I watched cable news the last few months.
They lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan where she worked as director of development for a large conservative think tank guised as a foundation. I couldn’t find anything indicating Andrea had a daughter or any other children. No birth records. No school records. Any adoption records were probably sealed.
I stared at a picture of Andrea. Her eyes were still just as beautiful as the morning I’d first met her in a coffee shop twenty years earlier. I remembered walking in the crowded shop, and after waiting in line to order coffee at the counter, it appeared as if every table in the place was taken. From across the shop I first saw Andrea’s eyes, and then her smile. I stepped to her and she offered me the vacant chair across from her. We spent the entire morning talking. A week later to the day, a Sunday morning, she awoke next to me in bed, and in the soft morning light coming through the window, she traced her finger over my birthmark and said, “That is really beautiful. It’s like art.”
So damned long ago.
As the image of Andrea stared at me from my computer screen, I enlarged the picture then envisioned Courtney Burke’s eyes. Although Andrea’s eyes had a captivating command to them, they didn’t have the mesmerizing power and depth I’d seen in Courtney’s eyes. What would a geneticist say about the probability of Courtney’s iris color having come from the cobalt blue in my eyes and the hazel green in Andrea’s eyes?
Tomorrow I would do my best to find out.
19
The next morning, as the sun rose over the Atlantic, I jogged along the beach at Ponce Inlet. I ran between the gentle roll of waves breaking, the surge of water yawning and stretching on the cool hard-packed sand under my bare feet. I pictured Andrea Logan’s face, then ran harder for a short burst, the sea foam scattering in the breeze like confetti defying the laws of gravity. The old lighthouse was behind me, Daytona Beach ten miles to the north, my thoughts not in either place. A gull flew over my head, flapped its wings twice, sailing in the cross-breeze and squawking a wake-up call over the crash of waves. I was shirtless, the morning sea breeze already warm across my chest. I glanced at the shamrock-shaped birthmark on my upper left arm and thought of Courtney Burke.
Max followed me at a trot. Twenty feet behind, the tip of her pink tongue visible in her open mouth, panting, short legs moving in a dachshund dash, her eyes bright with the potential discovery of what a new morning by the sea might bring. She stopped to inspect a starfish stranded on the beach. I spun around toward her. “Max, what do you say we return this little fella to the sea?” She cocked her head and stared up at me as I lifted the starfish from the wet sand, walked into the swell of waves lapping over my knees, and lowered the starfish back into the ocean.
I jogged a final fifty yards, Max doing her best to impersonate a greyhound loping along the beach. We stopped and sat on a park bench under a canopy of palm trees. I thought about what I’d say to Andrea when I found her—what I hoped not to hear in return. Then I thought about Courtney again, a girl on the run, a suspect in at least two killings, possible cold-blooded murders.
Where was she at this very moment as the sun peaked over the edge of the world and painted the ocean in rippling brushstrokes of red wine and dark honey? Did it shine light at the end of her dark path? I stared out into the enormity of a crimson sea and felt no larger than little Max resting beside me. I watched the surface of the ocean turn the color of a new penny and I tried to picture what was waiting just beyond the horizon.
***
The truck driver glanced at the Beretta once again as he slowed the big rig and exited from I-75. He said, “Okay, we’re here. I done what you asked. What the hell else you want?”
Courtney rested her gun hand on her raised left knee, the Beretta still
They lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan where she worked as director of development for a large conservative think tank guised as a foundation. I couldn’t find anything indicating Andrea had a daughter or any other children. No birth records. No school records. Any adoption records were probably sealed.
I stared at a picture of Andrea. Her eyes were still just as beautiful as the morning I’d first met her in a coffee shop twenty years earlier. I remembered walking in the crowded shop, and after waiting in line to order coffee at the counter, it appeared as if every table in the place was taken. From across the shop I first saw Andrea’s eyes, and then her smile. I stepped to her and she offered me the vacant chair across from her. We spent the entire morning talking. A week later to the day, a Sunday morning, she awoke next to me in bed, and in the soft morning light coming through the window, she traced her finger over my birthmark and said, “That is really beautiful. It’s like art.”
So damned long ago.
As the image of Andrea stared at me from my computer screen, I enlarged the picture then envisioned Courtney Burke’s eyes. Although Andrea’s eyes had a captivating command to them, they didn’t have the mesmerizing power and depth I’d seen in Courtney’s eyes. What would a geneticist say about the probability of Courtney’s iris color having come from the cobalt blue in my eyes and the hazel green in Andrea’s eyes?
Tomorrow I would do my best to find out.
19
The next morning, as the sun rose over the Atlantic, I jogged along the beach at Ponce Inlet. I ran between the gentle roll of waves breaking, the surge of water yawning and stretching on the cool hard-packed sand under my bare feet. I pictured Andrea Logan’s face, then ran harder for a short burst, the sea foam scattering in the breeze like confetti defying the laws of gravity. The old lighthouse was behind me, Daytona Beach ten miles to the north, my thoughts not in either place. A gull flew over my head, flapped its wings twice, sailing in the cross-breeze and squawking a wake-up call over the crash of waves. I was shirtless, the morning sea breeze already warm across my chest. I glanced at the shamrock-shaped birthmark on my upper left arm and thought of Courtney Burke.
Max followed me at a trot. Twenty feet behind, the tip of her pink tongue visible in her open mouth, panting, short legs moving in a dachshund dash, her eyes bright with the potential discovery of what a new morning by the sea might bring. She stopped to inspect a starfish stranded on the beach. I spun around toward her. “Max, what do you say we return this little fella to the sea?” She cocked her head and stared up at me as I lifted the starfish from the wet sand, walked into the swell of waves lapping over my knees, and lowered the starfish back into the ocean.
I jogged a final fifty yards, Max doing her best to impersonate a greyhound loping along the beach. We stopped and sat on a park bench under a canopy of palm trees. I thought about what I’d say to Andrea when I found her—what I hoped not to hear in return. Then I thought about Courtney again, a girl on the run, a suspect in at least two killings, possible cold-blooded murders.
Where was she at this very moment as the sun peaked over the edge of the world and painted the ocean in rippling brushstrokes of red wine and dark honey? Did it shine light at the end of her dark path? I stared out into the enormity of a crimson sea and felt no larger than little Max resting beside me. I watched the surface of the ocean turn the color of a new penny and I tried to picture what was waiting just beyond the horizon.
***
The truck driver glanced at the Beretta once again as he slowed the big rig and exited from I-75. He said, “Okay, we’re here. I done what you asked. What the hell else you want?”
Courtney rested her gun hand on her raised left knee, the Beretta still
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