Dead Silence

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  A storm of mighty, overflowing waters . . .

  Hurricane Matthew.

  He’d glimpsed a newspaper headline on the subway, and he’d meant to look it up online, but when he’d sat down with his laptop, he’d picked up right where he’d left off the night before, preoccupied by something far more important than the weather in a place he’d left behind.

  “Yeah, I’ve been worried about you,” he tells Stef. “How bad is it?”

  “I’ll put it this way. Remember how you always wanted to go to Cuba? I hope you got there.”

  “After you’ve left Cuba, forget about it. Don’t ever come back, or look back, or tell anyone about your time here.”

  “Why is that, Stef?”

  “Because it’s about to drop off the map. Eastern end of the island, anyway—it’s taking a direct hit. Looks like we’re next, and the governor says I’ve got to go run for my life,” Stef adds with a chuckle. “Listen, I’ll call you when things get back to normal after the storm. And thanks for checking in.”

  Barnes wishes him well and hangs up.

  After mulling it over for days, he’d intended to ask his former partner about that night in 1987. He can’t stop wondering whether Stef might have known more about Wayland’s disappearance, Gypsy Colt, and the copycat killer than he’d let on.

  He turns on the television and flips to the Weather Channel. There’s a commercial. He settles on the couch with his drink, thinking of Baracoa. Of the sensation of being watched and followed, of the way Perry Wayland had spoken about his “family,” of the people who’d emerged from the clump of coconut trees. Of Wayland’s warning about what might happen if he didn’t forget about it once he was back home.

  The programming returns, and he sees that the monstrous Hurricane Matthew is indeed headed for the Carolinas. Right now, however, the eyewall is directly over Baracoa, and the city is by all accounts being decimated by what the anchor refers to as “an epic storm of biblical proportions, the likes of which we haven’t seen in this century or even the last. The damage is catastrophic and the death toll continues to rise.”

  Barnes is fortunate to have made it home in the wee hours Monday morning after a grueling twenty-four hours spent in airports and on planes, brooding about Wayland, Gypsy Colt, and Charisse. Neither Rob nor Kurtis had asked him what was on his mind. They, too, had been quiet throughout the long day of flying and waiting, delays and cancellations stacked from Cuba on up the East Coast.

  Father and son had had a loud argument when Kurtis returned to the casa particular late Saturday evening. Rob had accused him of being high, which he’d denied, and had told him to pack his bags because they’d be flying out at dawn. Kurtis had protested, to Barnes’s surprise, and asked to stay behind. He must have met someone.

  Rob wouldn’t hear of leaving him on the island. When the plane took off from Baracoa, all three of them were on it. In Havana, they’d boarded a charter to Miami, and from there, had caught a roundabout commercial flight back to New York, connecting through Atlanta and Detroit and landing at LaGuardia just before midnight.

  Gazing at the footage of the storm-ravaged Cuban coast, Barnes grasps that he’d seen the lovely ancient city in perhaps its final moments. Nothing there will ever be the same.

  Biblical proportions . . .

  If Wayland and Gypsy Colt survive the violent onslaught of wind and water, they’ll have far more important concerns in the weeks ahead. For Barnes, the missing millionaire and the butcher’s daughter can be relegated to the past, where they belong. As for the future . . .

  His phone vibrates with an incoming text.

  Rob, responding to the one Barnes had sent earlier.

  Good for you. Here you go. When you call, tell her I sent you.

  The message is accompanied by a screenshot of a business card.

  It might be too late to walk Charisse down the aisle, or make amends for all the years he’d missed, but he wants her to know that he’s lived every day of his life with regret, wishing he’d had the strength, the character, to be the father she deserves.

  He remembers holding her in the hospital for the first time, and the last. Delia was there, of course, having counted the money and tucked it away. Barnes stared down at the sleeping, perfect little face, convincing himself that she’d be better off without him in her life. At that time, he’d truly believed it.

  “I want her to have something to remember me by,” he’d said, taking from his pocket the precious object he’d found at Morningside Hospital back in March of that year, while he’d been visiting Wash.

  Upset and distracted by his friend’s illness at the time, he had never tried to find the rightful owner. Only after Charisse had been born had he realized it was meant to belong to her. He’d found it the very night she’d been conceived.

  “Someday, I want you to give this to her and tell her it was a gift from her daddy,” he’d told Delia, and handed over the gold baby ring studded with tiny sapphires and the initial C etched in blue enamel.

  Upper West Side

  The first meal Amelia is preparing in her nearly remodeled kitchen should probably be something more elegant than buttered toast and macaroni and cheese. But there’s a gaping hole where the twin wall ovens are slated to go, and the custom cabinets—installed just yesterday—are nearly bare. Aaron had texted her that he can pick up takeout on the way home, but she’d prefer to make do with a loaf of bread and a box mix.

  He’ll be home any minute. Time to put Clancy back behind closed doors.

  She turns to see the kitten romping across the floor with his new best friend, a twist tie Amelia must have dropped from the bread bag.

  “It was fun while it lasted, right?” she asks, scooping Clancy into her arms and heading down the hall. “I think Aaron’s going to love you when he gets to know you a little better, and then we’ll tell him you’re here to stay.”

  Clancy mews as she sets him on the floor of her office.

  “I know,” Amelia says, “but he’s trying to change. We all are.”

  She’d been shocked when Aaron had shown up in Ithaca on Saturday night, instead of flying away on his business trip.

  “I’m not flying to California when my wife needs me,” he’d said, and she’d realized that she had, indeed, needed him. Not just because he was an attorney, and the police had still been there, taking witness statements and crime scene photos and filling out reports. No, she’d needed someone to lean on, someone who loves her.

  He does, after all. He loves her, and she loves him, and no matter how complicated their marriage has become, they—

  Her cell phone rings. She pulls it from her pocket to check the caller ID.

  Roger Hendrickson!

  He’s a lab tech at Lost and Foundlings.

  “I don’t do this for just anyone,” he’d said when she’d asked him to expedite Prewitt’s DNA sample.

  “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t a matter of life and death.”

  “Everyone says that.”

  “This time it really might be.” She’d explained the situation, and Roger had agreed to help. “Just this once, though, Amelia. I can get into big trouble.”

  “You can also send a lost little boy back to his family.”

  When she’d spoken to Jessie this morning, her friend had just come from visiting Prewitt in his new foster home. He’d been moved as a precaution following Saturday’s incident.

  Jessie had told her that Billy is recuperating, doing well. So is Theodore, who’d passed his French test and seems to have put the terrible incident behind him.

  Still, little is known about the armed intruder. He’d carried no identification and left behind not a single clue to his identity.

  They’d hoped Prewitt might be able to provide something, but in the aftermath, he’d reverted to silence, traumatized anew.

  Amelia answers the call she’s been waiting for, surprised it’s come so quickly. “Roger?”

  “Hey, Amelia. Got the results on yo
ur little John Doe.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “I wanted to talk to you directly instead of just sending them, because I found something really interesting.”

  “A match?”

  “A few, actually. First, how much do you know about the Bourbon DNA Project?”

  “I’m an investigative genealogist, Roger.”

  Launched a couple of years ago, the search for the male descendants of the French Capetian Dynasty is centered around a surprising and rare Y-haplogroup discovered in three known Bourbon descendants. The resulting effort to collect DNA samples from males with a suspected ancestral link has been met with considerable controversy and press coverage.

  “Just wanted to be sure you were well-informed,” Roger says, “before I told you that your young friend has the Y-chromosomal variant.”

  “You mean he’s—”

  “Yes. He’s got royal blood. And he has a half brother who’s already in the system.”

  Her jaw drops as Roger explains that Prewitt’s DNA is linked to a child whose mother had submitted her son’s sample for a recent round of free testing offered to suspected male Capetian descendants in an effort to confirm the Y-haplogroup.

  Amelia asks who the family is and where they live.

  “Not that simple, sorry. Those results were just generated a few days ago, and they’re still being processed. They haven’t been released yet to the family, so I can’t give you any information.”

  “I understand. At least he has a home waiting, and a mother.”

  “See, that’s the thing . . .”

  “Oh! I was so excited I forgot that the genetic variant is patrilineal. So if the child in the system is a half sibling, his mother can’t be Prewitt’s.”

  “No, the boys share a father, and since they seem to be the same age and they’re not twins, it’s possible that one or both mothers are unaware that their sons have half brothers.”

  It wouldn’t be surprising if that apple didn’t fall far from a family tree ripe with mistresses and illegitimate offspring.

  “I just wanted him to have a happily ever after. A family waiting to welcome him home.”

  “I wouldn’t rule that out, Amelia. See, there’s another match here—to a maternal grandmother.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. And when I checked her out, I found . . . wait, I’m texting you something.”

  A second later, her phone buzzes. She clicks on the attachment from Roger.

  ENDANGERED MISSING reads the caption above a photograph of a girl who appears to be in her early teens. Sweet faced and smiling, she has blond hair and blue eyes.

  Amelia recognizes her instantly.

  Not because she’s seen her, but because she’s seen Prewitt. He looks so much like her that she might have guessed, even without the scientific evidence.

  She presses the phone to her ear again, hand trembling. “Is this . . . ?”

  “The child’s mother,” Roger says. “It looks that way, because her mother’s DNA shows that she’s Prewitt’s grandmother, and she’s desperate to get her daughter back. She’s been searching for her since she went missing over four years ago.”

  Four years . . . before Prewitt had been born. The family likely doesn’t know about him.

  Amelia wipes tears from her eyes, imagining the circumstances of his birth, remembering the murderous man who’d found his way to Jessie’s house on Saturday.

  He’s gone forever.

  So, most likely, is Prewitt’s mother.

  She asks Roger to send her the full report, and they hang up with the promise to discuss it after she’s gone over it later.

  Back in the kitchen at the new six-burner stovetop, she stirs dry pasta into boiling water, thinking about Prewitt. He won’t remember her, but it’s for the best. He won’t remember these dark days, either. Soon, all of this will be lost to him, and he’ll know only the new life that lies ahead.

  She recalls Silas Moss’s scientific theories about why children can’t retain autobiographical memories until they’ve grown past infancy and toddlerhood, and how many times she’s wished that weren’t the case.

  “My birth mother must have held me,” she’d said. “I must have seen her. Why can’t I remember her?”

  “Our brains aren’t developed enough to recollect our earliest days on this earth, but that doesn’t mean our hearts don’t retain them.”

  She’s been frustrated over the years, imagining an impression of her real mother’s face locked deep in her mind, like a hidden room that would never see the light of day.

  Now, when she closes her eyes, she sees only Bettina.

  My real mother.

  When at last she’d had a chance to tell Aaron about the DNA match, his reaction had been predictable. “So now you know.”

  “Not everything.”

  “But you’re not ever going to get all the answers, Amelia. I think it’s time to forget the last thirty years and focus on what you want out of the next thirty.”

  Their lives together are a long way from perfect, but where they go from here can’t depend on what she’s learned about the past, and her parents. Moving on is about letting go.

  It’s time.

  Her phone rings again. Aaron?

  No. Pulling it out of her pocket, she sees an unfamiliar number. Manhattan.

  “Amelia Crenshaw Haines speaking.”

  A deep voice greets her. “Ms. Haines, my friend Rob Owens gave me your number. My name is Stockton Barnes, and I’m wondering if you might be able to help me find my daughter.”

  Bedford-Stuyvesant

  The email had arrived overnight on Sunday.

  Dear Lily,

  In advance of our appointment this coming week, I thought I should let you know that I recognized your baby ring . . .

  Amelia had gone on to explain that her own mother had given her a similar ring many years ago, and how she’d lost it. Now she’s wondering whether the two of them—herself, and Lily—might have some connection. Maybe even a biological one.

  . . . If you can fill out the DNA release forms and bring them to your appointment on Thursday, we can do the sample and possibly both find out more information about who we are and where we came from.

  Sincerely,

  Amelia Crenshaw

  Three days have gone by, and she still hasn’t responded. She isn’t sure what to say, how to say it . . . whether she should say, or do, anything at all.

  Clutching the blank release forms, she stares out the window, absently listening to sirens in the street, a screaming baby somewhere above, angry shouts below.

  When the New York Times had written about the gentrification of Bedford-Stuyvesant, they sure as hell hadn’t been referring to this block. There are no renovated brownstones, yoga studios, or wine bars in this southeast corner of the neighborhood. If anything, it’s gone downhill since she was a little girl.

  That’s why you have got to get yourself out of here once and for all. Do whatever it takes, even if—

  She hears a key in the door. It opens, and the doorway fills with a large woman jostling plastic Key Food grocery bags.

  “What are you looking at, girl? Get off that pretty little ass and help me.”

  She stands, folds the papers, and shoves them into the back pocket of her jeans—not the designer ones she’d worn to her appointment on Thursday, with the tags tucked into the waistband. Those had gone right back to the store, along with the blazer, sunglasses, and leather bag that had cost more than a month’s rent on this place. Only the white tee shirt had been her own when the charade had begun.

  “Do you have the receipt?” the clerk had asked at the returns counter.

  “It should be in the bag . . . isn’t it?”

  The woman had looked, shaking her head.

  “Oh, no! It was in there,” she’d said, feigning confusion.

  “Did you buy it on a credit card?”

  Yes—one she’d slipped from a woman’s purse on the subwa
y.

  “No, I paid cash. Look, the tags are on everything . . . is there any way . . . ?”

  The clerk shrugged and scrutinized the merchandise for tags and evidence of wear. “I can’t give you cash without a receipt. It’ll have to be store credit.”

  “That’s fine.”

  She’ll use the credit to buy another fancy outfit for her next appointment with Amelia Crenshaw. And when this is over, she’ll have more than enough reward money to buy all the clothes she wants, and move out of this miserable place, and—

  “Move it! This stuff isn’t going to put itself away,” Alma barks, and she obeys, still thinking about the designer jeans and blazer she’d returned to the store, imagining herself wearing them when she sails out the door forever.

  Then again, they’re really not her own style, are they?

  No. But they’re Lily Tucker’s.

  Barrow Island, Georgia

  “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” Penny sings along with Aretha as she turns into the gravel driveway.

  She plays this song every time she visits. It fits. If anyone in this world has earned respect, it’s the ancient mistress of this little blue antebellum cottage.

  Tucked beneath a massive live oak tree draped in pewter-colored Spanish moss, the house is low and wide, with a porch along the front. Once part of a rice plantation, it’s been in the family since the owner’s widow turned it over to their emancipated slaves soon after the Civil War. A quarter of a mile down the road, the white-pillared main house is now an inn rumored to be haunted by the dead planter and his wife.

  “That big ol’ house has got plenty of room for him. We don’t need no ghosts hangin’ around here, lookin’ for attention and whatnot. I got enough to do,” Tandy had told Penny not long ago, when a breeze they hadn’t perceived had slammed a door somewhere inside as they were chatting right there on the porch.

  If anyone’s haunting the old cottage, it’s probably not a nineteenth-century spirit. The last few generations have endured more than enough premature deaths and unfinished business to keep the afterworld plenty busy for years to come.