For a moment, I worry I’ve said too much of the unspoken, that I’ve damaged things between us for good, but Seton sinks back onto the seat. “When did you get so deep, Charlie?” she asks.
I smile, relieved, but I won’t let her off the hook, either. “I’m not saying anything we both haven’t already thought.”
She rolls away from me and stares over the gunwale into the water. “I imagined my dad all over the place. It was typical kid stuff. Fantasy. For a while, I decided he’d joined the circus. I’d watch TV shows about spies whose long-lost parents returned, and imagine him as a CIA agent. We live close to Canada, so for the longest time I pictured him up in Quebec, speaking French and running a maple syrup factory with a team of elves.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Not till right now. My mom, she had to work hard after my dad died. The Landing is a twenty-four-hour-a-day job once summer begins.”
“What would you do if your father walked into the Landing one night and ordered a beer?” I ask.
Seton trails her hand through the water. “I’d give him a big hug and ask about the maple syrup factory. How about you?”
“I might get a beer with him.”
Push further, I tell myself. Be bold. It’s the only way to get to the heart of the story.
“I asked you about DNA testing last night,” I say, taking the pint glass from my pocket and handing it to her. “Get the lip tested.” I spit in a tissue from the glove box. “Test this, too. See if there’s a familial match.”
Seton unwraps the glass from the paper napkin. “You stole this from the Landing,” she says, and I can see the pieces falling into place for her. “Who could you possibly be related to?”
Gilcrest will report what he and I talked about this morning to Seton, including my claim of seeing my father, and besides, didn’t I challenge Seton to be honest? “Glasses. Ponytail,” I say. “That was my father sitting next to me. At least I think he was. I’ve seen him before. Usually I convince myself it was my imagination, but last night he was there. I mean, you saw him. So did Blancy.”
Seton takes my hand in hers, weighing her next move and choosing her words with care. “You didn’t see your father. And it doesn’t matter how much you wish you did.”
“I want to be sure.”
“If the glass is related to the fire, I’ll need to turn the evidence over to Gilcrest.”
I wouldn’t expect anything else. “Gilcrest knows about most of it anyway,” I say.
“If he knowsmostof it, what doesn’t he know?”
“He knows I saw my father, but not about the glass or the DNA.”
Seton holds out a hand, and I drop the tissue in her palm. She tucks it into her own bag. “We’ll see what happens,” she says. “But I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
Chapter Twenty
After dropping Seton at the town pier, I speed across the lake in the boat toward Idlewood Cove and text Julian:??I met an old friend last night.??
A moment later the phone rings. “I’m driving,” Julian says when I pick up.
“Same,” I shout. “In the boat.”
“Tough life,” Julian says.
I cut the engine. “I saw my father last night at a pub in town.”
“Now I’m pulling over,” Julian says, mumbling something about Daddy being on a work call, and to use inside voices. I picture him out and about in Newton with his two kids in the back seat.
“Details,” he says, and I fill him in on what’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.
“A house burns to the ground,” Julian says. “You’re assaulted. Your long-lost dad drinks a beer, and you go home with a TV star who questions the very story you’ve spent your whole life believing. Please tell me you captured every moment of this in high-quality, easy-to-edit audio footage.”
“Not quite,” I say, adding in what happened with Freya when she caught me recording her.
“Make nice with her,” Julian says. “Convince her to sign a release. You never know what you can recover. Are you positive it was your dad at the bar?”
