“This is important, Jake.” Frank had to yell to be heard over the combined noise of the storm and the big diesel engine.

Jake came back to the present, to the world outside the car pulsing with the dark storm, and blinked like a man who was trying out a new pair of eyes for the first time. “What are you talking about?”

“You know I don’t believe in astrology or God or any of the other stupid shit people lie to themselves about because it makes living in fear a little more bearable. Maybe I’m the wrong guy for this. Maybe you need someone who believes in that stuff.”

A plastic patio table scrambled across the road like a spider. When it hit the gravel shoulder it upended and spun off into the dark. Frank reached under the instrument cluster and turned on the LED light bar bolted to the roof rack and the road lit up in underwater hues of blue.

A gust of wind slammed into the side of the Hummer and Frank wrenched the wheel to the left, fighting the vehicle away from the shoulder and the ditch beyond.

In the blue-green light of the basic instrument cluster, Frank’s face drained of a little more color. “I’m an old man, Jake. I’ve seen the world go from astounding to shitty in the course of my insignificant life. And I’ve been part of some of it.” Frank’s face tightened up a little more and he pulled out his smokes—unfiltered Camels—and tapped one out for his nephew. After giving the cigarette to Jake, he took one himself, returned the pack to his pocket, and fired his up with his faithful Zippo. He pulled the tip of the cigarette through the flame, then passed it across the cabin. The flame left a white trail in Jake’s vision and the heavy taste of lighter fluid made the cigarette taste foul and better at the same time. He took in a deep lungful of the tobacco and held it for a second.

Jake ignored the screaming rain outside, the squeak of the big wipers across the two flat front panes, the rattle of the big diesel, and the smell of gunpowder and cedar. He simply watched his uncle, hoping that images of Kay and Jeremy would leave him alone for a little while—long enough for him to figure all of this out.

Frank nodded at the computer sitting in Jake’s lap. “I asked him about the paintings, Jake—about those puzzle pieces.” Jake, the eternal student of behavior, recognized that background static of fear in Frank’s voice. Or was that just the residual taste of the first call he had received from the hospital two nights and a handful of lifetimes ago?

Jake stopped thrumming the top of the laptop case.

“He said that you’d figure it out. That you’d know what to do.” Frank sucked on the smoke and the tip went bright orange for a second. “He was letting go of old baggage, Jakey. I think those paintings are some sort of gift to you. Some sort of—” he paused and the click of the wipers filled a few seconds—“apology.”

“I don’t think Jacob Coleridge knows what an apology is.”

Frank cleared his throat and two jets of smoke spewed out of his nostrils. It was the action of a man trying to build up his nerve. “Part of this story is true, Jakey—I know because I was there for it.” He stopped again, like his clockworks had jammed. “Jesus, if there’s something in here that will help find your wife and little boy, then I don’t mind breaking a promise.”

“Drop the melodrama.”

“I swore I’d never tell you.”

“Swore to who?” Jake almost yelled to be heard over the jet-engine sounds of the world. “My father’s way past caring, Frank.”

“I promised your mother, Jakey. I mean, really promised. Swore—on-my-life kind of promised. And I don’t know how well you remember your mom—”

“Perfectly,” Jake said, cutting him off.

“Then you’d know that she’d be pretty pissed with me if I told you. She didn’t think you should know about this. No one did.”

“Frank, this fucker has my wife. My son. If you know something that might help me find him, I better not find out after the fact.” An image of Kay and Jeremy walking on the beach, Jeremy waving to the passers-by, blinded him for a second. “I’m not the forgiving type.”

“I noticed.” Frank sucked on the cigarette again and nodded, smoke hissing out from between his perfect white teeth. “What the hell, we all die sometime, right?”

And he began to break forty-two-year-old promises to the dead.

55

August, 1969

121 Nautical Miles Due East of the British

Virgin Islands

They were heading north, lazily making their way back to US waters after a summer spent island hopping. The trip had lasted a little over twelve weeks and the sybaritic retreat had done them good. Jacob had immersed himself in his work, trying his hand at watercolors and doing some good studies of lush island vegetation and crystal waters; Mia had learned to scuba and fish and perfected her skills with a barbecue; Frank had nursed yet another broken heart back from the dead. They were all browned by the sun and running on that late-August glow that comes from a summer well spent.

This was the third vacation they had taken as a threesome but twelve weeks penned up in a boat with his brother and wife was making Jacob squirrely; at least, that’s what he had thought at the time. It wouldn’t be until later, with the clarity of hindsight, that he’d understand that wrong had indeed been waiting for them at the edge of the horizon.

Mia was on the foredeck, stretched out in the sun, reading a paperback. Jacob was at the wheel wearing nothing but a pair of worn Bermudas, eyeing the compass and working his way through a bottle of Johnnie Walker—his make-do alternative to the Laphroaig he couldn’t find anywhere in the islands except Bermuda. Frank was below deck in one of the staterooms, sleeping off another failed attempt to keep up with his older brother, the resident champion, the night before.

Jacob watched Mia stretched out, the bikini hiding very little of her body. He loved her skin, its smoothness, and he took great pleasure painting her whenever she felt like sitting still long enough for him to commit his impression of her to canvas. He took a swig of the bottle and ran his eyes over her form, taking in her proportions, her musculature. They had been together for a few years now, and he could see small signs of aging starting to creep in. She was younger than him—they had met in a New York tavern when her date had been late and Jacob’s was back at the table. He had barreled up to the bar, demanded a bottle of scotch for his table, and insisted the beautiful woman to his left try a nip of Laphroaig before he carted it away. It had been an instant given that they were meant for one another. Within a week he was painting her. Within two she had moved in.

The weather was right and they were making good time. They had a southern wind pushing them home like an invisible hand and with the exception of a few small patches of sargasso weed that they had managed to steer around, there was nothing to slow their progress. Mia kept glancing starboard, following a pair of bottlenose dolphins that seemed to be finding pleasure in their company. She was adjusting the strap on her bikini when something to the east caught her eye. It wasn’t much, little more than a glimmer of light, but it was enough to make her reach for the binoculars.

“Jacob.” In the language of married people that single word was a whole sentence.

He lifted his eyes and followed her arm to the east. It was a little after one in the afternoon and the sun was at its peak overhead. Jacob squinted in the direction she was pointing, then took off his sunglasses. It was a small triangle of white in the ocean, two miles off, maybe more. He didn’t know how Mia had seen it; it was the kind of thing that if you didn’t know was there, you could easily miss.