close friends and family members, asking if they knew anything about the boy. She was in touch with them enough that reaching out wasn’t a complete surprise.
The news settled in her mind, and she wondered how David could have had a relationship with a boy without her even knowing it. What else had he been doing of which she was unaware?
Tapping her fingers, she reminded herself that she had always trusted David implicitly. Why was she jumping to conclusions? It’s not like he had a wife and family down in Sarasota. This wasn’t a picture of his son. Right? David could have gone down one time to a game and met this kid, something as simple as that. To that end, she texted the picture to a couple of David’s old friends too.
As Claire pulled away with Whitaker riding shotgun, she drove with great anticipation. They were closing in on answers. Though she was terrified of learning the whole truth, she knew that they were onto something amazing. She had a feeling that Whitaker was right. The end of the story was waiting with Orlando, and those two cutting across town in her convertible right this moment was meant to be.
“How in the world are we going to find him? A picture and a first name. That’s all we have. Assuming Orlando is his real name. I don’t know what’s truth or fiction anymore.”
“Why don’t you reach out to the people you’ve been interviewing? I’m sure someone can lead you.”
“That’s actually a great idea.” He took out his phone and worked away for a while.
Driving over the bridge from Deadman Key to St. Pete Beach, Claire asked, “Are we getting ahead of ourselves? Assuming the boy in the picture is Orlando is a pretty large leap. It could be anybody.” The possibility felt too much like a fairy tale.
Whitaker was infectious with his recovered excitement. “If that is not Orlando, I will go to work for my father, and I’ll never write another word. The rest of my life. And I will never complain about it again.” He leaned in toward her. “I know with everything that I am that that boy is Orlando.”
Claire weaved past a slow Jeep. She had to agree with Whitaker and continued his argument. “Why else would he have the photo in his desk? The desk where he was writing the story.”
“Exactly.”
Whitaker followed her inside her bungalow. “This place is so you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I love it, quirky and artsy. Feels nice in here. And look who we have here.” Whitaker reached for Willy, who was rubbing his back on Whitaker’s leg. “You must be the infamous One-Eyed Willy.” He held him up and looked at his face. “Yep.”
Whitaker hung out with Willy on the couch while she packed. When she returned to the living room, he was dangling his fingers above, and Willy was trying to paw him. “He’s a good one, an old soul.”
“He’s my little buddy. Pretty much saved my life.”
“I believe it.” He changed the subject. “You know, I’ve driven by this house so many times. It’s funny how two people are meant to cross paths, and it’s inevitable, but they might only be feet away from each other for years before the uniting. How crazy is it that I used to write in your café and now we are here together solving what could turn out to be a real mystery?”
Claire looked around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. “It was your book that brought us together.”
Whitaker nodded. “And then David not wanting to read it.”
Claire smiled at the memory. “David was never someone to like pop culture.”
“Pop culture?” Whitaker said dramatically, standing from the chair. “Napalm Trees is a literary behemoth. There was nothing pop about it.”
“Pop means popular. Your book and your movie were popular.”
“Taylor Swift is popular. John Grisham is popular. What I wrote is a Tom Waits album of literature. And believe me, not everyone loved it. I’ve read every review ever written, and some people don’t agree on its merits.”
“I stand corrected, Mr. Waits. What I was trying to say was that David didn’t like to be a follower. To read your book was to follow everyone else.”
“Anyway . . . before I cower into the fetal position at the thought of writing pop, are you ready? It looks like you packed for several months. Are we going on a cruise around the world?”
Claire looked down at her bag. “I wanted to be prepared.”