The Best of Me (37 page)

Amanda was an hour from home when her cell phone rang. Reaching over to the passenger seat, she had to dig through her purse to find it, finally answering on the third ring.

As she listened to Jared’s shaky account, an icy paralysis gripped her. In a disjointed fashion, he told her about the ambulance at the scene, about all the blood on Frank. He himself was fine, he reassured her, but they were making him get into the ambulance along with Frank. He told her that both of them were being taken to Duke University Hospital.

Amanda clenched the phone. For the first time since Bea’s illness, she felt a gut-wrenching fear take root. Real fear, the kind that left no room to think or feel anything else.

“I’m coming,” she said. “I’ll be there as quick as I can—”

But then, for some reason, the call was cut off. She redialed immediately, but there was no answer.

Veering into the opposite lane, she floored the gas pedal and passed the car in front of her, flashing her lights. She had to get to the hospital
right away
. But the beach traffic had yet to thin.

After their little excursion to Tuck’s, Abee realized he was starving. Since the infection, he hadn’t had much of an appetite, but now it was back with a vengeance, another sign of how well the antibiotics were working. At Irvin’s he ended up ordering a
cheeseburger, along with a side of onion rings and chili-cheese fries. Though he wasn’t finished yet, he knew he’d end up cleaning every plate. He figured he’d even have room for a piece of pie and a scoop of ice cream later.

Ted, on the other hand, wasn’t doing so well. He, too, had ordered the cheeseburger, but he was taking small bites and chewing slowly. Smashing up the car had apparently used up the last bit of strength he had.

While they’d been waiting for their food, Abee had called Candy. This time, she’d answered on the first ring and they’d talked for a little while. She told him she was already at work and apologized for not returning his calls, mentioning that she’d had car trouble. On the phone, she sounded like she was glad to hear from him, flirting just the way she always had. When he hung up, he felt a lot better about the situation and even wondered if he’d been reading too much into what he’d seen the other night.

Maybe it was the food or his general recovery, but as he continued to work through his burger, he found himself thinking back on the conversation again, trying to figure out what was bothering him about it. Because something
was
bothering him about the call. Part of it was that Candy had said she was having
car
trouble, not
phone
trouble, and busy or not, she probably could have called him back if she’d wanted to. But he wasn’t sure that was it.

Ted got up halfway through the meal and spent some time in the bathroom before coming back. As Ted walked toward the table, Abee thought his brother could have been in the cast of some cheap horror flick, but others in the restaurant were doing their best not to notice, staring at their plates instead. He smiled. It was good to be a Cole.

Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about his conversation with Candy, and he sucked on his fingers between bites, pondering it.

Frank and Jared had been in an accident.

The words scrolled through her mind like some terrible ticker tape, making Amanda more frantic with every passing minute. Her grip on the wheel was white-knuckled as she flashed her lights again, then again, willing the car in front of her to allow her to pass.

They’d been taken away in an ambulance. Jared and Frank were being rushed to the hospital. Her husband and her son…

Finally, the car ahead of her changed lanes and Amanda roared past it, quickly closing the gap to the cars that were farther ahead.

She reminded herself that Jared had sounded shaken, nothing more.

But the blood…

Jared had mentioned in a panicky voice that Frank was covered in blood. Clutching the phone, she tried to call her son again. He hadn’t answered a few minutes ago, and she told herself that it was because he was in the ambulance or in the emergency room, where phones were forbidden. She reminded herself that paramedics or doctors or nurses were caring for Frank and Jared now, and that when Jared finally answered, she’d no doubt regret her needless panic. In the future, it would be a story to be told around the dinner table, about how Mom drove like a bat out of hell, for no reason at all.

But Jared didn’t answer again, and neither did Frank. When both calls went to voice mail, she felt the pit in her stomach become a wide and bottomless chasm. She was suddenly certain that the car accident was serious, far worse than Jared had let on. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but the idea wouldn’t leave her.

She dropped her phone on the passenger seat and slammed her foot down on the accelerator, racing up to within inches of the car in front of her. Whoever was driving finally made room, and she blew past without a sidelong nod.

I
n the dream, Dawson was back on the rig, just as the series of explosions began to rock the platform, but this time everything was silent and the events unfolded in slow motion. He watched the sudden rupture of the storage tank, followed by flames that leapt outward and skyward; he traced the blackened smoke as it formed into sluggish, mushroomlike shapes. He saw the shimmery ripple of shock waves move across the deck, unhurriedly felling everything in its path, tearing posts and machinery from their housings. Men were hurled overboard as other explosions followed, every twitch of their arms plainly visible. The fire began to consume the deck in a ponderous, dreamlike way. All around him, everything was slowly being destroyed.

But he remained rooted in place, immune to the shock waves and the flying debris that magically veered around him. Straight ahead, near the crane, he saw a man emerge from an oily cloud of smoke, but like Dawson, he was immune to the ongoing devastation. For an instant, the smoke seemed to cling to him before being pulled away like a curtain. Dawson gasped as he glimpsed the dark-haired man in the blue windbreaker.

The stranger stopped moving, his features indistinct through the shimmering distance. Dawson wanted to call out to him, but
no sound came to his lips; he wanted to get closer, but his feet seemed glued in place. Instead, they simply stared at each other across the rig, and despite the distance Dawson thought he felt the beginnings of recognition.

Dawson woke up then, blinking at his surroundings as adrenaline surged through his system. He was in the hotel in New Bern, right on the river, and though he knew it had been only a dream, he felt a chill run through him. Sitting up, he swung his feet toward the floor.

The clock showed that he’d slept for over an hour. Outside, the sun was almost down and the colors in his hotel room were muted.

Dreamlike…

Dawson stood and glanced around, spotting his wallet and keys near the TV. Seeing them jogged his memory about something else, and striding across the room he riffled through the pockets of the suit he’d been wearing. He checked them again to make sure he wasn’t mistaken, then quickly rummaged through his bag. Finally, he grabbed his wallet and keys and hurried downstairs to the parking lot.

He searched every inch of the rental car, working methodically through the glove compartment, the trunk, between the seats, the floor. But he was already beginning to recall what had happened earlier that day.

He’d set Tuck’s letter on the workbench after reading it. Amanda’s mother had walked by and he’d turned his attention to Amanda on the porch,
and he’d forgotten to retrieve the letter
.

It must still be on the workbench. He could leave it, of course… except that he couldn’t imagine doing that. It was the last letter that Tuck had written to him, his final gift, and Dawson wanted to take it home.

He knew that Ted and Abee would be scouring the town to find him, but nonetheless he found himself driving across the bridge, on his way back to Oriental. He’d be there in forty minutes.

After taking a deep breath to steel himself, Alan Bonner entered the Tidewater, noting an even smaller crowd than he’d expected. There were a couple of guys at the bar and a few toward the rear playing pool; only one of the tables was occupied, by a couple that was counting out cash and appeared to be leaving any minute. Nothing like Saturday night, or even Friday night for that matter. With the jukebox playing in the back and the television near the cash register on, the place seemed almost cozy.

Candy was wiping down the bar, and she smiled at him before waving with the towel. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair in a ponytail, and though she wasn’t quite as dolled up as usual, she was still prettier than anyone else in town. The butterflies in his stomach began to flutter as he wondered whether she’d agree to have dinner with him.

He stood straighter, thinking,
No excuses
. He’d take a seat at the bar, just be his normal self, and gradually work the conversation to the point where he could ask her out. He reminded himself that she’d definitely been flirting with him, and while she might be a flirt by nature, he was sure there’d been more to it than that. He could tell. He
knew
it, and with a deep breath, he started toward the bar.