He searched every inch of the rental car, working methodically through the glove compartment, the trunk, between the seats, the floor. But he was already beginning to recall what had happened earlier that day.
He’d set Tuck’s letter on the workbench after reading it. Amanda’s mother had walked by and he’d turned his attention to Amanda on the porch, and he’d forgotten to retrieve the letter.
It must still be on the workbench. He could leave it, of course… except that he couldn’t imagine doing that. It was the last letter that Tuck had written to him, his final gift, and Dawson wanted to take it home.
He knew that Ted and Abee would be scouring the town to find him, but nonetheless he found himself driving across the bridge, on his way back to Oriental. He’d be there in forty minutes.
After taking a deep breath to steel himself, Alan Bonner entered the Tidewater, noting an even smaller crowd than he’d expected. There were a couple of guys at the bar and a few toward the rear playing pool; only one of the tables was occupied, by a couple that was counting out cash and appeared to be leaving any minute. Nothing like Saturday night, or even Friday night for that matter. With the jukebox playing in the back and the television near the cash register on, the place seemed almost cozy.
Candy was wiping down the bar, and she smiled at him before waving with the towel. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair in a ponytail, and though she wasn’t quite as dolled up as usual, she was still prettier than anyone else in town. The butterflies in his stomach began to flutter as he wondered whether she’d agree to have dinner with him.
He stood straighter, thinking, No excuses. He’d take a seat at the bar, just be his normal self, and gradually work the conversation to the point where he could ask her out. He reminded himself that she’d definitely been flirting with him, and while she might be a flirt by nature, he was sure there’d been more to it than that. He could tell. He knew it, and with a deep breath, he started toward the bar.
Amanda burst through the door of Duke University Hospital’s emergency room, staring wildly at the crowd of patients and families. She’d continued to call Jared and Frank over and over, but neither of them had answered. Finally, she’d phoned Lynn in frantic desperation. Her daughter was still at Lake Norman, a few hours away. Lynn had broken down at the news and promised to be there as quickly as she could.
Standing inside the doorway, Amanda scanned the room, hoping to find Jared. She prayed that her worries had been for nothing. Then, to her bewilderment, she spotted Frank at the far end of the room. He stood and began walking toward her, appearing less injured than she’d assumed he would be. She peered over his shoulder, trying to locate her son. But Jared was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Jared?” she demanded when Frank reached her side. “Are you okay? What happened? What’s going on?”
She was still barking out questions when Frank took her arm and led her back outside.
“Jared’s been admitted,” he said. Despite the hours that had passed since he’d been at the club, his words were still slurred. She could tell he was trying to sound sober, but the sour smell of booze saturated his breath and his sweat. “I don’t know what’s going on. No one seems to know anything. But the nurse said something about a cardiologist.”
His words only amplified the anxiety coursing through her. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Jared going to be okay?”
“He seemed fine when we got here.”
“Then why is he seeing a cardiologist?”
“I don’t know.”
“He said you were covered in blood.”
Frank touched the swollen bridge of his nose, where a black-and-blue crescent surrounded a small cut. “I banged my nose pretty good, but they were able to stop the bleeding. It’s no big deal. I’ll be fine.”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone? I called a hundred times!”
“My phone is still in the car…”
But Amanda had stopped listening as the weight of everything Frank had said sank in. Jared had been admitted. Her son was the one who was hurt. Her son, not her husband. Jared. Her firstborn…
Feeling like she’d been punched in the stomach and suddenly sickened by the sight of Frank, she marched past him, heading straight for the nurse behind the admitting desk. Doing her best to control her rising hysteria, she demanded to know what was going on with her son.
The nurse had few answers, repeating only what Frank had already told her. Drunk Frank, she thought again, unable to stem the tide of rage. She slapped both hands down on the desk, startling everyone in the waiting room.
“I need to know what’s going on with my son!” she cried. “I want some answers now!”
Problems with her car, Abee thought. That’s what had been bothering him about his earlier conversation with Candy. Because if her car was having problems, then how had she gotten to work? And why hadn’t she asked him if he could drive her to work, or back home?
Had someone else driven her? Like the guy in the Tidewater?
She wouldn’t have been that stupid. Of course, he could call her to find out, but there was a better way to get to the bottom of this. Irvin’s wasn’t very far from the small house where she lived, so he might as well swing by to check if her car was there. Because if it was there, it meant that someone had driven her, and then they’d definitely have something important to talk about, wouldn’t they?
He tossed a few bills onto the table and motioned for Ted to follow. Ted hadn’t talked much during the dinner, but Abee had the sense he was doing a little better, despite his poor appetite.
“Where we going?” Ted asked.
“I want to check something out,” Abee answered.
Candy’s place was located just a few minutes away, toward the end of a sparsely inhabited street. The house was a ramshackle bungalow, fronted with aluminum siding and hemmed in by overgrown bushes. It wasn’t much, but Candy didn’t seem to care, and she hadn’t done much to make it any homier.
As Abee pulled into the drive, he saw that her car was missing. Maybe she’d got it working, he reasoned, but while he sat in the truck and stared at the house, he noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Something was missing, so to speak, and it took a few minutes before he figured out what it was.
The Buddha statue was missing, the one she kept in the front window, framed by a gap in the bushes. Her good luck charm, she’d called it, and there was no reason she should have moved it. Unless…
He opened the door of the truck and got out. When Ted glanced over at him, he shook his head. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Abee pushed past the overgrown bushes and climbed onto the porch. Peering through the front window, he saw that the statue was definitely gone. The rest of the place looked the same. Of course, that didn’t mean much, since he knew it had come furnished. But the missing Buddha bothered him.
Abee worked his way around the house, peering in the windows, though curtains blocked most of the views. He couldn’t make out much.
Finally tiring of his efforts, he simply kicked in the back door, just like Ted had done at Tuck’s house.
He stepped inside, wondering what the hell Candy might be up to.