The day was just as hot as the previous one and just as cloudless.
Nowhere could she see a plane. She listened hard but the only thing she heard was the breeze through the acacia.
After ten minutes Marissa was about to get back into the car when she heard the faint drone of an airplane engine. Raising her eyes to the sky again, she searched for the source of the sound.
She didn’t spot it until it was almost on top of her.
The plane banked around the airstrip. The pilot seemed to be deciding whether or not he wished to land. At last, after a second pass, he brought the plane down.
The Beechcraft King Air taxied toward the Land-Rover, then pulled around into the wind. The pilot feathered the engines and prepared to deplane.
Marissa walked briskly toward the plane as the pilot was opening the cabin door. The man who had been sitting in the Land Rover stepped out into the sunlight, flicking a cigarette butt into the dust.
“Dr. Williams!” Marissa called.
The pilot stopped just beside his plane. He looked in Marissa’s direction. He was carrying an old-fashioned doctor’s bag with brass trim.
“Dr. Williams!” Marissa repeated.
“Yes?” Tristan said warily. He eyed Marissa from head to toe.
“I’m Dr. Marissa Blumenthal,” Marissa said. She stuck her hand out. Tristan shook it hesitantly.
“Glad to know you,” he said. He didn’t sound as if he was sure.
Marissa was mildly surprised at the man’s appearance. He didn’t look like a pathologist, at least not like any of the pathologists she knew. His face was heavily tanned and he was sporting about a three-day growth of beard. He was wearing a beat-up, classic, wide-brimmed Australian outback hat tacked up on the side.
Instead of a doctor, Tristan Williams looked more an outdoorsman, a stockman perhaps. He had rugged good looks and sandy-colored hair a shade lighter than Robert’s. He had an angular jaw like Robert’s, but that’s where the similarities ended.
Tristan’s eyes were deeper set, though Marissa could not tell their color since he was squinting in the glare. And his lips weren’t narrow like Robert’s. They were full and expressive.
“Would it be possible to talk to you for a moment?” Marissa asked.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come. I’ve driven all the way from Charleville.”
“My word!” Tristan said.
“It’s not very often I get met out here by a good-looking sheila. I’m sure the folks at Wilmington Station can wait for a few minutes. Let me tell the driver.”
Tristan walked over to the Land-Rover, storing the doctor’s bag in the back seat of the vehicle. Marissa noticed that he was slightly taller than Robert, well over six feet.
When he returned, Marissa suggested they sit in her car in the shade. Tristan agreed.
“I’ve come all the way from Boston to talk with you,” she said once they were in the car.
“You’ve not been easy to find.”
“All of a sudden I’m not sure I’m going to like this,” Tristan said, eyeing Marissa.
“Being found hasn’t been something I’ve been interested in.”
“I want to talk to you about a paper you wrote,” Marissa said.
“It was about tuberculous salpingitis.”
“Now I know I’m not going to like this,” Tristan said.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have patients to see.” He put his hand on the door handle.
Marissa reached out and grabbed his arm.
“Please,” she said.
“I have to talk to you.”
“I knew you were too good to be true,” he said. He pulled away from her grip and got out of the car. Without looking back, he walked over to the Land-Rover, got in, and drove away.
Marissa was stunned. She didn’t know whether to be hurt or angry. After all the effort she’d gone through to find him, she couldn’t believe he wouldn’t give her more time than that. For a moment, Marissa sat in her car watching the dust from the Land Rover billow in the air. Then, hastily, she started the Ford Falcon, put it in gear, and gave chase.
By the time Marissa arrived at the Wilmington Station, she was covered with dust. The entire drive she’d been enveloped in the wake of the Land-Rover. Even her mouth felt gritty.