Dateline: Atlantis (14 page)

“You like tea, too?” she whispers. Ian nods. She pours a cup for the teenager and then pours a cup for herself. They share a look of camaraderie for a millisecond. And then it's gone.

“There is more down there than wild tales of Atlantis,” Freya continues. “There is also a military installation. It's still there. Near the complex is a mysterious tower that pokes out of the ocean now and again. Completely unexplained.”

“Off-limits,” Sean says.

“Dangerous,” Nora rasps.

“One night, your parents decided to dive near there,” Freya says with a nod at the other speakers. “They weren't exactly on Navy property, but they may have drifted too close. “ She reddens and dabs at her brilliant blue eyes with the back of her left hand.

Sean rushes to finish the somber thought. “Whatever they did, it went wrong. Experienced divers don't make the mistakes that happened that day…”

“They drowned?” Amaryllis exclaims. She'd always heard of an accident. She never knew it happened at sea. She had asked, but it was always dismissed as “the tragedy.” Young Amaryllis often thought the pair were run over by a speedboat. She has no idea what happened out in the vast, dazzling ocean, full of sea creatures and jellyfish that sting. Her heart beats repeated hammer blows to her chest.

“Well, we'll never know,” Sean pronounces. “They washed up a week later at Homestead Beach. There was no sign of foul play, and their tanks were empty. The air tubes were not cut and they were still in their wet suits.”

Amaryllis is floating, lost in the deep azure with vague borderlines. Light trickles in from above, but she loses her ability
to reach the light. She bows her head: not in prayer but to keep anyone from seeing her shake. She's been there. She knows what her parents saw. The crystal showed her.

“Then those officious state workers shipped you off to live with my sister…” Nora says in a sour tone.

“And that's when you became Amy Quigley,” Donny shouts out. “But you are really Amaryllis Lang.” He turns to confront Sean. “Why hide her identity?”

Sean's voice is maddeningly flat as he drones on about changing her name and keeping up the pretense that she was a member of Freya's family. It was better to completely cut her off from the Lang moniker. There's no proof, but someone with high stakes in disproving the Lang's theories must have been implicated in their deaths, Sean confides. There were too many inconsistencies, too many coincidences. Their underwater cameras had disappeared. The boat they chartered showed up right on schedule—it was in the logs—but the captain disappeared before the police could question him. Their house had been burglarized, and papers tossed. Enemies were everywhere, even down in Florida—even though the only jobs the Langs could find were at community colleges. It all adds up to something snarled and entangled.

“The case has remained unsolved for more than twenty-five years, and no one wants to re-investigate,” Sean finishes.

Amaryllis sits up straight, absurdly pondering the fact that she's half Swedish. Freya had been trying to tell her that all along, but in Chicago, Irishness clothes you as heavily as a wool greatcoat.

“I'm Amaryllis Lang?”

“A big and luscious flower that gives everyone hope through the cold months. Maggie thought it was perfect for a baby born in December,” Freya says gently.

Donny leans back in his chair and changes chronological directions.

“So two decades later, you and a photographer find something threatening to these unknown killers and they tried to attack you, too.”

“Yes, not to put too fine a point on it,” Sean says, tension raising his voice by half an octave. “I doubt the bombing in Mexico was a coincidence. Neither was the photographer's abduction. Or the fact that Amy was drawn here to Chicago. That's why the truth spills out now. Amy is in danger.”

A cell phone bleats in someone's pocket and diners at the table start like deer in the forest. Wright mumbles excuses and takes the call, walking away from the dining room as he begins murmuring monosyllabic answers. His face is pale and unreadable as he paces into the living room. No one speaks, and Amaryllis tries without shame to eavesdrop on the conversation.

“You're sure,” she hears Wright say. “But…how? It's inexcusable.”

Silence. Then “Oh, my God.” The rest is unintelligible. After a few pregnant seconds, Wright walks on unsteady legs into the dining room. His face is specter-like. He doesn't bother sitting down, but simply leans against the wall as he announces to the group that Garret Lucas, the
Star
photographer, is dead.

Amaryllis' mind attempts to shut down. There's been too much to process, and now, this shock makes her emotions reel. She's on a crazy carnival ride and can't jump off. She's grateful when Donny takes the lead.

“I thought he was under FBI guard,” Donny says, throwing his napkin on the table. “How can something like that happen?”

“What killed him?” Freya pipes up. “In a hospital, of all places…”

Wright leans against a chair as if to steady himself.

“Someone traded IV drip bags,“ Wright says. “That Versed that put him out during the kidnapping? Well, it was in the bag. Lucas suffered an overdose.” He pauses looking down at the table. “At least, he went peacefully, in his sleep.”

“But it's impossible,” Amaryllis says, finding her voice and her outrage. “He was under watch.”

“Someone posed as a nurse and got through security. It was during a staff shift change,” Wright said. “No one but the agent saw it. The hospital says no one answering the nurse's description worked there. At least, that's what the doctor told me.”

“We've got to get over there,” Wright adds, pulling himself up and putting on his editor's game face.

Donny stands and folds his arms across his chest. “Something tells me these thugs would like to lure Amaryllis to the hospital, as well. Garret knew where and how the photos were shot; she has the story. I suggest she stay here.”

Wright thinks for a second. Amaryllis starts to protest, but then sees the logic in Donny's thinking. Instead, she grabs her cell phone to call a taxi for Wright.

She watches many worried eyes burrowing deep into her journalist's bravado. She's scared, her stomach is in free-fall, her nerves are standing on end, and she can't reveal it.

“So, when Mr. Wright gets Garret, we'll fly back home and I doubt anyone will bother us again,” Amaryllis says. Fat chance, the faces say.

There are a few frozen seconds when no one dares to move. Finally, Freya breaks the overwhelming gloom.

“You've still got that story, Amy,” Freya says, hands shaking as she rises to collect the dessert plates. Despite her love of sweets, she's hardly bothered to do more than push the cake around the plate. “Are you still going to run it?”

“We can't really,” Amaryllis says, her voice dead. “Not without the pictures. They absolutely shut us down there. I honestly don't know what we're going to do.”

Donny's eyes are on her again, and she turns to meet them. His emotions are hard to read, but his deep brown eyes look more intense than usual.

“You could find out who these killers are,” his voice is level and smooth. “I think it's imperative now. You could go down to Florida and pick up an old, cold trail. It's been done before.”

She looks at him with eyes that feel like icy glass. She never wants to see Florida again. She never wants to even think of the deadly creatures in the deep that slithered in and murdered her parents. She hates the idea of ever diving underwater again. Still, she realizes Donny has a valid point. She continues to stare into his frank gaze until Freya starts her nervous babbling.

“She's no P.I. She should just stay here with us for a week or so and get over all this trouble.” No one answers.

When they put on their coats to go, Amaryllis hugs Freya and Sean with a ferocity she never felt before.

“I'm leaving tomorrow.” Tears are forming in her eyes, and she fights for control. A drop ekes out and lands on her collar. ”Thank you for telling me everything. Somehow, it helps.” She tries to hide her emotion by keeping her head low. When she turns to go, it's straight into Donny's arms, as he hustles her though the whirling wind into his warm Mercedes.

#

Amaryllis is burrowing herself in fur, crying and alternately reaching for Kleenex or a cup of tea. She knows she's sobbing for more than Garret, but for the release, the need to blow off the bad energy that's been knotting up her insides ever since that trip to Mexico. It's good to wail into the soft fluff of whatever it is that Donny has draped around her. She snuffles and sniffs, realizing the flood is ending—and then without a warning, it cuts off, like a tap sealing a pipeline. She sits up, sniffs again, embarrassed, and blows her nose into the tissues. She discovers she's used about a quarter of the box.

“Where'd you get dis?” she asks, her nose and sinuses so plugged that she can barely speak. Her voice bounces around inside her own head like an animal in an unfamiliar trap.
Who's talking? Why am I here, howling like a moron?

“The fur? It's a throw. They sell them, for keeping warm.”

Amaryllis looks at Donny with eyes that feel like slits. She knows the lids are swollen, and it hurts too much to open them any wider. She wonders if she looks like a lizard. Did Donny take her home to sober her up with caffeine? She doesn't remember drinking any alcohol at the dinner. Oh yes, Garret and the hospital. Donny took her somewhere safe—his apartment.

She sits up to look out the window of the highrise, and sees an ocean of lights decorating the southern sky. The Willis Tower stands proudly in the southwest, the John Hancock building is to the southeast. Donny's made a home in the clouds, just the way he always bragged that he would. She wonders if the sun rises over the lake in his bedroom window.

“Men don't have fur throws, Donny,” she says pushing the luscious, soft thing aside. “And it's not politically correct.”

“That's my girl. You're getting the old fire back into you, Wiggly,” Donny says using her old nickname. He stands to stretch, and even in her grief, she can't help but admire his physique—an athlete's build that even a lawyer's dress shirt can't conceal. “Anyway, you like lamb chops, right?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“It's sheepskin. You know the old saying; take what you need but make sure nothing is lost. Eat the meat, keep the skin, make soap from the bones.”

She stifles a laugh. “You're Greek, not an American Indian. I can just see you making soap from the marrow.”

“Well, the principle is still good. Would you rather have polyester?”

She is sitting up now, still working hard at clearing her raw nose. She reaches for the tea.
He thinks of everything, doesn't he?

Donny watches her for infinitely long seconds. His eyes blend concern with a slight sparkle of fascination. There is so much intelligence and ferocity in his gaze that she's a bit frightened. His blond locks are still streaked with last summer's sun. His patient, kind face has never really lost its childhood set: rambunctious and proud, gentle, but ruthless with those who threaten the people he loves. She sees a scar on Donny's chin and beckons for him to come close.

He leans over and she reaches out to trace the scar. Donny takes her hand as if handling a rare jewel.

“I remember that,” she says.

“We all have memories, Amy.” He sits down beside her. “Yeah, I kicked the shit out of Larry Beyer for talking about you in the alley. And he kicked the shit out of me.” He smiles at the thought. “I thought I was invincible, but that little snot got a good piece out of me.”

“But he was the one they rushed to ER, not you.”

“And I was the one sitting in the police station,” Donny's eyes cloud over. She thinks he's going to talk about why he became a lawyer, but he hunches over at the edge of the couch for anxious minutes before speaking again. “I thought, Amy, that this,” he touches the scar, “was the only memory I would have of you when you left town. Every day I see it when I shave, and every day I think that you're gone. You see, when I finished law school and came back to Chicago, you left for L.A. I went looking for you, but you were gone.”

She opens her mouth, attempting to speak, but he touches her lips with his index finger.

“But you came back.”

“I did,” she says to the finger. Her body moves forward to the warmth of his chest. She's a heat-seeking missile, a kitten scampering in from the cold. She finds where his heart beats and then, without effort, she's found his lips, and they kiss the one kiss that sums up an entire childhood of memory.

#

Flight 503 to Los Angeles is ready for boarding. Wright slowly begins to stand, gathering his belongings, but Amaryllis still sits staring at open space, concentrating on this moment with great intent. Donny remains leaning on the column next to their
row of seats. He brought her to the airport after helping her gather her things at the hotel. He's got a flight out to Miami today, to work on a routine case. But he stands here at her gate, waiting to see her depart. Or maybe he's serious about taking her with him to Florida.