“So am I, but don’t let her know that.”
Peaches said nothing of Claire’s was touched. Even so,Tony went upstairs to make sure.
Tony had never been in her room before. What he founddidn’t really surprise him. Neat, tidily decorated with aspindle-postered bed and primitive American dressers surrounded by watercolors of the sea. The bed with its oldpatch quilt hadn’t been slept in. The rocker had been pulledup right before the window where she could see the inn and the sunrise. The steamer trunk that sat at the bottom of thebed lay open, its contents shuffled a little.
Tony checked it, but he didn’t know what to look for. What he would find missing. She’d left behind photo albums, christening gowns and an ivory wedding dress peeking out of the tissue. Tony had no idea what she’d takenaway with her. What she might have pulled out of the bottom of her keepsakes to brood over as she rocked in front ofthat window all night. And so he left the trunk open andheaded back down.
Jess caught up with him on the stairs.
“My mom wasn’t with you,” Jess pleaded, “was she?”
Tony didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to waste abreath. He didn’t want to answer Jess’s question, becauseit wouldn’t help.
“No, honey,” he said. “I must have just missed her.Peaches and I are going to look now. Will you stay by thephone for me? I think your mom’s gonna be real upset that we’ve gone out hunting for her when she probably just forgot to tell us where she went, and I figure she won’t yell atyou.” He tried a smile. “Okay?”
Jess returned a much more watery version. “Okay.”
Tony nodded, reached out to take her hand. “Good. Now, come on down so Gina can feed you some of thatbreakfast she’s been putting together.”
He kissed his own little girl on the way back through tothe inn.
“Everything’s gonna be fine, Daddy,” she reassured him,as if she’d been the adult instead of him.
Tony smiled for both girls. “On a day as nice as today?Of course it is.”
Stepping outside, the first thing he saw was his own car.Foreign, fast, sleek as sin and twice as nice to handle. Justlike hers. Giving in to that need for speed. For another kindof challenge to replace the one you could never get back.Testing the limits on the highway because life hadn’t seemednearly as precious since people had stopped shooting at you.
When he had felt everything falling in on him, he’dclimbed into his car and taken off. Just drove, cutting the corners a little too close, testing the speed limit and the benevolence of his insurance company and his guardian angelboth.
If he’d been in Claire’s shoes after the day she’d had yesterday and found himself on his way to work, where there would just be more pressure, more reminders, more claustrophobic sameness, what would he have done? Wherewould he have gone?
“Is there a favorite place she goes when she gets upset?”he asked Peaches as he walked into the office.
Peaches was in the process of hanging up the phone.“Nothin’ from the police.”
“She just goes outside at work,” Nadine offered fromwhere she was paging through the phone book for hospitalnumbers.
“Driving,” Tony amended. “Anyplace she likes todrive?”
Peaches shrugged. “She just likes to drive. Always has.Day she picked me up to show me this place, like to scare meto death. Been a long time since I’d gone faster than footpower.”
“What about friends? Ministers? Anything like that?”
Peaches and Nadine exchanged glances.
“She’s the one everybody else goes to,” Nadine admitted.
“Kids go to church,” Peaches said. “Don’t know she has.”
Tony started pacing the room. Checking the walls, thecorkboard, the desk for clues. Maps, directions, brochures, anything that might lead him to her.
She’d been on her way to work. She had her bag. Her purse. She’d headed out with a purpose and somehow lostit. Wandered away, as if the pressure that was building wasa physical thing that pushed her off course.
Tony just had to find her before she wandered too far. Hehad to hope he hadn’t pushed her too far to come back.
Come on, Claire, he begged silently. Where did you go?What did you need to settle you down? What made yourun?
There on the corkboard was a picture of them on theEastern Shore. The beach.
