Nick was quiet. He did not understand exactly what she was saying, but he sensed that something special was about to happen between them. The gentle waves lapped against the side of the boat. “It reminds me of my childhood, right after my father left,” she continued softly. “I kept believing that he would be coming back. All three of us, Richie, my mom, and I, would tell each other that it was just a temporary separation, that someday he would walk through the door and say ‘I’m home.’ At night I would lie in my bed and listen for the sound of his car in the driveway.”
The tears were flowing now, big drops cascading down her cheeks and falling into the vast ocean. “When he would come to pick us up for dinner, or on a Saturday, I would help Mom fix herself up, choose her clothes for her, brush her hair.” Carol choked up for a moment. “After I hugged him at the door, I would always take him to Mother and say, ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’
“For six months this went on. I never knew what I was going to feel from day to day. The uncertainty destroyed me, made me sick. I begged my father to give my mom one more chance. Richie even suggested that he could buy the house next door if he and Mother couldn’t get along. So we could at least all be close together.” Carol smiled grimly and took a huge breath.
“Then my father took my mother to San Francisco for the weekend. I was so excited. For thirty-six hours my heart soared, my future was assured. I was the happiest ten-year-old girl in the San Fernando Valley. But when they came home un Sunday night my mother was very drunk. Her eyes were swollen, her mascara was running, she was a mess. She marched right past Richie and me and went to her room. My dad, Richie, and I stood in the living room, all hugging, and wept together. In that instant I knew it was all over.”
Carol was calming down now but the tears were still there. She looked at Nick, her eyes entreating. “It would have been so much easier if I could have cried one time and been done with it. But no. There was uncertainty, so there was still hope. So every day, every goddamn day, my little heart was broken again.” Carol wiped her eyes one more time. Then she looked out at the ocean and shouted with all her might, “I want to know now, or at least soon, what happened to Troy! Don’t make me wait forever. I can’t take it.”
She turned to Nick. He opened his arms. Without a word she put the side of her face against his chest. He closed his arms around her.
6
NICK reached above the door to Troy’s duplex and found the key on the ledge. He knocked on the door again and opened it cautiously. “Hello,” he called out, “is anybody there?”
Carol followed him into the living room. “I didn’t know you two were such close friends,” she said, after she glanced with amusement at Troy’s motley collection of furniture. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone where I keep my key.”
What Nick was looking for was not in the living room. He walked down the hallway, past the large bedroom with its storehouse of equipment, and into the smaller bedroom where Troy slept. “Actually,” Nick yelled at Carol, who had stopped behind him in the hall opposite the first bedroom and was gawking at the jumble of electronics filling every conceivable cranny, “it was only yesterday that I came over here for the first time. So I don’t really know where . . . oh, good, I think I’ve found something.” He picked up a sheet of computer printout that was underneath a paperweight on the end table beside Troy’s bed. It was dated January 15, 1994, and contained about twenty names, addresses, and phone numbers.
Nick met Carol in the hallway. He read quickly through the page and showed it to her. “There’s not much here. Phone numbers and addresses for electronics and software supply houses. A bunch of numbers for Angie Leatherwood, probably while she was still on tour.” He pointed at one entry. “This must be his mother, Kathryn Jefferson, in Coral Gables, Florida. But there’s no phone number listed with the address.”
Carol took the sheet from Nick and checked it herself. “I never heard him mention anyone but Angie, his mother, and his brother Jamie. No other friends or family. And I somehow have the impression that he hasn’t seen much of his mother recently. Did you ever hear him say anything about any other family?”
“No,” Nick replied. They had wandered together into the game room and Nick was idly turning knobs and switches as he walked past the arrays of equipment. He stopped and thought for a moment. “So that means Angie is the one. We’ll tell her right away and then wait — ”
Carol and Nick both froze as they distinctly heard the front door open and close. After about a second, Nick called out in a loud but uncertain voice, “Hello, whoever it is, we’re back here in the bedroom.” There was no answer. They could hear soft footsteps in the hallway. Nick instinctively moved over to protect Carol. A moment later Troy came around the corner and into the room.
“Well, well,” he said, grinning broadly, “as I live and breathe. I have found a pair of burglars in my home.”
Carol ran up to Troy and threw her arms around his neck. “Troy,” she said, her comments coming in quick staccato bursts, “is it ever good to see you. Where have you been? You scared the shit out of us. We thought you were dead.”
Troy returned Carol’s hug and winked at Nick. “My, my. Such a reception. I should have vanished before.” He extended a hand to shake the one that Nick was offering him. For a moment his face became serious. “On second thought, one experience like that is definitely enough.”
Carol backed away and Troy saw the computer sheet in her hand. “We were going to try to notify your family . . .” she started. Troy reached out to take the page and Carol noticed a bracelet on Troy’s right wrist that she had never seen before. It was wide, almost an inch and a half, and looked as if its twenty or so links had been made from flattened gold nuggets. “Where did you get this?” Carol asked, holding his wrist up so that she could see the bracelet more clearly.
Nick was unable to restrain himself any longer. Before Troy could answer Carol’s question, he jumped into the conversation. “According to Carol,” he said, “you were last seen disappearing down a corridor in an underwater laboratory. With a six-foot amoeba in hot pursuit. How the hell did you escape? We searched all over the area . . .”
Troy held up his hands. He was enjoying being the center of attention. “Friends, friends. Wait a minute, will you? I will tell you the story as soon as I take care of the necessities of life.” He turned and walked into the bathroom. Nick and Carol heard a familiar sound. “Get some beer out of the refrigerator and go into the living room,” Troy shouted from behind the closed door. “We might as well enjoy this part of it.”
Two minutes later Nick and Carol were sitting together on the large couch in the living room. Troy plopped into the chair opposite them just as Nick took a huge swig from his beer. “Once upon a time,” Troy began with a mischievous grin, “there was a young black named Troy Jefferson, who, while diving with his friends, vanished for almost two hours in a strange building underneath the ocean. When he emerged from his underwater adventure, he was rescued by divers from the United States Navy, who just happened to be in the area at the time. Soon thereafter young Troy was flown in a military helicopter back to Key West. There he was interrogated at length about why he was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, all by himself, ten miles from the nearest island. An hour later he was released without anyone believing any part of his story.” Troy looked back and forth from Nick to Carol. “Of course,” he added, now more serious, “I didn’t tell them anything that really happened. There’s no way they would have believed the truth.”
Carol was leaning forward on the couch. “So the Navy picked you up. Just after we left.” She turned to Nick. “They must have been following us for some reason.” The missile must have been there after all, she thought to herself. But where did it go? Did the Navy find it? And how are they involved with this crazy laboratory? Nothing makes sense . . .