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“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Dea
Theresa’s mouth opened, and Dea
“Don’t look so surprised, Theresa. I’m not a complete idiot. I knew something was going on these last few days. You’ve been so distracted around here—it’s like you’ve been a hundred miles away. I was going to ask you about it, but I figured you’d talk to me when you were ready.”
“I thought I was keeping things under control.”
“Perhaps for other people. But I’ve known you long enough to know when something’s up with you.” She smiled again. “So tell me, what’s going on?”
Theresa thought for a moment.
“It’s been really strange. I mean, I can’t stop thinking about him, and i don’t know why. It’s like I’m in high school again and I have a crush on someone I’ve never met. Only this is worse—not only have we never spoken, but I’ve never even seen him. For all I know, he could be a seventy-year-old man.”
Dea
Theresa slowly shook her head. “No, not really.”
“Neither do I,” Dea
“That’s what I thought, too.”
“Do you want to know what I think?”
“Absolutely.”
Dea
“But it seems so . . . so ridiculous, even to me—”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know anything about him.”
“Theresa, you know a good deal more about Garrett than I did about Brian before I met him. And besides, I didn’t tell you to marry him, I just told you to go find him. You may find out that you don’t like him at all, but at least you’ll know, won’t you? I mean, what can it hurt?”
“What if . . .” She paused, and Dea
“What if he’s not what you imagine? Theresa, I can guarantee he’s not what you’re imagining already. No one ever is. But to my mind, that shouldn’t make any difference in your decision. if you think you want to find out more, just go. The worst thing that can happen is you find out he’s not the kind of man you’re looking for. And what would you do then? You’d come back to Boston, but you’d come back with your answer. How bad would that be? Probably no worse than what you’re going through now.”
“You don’t think this whole thing is crazy?”
Dea
Theresa was silent for a moment. “You’re being much too logical about this whole thing. . . .”
Dea
Theresa began twisting a strand of hair around her finger.
“And my column?”
“Don’t worry about it. We still have the one column you wrote that we didn’t use because we published the letter instead. After that, we can run a couple of repeats from past years. Most papers hadn’t picked up your column then, so they probably won’t know the difference.”
“You make this sound so easy.”
“It is easy. The hard part is going to be finding him. But I think these letters have some information we can use to help you. What do you say we make a few phone calls and do a little hunting on the computer?”
They were both silent for a long time.
“Okay,” Theresa said finally. “But I hope I don’t end up regretting this.”
* * *
“So,” Theresa asked Dea
She pulled her chair around to the other side of Dea
“First off,” Dea
“And,” Theresa added, “he’s probably in Wilmington or Wrightsville Beach, or another community close by.”
Dea
“That’s what I thought. He didn’t seem to mention any special occasions in the letters. They talked about his day-to-day life, and what he was going through.”
“Okay, good,” Dea
“Happenstance,” Theresa said. “The letter said that they restored the boat and used to sail together. So, it’s probably a sailboat.”
“Write that down,” Dea
“Not that I can tell. But the third letter has a little bit more information. From what he writes, two things stand out.”
Dea
“And also that it looks like he owns a scuba-diving shop where he and Catherine used to work.”
“That’s another thing to write down. I think we can find out more about that from up here as well. Anything else?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, it’s a good begi
The first place Dea
“boats are registered with an identification number, almost like cars,” he said in a slow drawl, “but if you have the name of the person, you might be able to find out the name of the boat on the form if it’s listed. It’s not a required piece of information, but a lot of people put it down anyway.” Dea
“That was a dead end,” Theresa said quietly.
Dea
After thanking Zack Norton for his time and hanging up, Dea