear the responsibility for his cure. And while your mother’s condition was drastically different, you—a child at the time—couldn’t have been expected to make her any better.”

  I hated the way my chin trembled with emotion. “How long did it take for the blame to go away?”

  His eyes softened. “Who said it has? I mean, if I’d convinced him to get help, my mother would still be alive.” I put my hands over his and squeezed. “We have to deal with the lot we’re given and move forward the best way we know how.”

  “I wish I could tell her how sorry I am.”

  “Me, too.”

  We sat in silence, and the waiter cleared our plates. James straightened and swept his gaze over the restaurant.

  “I think we need to talk about where we go from here,” James said

  Parts of me jumped and twitched with nervous energy. “James—”

  “We talked about
this, Abby. We agreed that if things didn’t work out, we’d run. Evelyn won’t talk to us—we’re at a dead end.”

  “We can’t leave, not yet. We’ve got another day to convince her to talk to us. If we’re able to find the house, and if the diamond’s there, we could end this.”

  I felt his disagreement as if it he’d voiced it aloud, but James said nothing. When we left the restaurant, the sun was lower in the sky, and the temperature had dropped. I crossed my arms and headed down the front steps. As I turned toward the parking lot, a sign caught my eye. Not so much the sign, which wasn’t important, but the building to which it was attached. The reddish-brown brick was old and in disrepair, and the windows, tall and thin, were boarded with plywood. Heck, the entire building looked like it was one storm away from crumbling to pieces, but even in this state, it was…familiar.

  “James,” I said not taking my eyes from the building. I pointed. “Do you recognize that building?”

  He stopped at my right. “No.”

  “Come with me,” I said crossing the intersection, not bothering to look for cars.

  “Abby,” James called from behind. “Wait.”

  But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not until I was standing under the eave. I ran my fingers along the building’s rough exterior and felt my way to the corner. I rounded the building and stared down the Strand. The historic street was quiet, not unusual for the time of year, but strange nonetheless. Not because of the apparent lack of traffic, but because I was seeing it, feeling it, through different eyes, from a different time.

  The afternoon sun dimmed and faded to night, and a scream, throaty and familiar, pierced my ears. It was mine. I grabbed at my throat—the insides were raw, but I hadn’t made a sound. The cadence of my breath, heavy and labored, was in my ears, but my lips were closed, my breath shallow and quiet. My muscles burned with fatigue, yet I stood motionless.

  “Abby, what is it?” James asked.

  At the end of the block, a streetlamp caught my eye, and time fell away. I was there—here—standing in the pitch of night watching Thomas Bellingham run to the corner. A car skidded to a stop, and Colin exited. Muted gunshots echoed in the recesses of my mind, and I jumped.