she is. Come with us. What’ve you got to lose?”
“My sanity, but it’s probably too late for that. . . .” Tink lifted his duffel and cooler, and hopped onto the Horny Toad.
Now Charlie aimed the prow on a 55-degree heading toward the Gloucester sea buoy. They were doing 25 knots, and if the wind stayed behind them, they would be able to pick it up to 30 once they got around the tip of Cape Ann. At this speed, Charlie calculated it would take an hour.
And then what? Charlie knew the moon was waning, and heavy clouds would block out any light. But it didn’t matter. He was counting on his high beam and flares. He would find Tess.
To starboard, a noisy booze cruise heading out on the sunset run pulsated with the music and laughter of a party on the top deck. As the Horny Toad zoomed past, two revelers leaning against the railing lifted their beer bottles in a silent toast.
Soon they were clear of coastal traffic, and Charlie pushed the throttle all the way forward.
“What’s the big hurry?” Joe said, hauling himself woozily up the ladder. “It’s not like you’re really going to find that Carroll girl.” He hiccuped. “In fact, I’ll bet you fifty big ones that we’ll dig that girl’s grave this week.”
Charlie felt his temper flare. “Shut your drunk mouth,” he said. He never should have taken Joe along for the ride, but it was the price of using the boat, one of the fastest in the harbor.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Joe said after a while. “You had some secret thing going with that girl, didn’t you?”
“Drop it, Joe. Please?”
He glanced at Tink, checked the compass, and aimed the boat on a 44-degree heading for the Cape Ann sea buoy. Joe burped, waved his hand dismissively, and grumbled to himself. Charlie looked back over his shoulder and saw the PG&E smokestacks in Salem receding in the hazy distance. A flock of herring gulls was following in their wake. Then he checked his watch.
Incredible. It was already 6:20 P.M. He turned to Tink. “Take the wheel for a minute?”
“You bet.” He stepped forward and put both hands on the wood. Then Charlie climbed down the ladder and went to the stern. He stood there for a long time staring toward the west. Water and land merged in the twilight, a wedge of gray against the sky. The sun had slumped below the horizon.
Charlie felt the tears well up.
It was the first time in thirteen years that he would miss the game of catch with Sam. He thought about dusk in the hidden playground, where the plate and mound would be as empty as he felt. He imagined his little brother showing up and waiting all by himself on the wood swing. God, he hoped Sam would understand. . . .
The view before him was changing colors, like slides on a screen. There were great strokes of purple on the horizon mixed with slashes of blue and white. He tried to savor the magnificence of the moment. For all those years, he had only seen the sun disappear between the trees in the forest. He remembered the aspen and poplars silhouetted against the light, like slats on a window or bars in a jail. That was his frame of reference, his one perspective on the passage of day into night.
Now the whole world was before him, and he gasped at the vast beauty of it all. He breathed the damp and salty air. He heard the seagulls cry. Storm petrels and common terns drifted low on the water. And the sky dissolved once more into bands of blue and gray until everything was black.
It was night.
“Good-bye, Sam,” he whispered.
The wind was cold, and the dark swallowed up his farewell. Then he turned and climbed the ladder back to the bridge. There were stars in the sky ahead, and he knew one thing for sure. Tess was out there waiting for him, and he would not let her down.
THIRTY
THEY WERE SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ISLES OF SHOALS, between Smuttynose and Star Islands. Charlie reached for the searchlight and hit the switch. The beam sliced the darkness, and its white point glanced off the water. He swung it around in a big circle. A flying fish skittered across the surface.
A night of desperate searching stretched ahead.
He and Tink took turns at the wheel, trolling the ocean, sweeping the emptiness with the light, calling out until