Until Then

by McLaughlin, Heidi

  “Hello?” Bowie answered gruffly into the receiver.

  “Where are you, man?”

  Bowie paused. “Home, why? What’s up?”

  Graham knew he wasn’t but chose not to dig deeper. “There’s been an accident,” Graham said hurriedly and with panic. “He’s so fucking stupid. The fucker took the trawler out, and it fucking capsized. Fucking rogue wave tipped the boat over. My dad, he’s heading out now, and my mom’s freaking out. I can’t get a flight until tomorrow.” The more Graham recalled the conversation with his father, the more worried and distraught he became. The boys were smart, raised better than to play with nature this way. Austin, of all people, knew better.

  “Who?”

  “Austin, man. Fucking Austin, and he’s gone!” Graham screamed.

  “What do you mean?”

  Graham paused. The word gone played over in his mind. Had he spoken too soon? What if Austin was perched on a buoy? Or clinging to a rock? He could be on one of the islands, waiting to be rescued.

  “What do you mean, Graham?”

  The line went dead before he could answer his friend. He had no time to call him back. He wanted to get on the road and get home to his family. He had one last call to make before he left, and that was to Rennie. Brooklyn would need her.

  When Rennie’s roommate answered, Graham said, “Is Rennie there? This is Graham. It’s important.”

  “Ren, for you.”

  Graham counted the seconds until she picked up. “What’s up?”

  “Austin’s been in an accident. I’m heading home.”

  “Is Brooklyn okay?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You and I both know, wherever Brooklyn is, Bowie isn’t far behind. Now that he knows about Austin, he’ll be by Brooklyn’s side.” He let the words hang in the air. He and Rennie both suspected something was going on between their friends but never asked either of them. Graham recounted everything his father told him and heard Rennie start to cry. “I’ll call you when I get to town to let you know what’s going on.”

  “I’m coming with. Can you pick me up?”

  “I’ll be there in thirty.” He hung up and finished packing. He found one of his roommates and gave him a quick rundown of what was going on and called his boss, telling him what he knew and asking for the week off. He tried to remain positive, reassuring himself Austin would be found by the time he arrived home, and all this panic would’ve been for nothing.

  ONE

  Fifteen Years Later

  Renee Wallace stood in front of her floor-to-ceiling window, peering out over the Seattle skyline. Her corner office in the First Bank Tower offered her the best view of her beloved city. Small drops of rain, some meeting together and streaking down the tinted windows, made the white and colored twinkling Christmas lights from neighboring buildings and apartments a blur. On a clear night, one she hadn’t seen in some time, the view from her office afforded her the ability to see the area of Queen Anne and the faint outline of homes on Bainbridge Island. She missed spring and summer. Even the crisp air and changing leaves fall brought. But it was the dark, dreary winter that kept her from admiring her beautiful city day in and day out. It had been days since she saw the sun, and she missed it. Rennie needed it and longed to be on a tropical island instead of looking out her window as she sipped the gin and tonic her assistant poured and left for her before heading upstairs to the Rhoads PC annual Thanksgiving feast, where Rennie should’ve been.

  Sagging against the glass, she didn’t worry that it couldn’t hold her weight but was fearful that the emotional baggage she carried might crack the thick panes. She watched the office floor across from her and about eight floors down. Every so often someone would come to the table the other company had set up by the window and load up a plateful of food or make another drink. Her company hired a bartender, caterers, and a DJ to play music meant to get people in the spirit. Men and women would be dressed in black slacks and white shirts, carrying around silver trays, offering champagne and hors d’oeuvres until the sit-down dinner was ready. You were expected to work the room with a smile. Laugh at Bob the copy guy’s corny dad jokes, which he had plenty of; feel sorry for Jenny’s third cousin, twice removed, because her bunion surgery didn’t go quite as planned. Mingle with that ever-annoying coworker you wouldn’t talk to on a normal day. Tonight’s party was one of three that would happen over the next few weeks. Happy faces all around. No moping, which was why Rennie had yet to join the festivities. Everyone upstairs was living it up, and she felt like she had nothing to celebrate.

  By all accounts, she was a fierce lawyer, fighting for her clients and getting them everything she thought they were due. She did her job, her due diligence, and put in her time. She busted her butt for every promotion, being passed up each time for someone willing to kiss a little more ass, someone male. When her promotion had come and her boss asked to see her in the conference room, she had finally felt validated. She was the first woman in the law firm to hold the title of junior partner. She was quickly becoming the go-to divorce lawyer in the city, even though her specialty in college was family law. Her client base was slowly becoming what it had been when she’d lived in California, when she would sit second chair to some of the most powerful lawyers celebrities could hire. Spouses scorned by adulterous affairs. Tech giants who made it big after they were married and now wanted out. They were people married to their careers who had fallen out of love with each other. It was cases like the latter that Rennie preferred. She wanted to work with people to find a happy medium, a smart and healthy resolution for everyone. She hated fighting dirty but would when required. It was those cases, the ones where the media meddled too much because her client had a substantial portfolio or had invented the next best thing, that would catapult her to be the most sought-after divorce lawyer in the area. She would rise to the top and make partner faster than anyone else in the firm.

  The day after her promotion, she saw her office for the first time. When she first walked in, she thought her boss was playing a cruel joke on her, possibly showing her what she could have if she were ever to make partner, because there was no way the corner office with a view of the city was hers. He paraded her around the room, showing her the wet bar, the kitchenette with a refrigerator hidden behind the mahogany cabinet and under the black granite countertop. There was a large bathroom that had a black-and-teal-tiled stand-up shower, complete with dual showerheads and the option to switch to the overhead rain shower just in case the Seattle drizzle wasn’t enough for her. The bathroom looked like something her best friend, Brooklyn Hewett, had designed. Attached to the bathroom were a dressing room and a space for her to keep extra clothes and shoes. Her boss referred to it as small, but the closet was bigger than her one-bedroom walk-up. The more she looked around, the more she surmised this office wasn’t for her. He was dangling a prize in front of her, something for her to work toward. To continue the tour, he told her that the couch pulled out into a sleeper in case she needed to stay the night. In that moment, she wanted it. She wanted it all. She could easily see herself spending countless hours in her office, watching the sun set over the sound. She could see her future, sitting at the large desk stained a rich dark brown that almost looked black, curled up on the leather couch under the afghan her grandmother knitted for her in case of a snowstorm. Her future was in this room, and it was within her grasp.

  Rennie hadn’t believed this was her office, not even when her boss placed the keys in her hand. It wasn’t until maintenance installed the gold-plated nameplate outside the door, etched with her name, that it finally sank in. She stayed late the night it went up, well after everyone had gone home and only the glow from the auto-timed night-lights illuminated the pathways to the exits, to drag her fingers across the hollowed letters of her name, Renee Wallace. She traced each one until the pad of her index finger was sore. Years of hard work and determination came down to this moment. She had finally been recognized for her worth.

  T
hose feelings lasted about five minutes. It wasn’t long after she moved into her new office that her coworkers started mumbling under their breath. According to gossip, the only reason for her promotion was because she had devoted herself to the job. She didn’t have kids or a spouse, nothing forcing her to leave at five or six o’clock to rush home. Day cares and schools didn’t phone needing her attention. The midnight flu didn’t force her to call in sick the next day to care for her child. The doctor’s appointments, early dismissals, snow days, or field trips taking time away from other staff wouldn’t affect her. To everyone around her, she got the promotion because she was alone, not because she’d earned it.

  Years ago, when she was young and hungry for success, right after passing the bar, she made many comments about how motherhood wasn’t her thing to whoever asked when she would settle down. Rennie never saw herself with a husband and 2.3 children. The white picket fence wasn’t her lifestyle. She wanted a high-rise in the city, the weekend gala fundraisers, and the one-night stands that weren’t awkward because both parties knew exactly what they needed from each other. Her passion for sitting in her oversize chair with a cup of coffee and a good book far outweighed any thoughts of dirty diapers and teething rings.

  What she wanted now was a ring on her finger. She could still do without a child, but marriage was something she found she wanted ever since she met her boyfriend at a college fair in Spokane, Washington, over a year ago. Rennie was asked to fill in for a coworker and attend the recruiting session and speak to interested interns. Public speaking wasn’t her forte, but the thought of getting out of the office for a few days excited her. She never thought a trip across the state would be life changing, but this one was. The staff who had accompanied her to Spokane set up their booth in the convention center and joked with her about how nervous she was. They assured her everything would be fine and the speech she planned to give to prospective interns was spot on. Shortly after her speech, she spoke to the students who stopped by their booth. She handed out flyers containing details about their intern program, the housing they offered, and their hiring process. In the booth next to hers, Theo Wright recruited for a whole other field: forensic accounting. The two of them couldn’t have been more different career-wise, yet as the day wore on, they smiled at each other, gravitating toward one another and flirting. Casual conversation turned into drinks at the hotel bar, which turned into dinner the next night. Rennie’s staff would later comment on the subtle touches they witnessed her and Theo exchange and how each time they brought him up on the flight home, she would smile.

  Theo and Rennie lived four hours apart by car—longer in the winter—and a little over an hour by plane. They often met in Ellensburg, which was halfway for both of them, or Theo would come to Seattle to visit. Rennie rarely went to Spokane, since Theo loved the nightlife in Seattle. The vibe was more his speed, as he always told her. Every other weekend they were together, either at her apartment, skiing in Canada, spending time in the Bavarian village of Leavenworth, or walking hand in hand along the boardwalk on Venice Beach when she would occasionally join him on a business trip to Los Angeles. They were in love. He talked about leaving his job or pushing his company to open a branch in Seattle so they could buy their dream home in the coveted Queen Anne neighborhood. They talked about their future, their desire to travel together to Italy and Greece, and she showed him a condo she wanted to buy in Portugal, giving them a place to escape to when their jobs became too much.

  Her promotion changed her dreams, or maybe falling in love had done so. She wasn’t sure anymore. She loved her job. She loved Theo. But neither was meeting her halfway. He was demanding of her time, as was her job. With her new role, her responsibilities doubled. She now had lawyers under her, a full office staff, and interns. People depended on her more. When Theo was in town, she was in board meetings or going over briefings. Their normal weekends together turned into her spending hours researching, reading, and highlighting. Plans they had made before the promotion were tossed by the wayside and rescheduled for another date or, more aptly, “to be determined.”

  She was driven to manage her ever-growing workload and get back on track with Theo, but it was the rumors that made everything worse and had her questioning whether the corner office, pay raise, and gold-plated nameplate were worth it. Of course, the sneers she’d get from her male counterparts who had not been promoted to her current position and the backhanded comments from other coworkers suggesting she was sleeping her way to the top weren’t helping. The fact that Theo declined her invite to the firm’s Thanksgiving party hadn’t squashed the gossip surrounding her. She depended on him to be there for her, to show everyone she was happy and in a healthy relationship—that she wasn’t taking part in extracurricular activities with the president of the company or any of its senior staff—and that she could have a career and be in a committed relationship.

  She sipped her gin and tonic and looked toward the Queen Anne area. There were houses for sale, many in the price range that she and Theo could afford. Brooklyn suggested they buy a fixer-upper and have Bowie do the work. They could flip and invest. Her friend made it sound so easy. They didn’t need a lot of room and could buy small, remodel, and move on to something else. When she asked Theo what he thought, he said it would be a waste of time, and he didn’t want to live in a construction zone. He, too, made sense. Their time was valuable, and with Rennie’s job keeping her at the office longer hours, the last thing she wanted to come home to at night was a dust-filled house. After the first of the year, they’d find the right house—she was sure of it.

  Her intercom buzzed, and within seconds, silence filled with music and laughter. The voice of her assistant, Ester, came through the receiver. “Ms. Wallace, are you coming to the party?”

  Rennie continued to stare out the window, her eyes scanning the darkened city for any sign of Theo . . . not that she could see him—or anyone, for that matter—from her office. Besides, she knew deep down he wouldn’t surprise her, not tonight and not likely over the extended holiday. Their last words had been curt. She would call him later—if not tonight, then tomorrow—and apologize and tell him that once they lived together, things would be different. It was the distance that frustrated them, not their jobs. She would promise to put work aside so they could keep their reservation at the quaint bed-and-breakfast they’d fallen in love with in Vancouver, British Columbia, so they could spend New Year’s together. Everything would be on track for them; she’d make sure of it.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” she told Ester as she stepped away from the window. She placed the glass on the corner of her desk before walking out of her office and closing the door behind her.

  TWO

  Cape Harbor, Washington, was known for its beautiful coastline, its majestic views, and its quaint style of living, as well as swashbuckling ghosts. Over the years, the story about the pirate ship, the Grand Night, sinking a mere thirty feet from the shore grew with each person telling the tale. It was a stormy night, might’ve been snowing, or was the wind whipping so hard the captain couldn’t keep the ship straight? There was no way to tell. What about the ghosts who sat at the bar of the Whale Spout long after it closed, causing a ruckus? As the folklore went, the gangplanks used for the Whale Spout came from the Grand Night, but how that came about was unknown. Some say the wind ripped apart the ship, and the wide pieces of wood slammed against local angler Justin Schreiber’s boat one afternoon, waking him from a drunken stupor. Others say he was a thief who robbed the ship, taking what belonged to the ocean and bringing a curse to all the fishermen. Whether the tales were true, no one would ever know, but the uncertainty hadn’t stopped fortune hunters from coming to the small Washington town with their diving gear, hoping to discover what many before them hadn’t—those elusive chestfuls of gold coins and jewels. The tourist shop in town sold magnets, T-shirts, and replica coins and necklaces related to the myth, and the old fishermen who sat in the same corner of the Whale Spout a
s the fishermen before them had continued to spread the story to anyone willing to sit and listen.

  A man sat down at the bar and motioned to Graham. There were very few patrons in the bar tonight; most people were home or traveling to visit relatives for the upcoming holiday. “What can I get you?” Graham asked.

  “Whatever you have on tap.”

  Graham pulled a glass from the counter, set it at a forty-five-degree angle, and pulled the tap of his favorite local brew, the White Elephant Couch, and watched as amber liquid filled the glass. He held it up and admired his ability to create as little head as possible. Beer pouring was truly an art form, at least for him.

  “Is it true?” the man asked Graham as he slid the pint toward him.

  “What’s that?”

  “The ghost stories. My buddy has been here a few times and says this place is haunted. Said if I stay until closing, I’m likely to catch the spirit of Blackbird.”

  “As far as I know, Blackbird never sailed the Pacific.” There hadn’t been a day since he took over the bar from his father that he hadn’t been asked if any of the legends were true. Hearing what others had heard over the years was one of the best parts of his job, and he often wished he could confirm or deny the fables. Was the Whale Spout haunted? Likely. There were too many instances that left Graham wondering. Most often, he’d come in to work and find the barstools tipped over or a water faucet running. Each time, he would thank whoever did it for not touching the taps, because losing a keg of beer would be costly, especially during the winter.

  Once Labor Day came and went, the tourism season slowed to a trickle. Thankfully, with the Driftwood Inn reopening, there had been a steady flow of people coming back to the area. Still, most of the people around town were locals who only frequented the town’s favorite watering hole on Friday or Saturday nights. Graham thought about limiting the hours during the winter, especially between the months of November and February, but didn’t know what he would do with all his downtime. He loved being a bartender, even though his passion lay in corporate America. He missed the challenges and the intricacies of working with computers, of being the tool everyone in his building needed. At night, when he was alone in his houseboat with only the sound of the ocean keeping him company, he thought about giving up the bar and returning to the rat race of traffic jams, meetings, and a cell phone that never stopped ringing. He missed the power-hungry women and the sexiness they exuded when they were asking him for help, as well as the corporate ladder and the feeling that came with being indispensable. He gave it all up, and for what? To be a bartender in an establishment his parents owned? Granted, he was free to do whatever he wanted with the place . . . except sell it. His parents were silent partners, the bankroll that kept the place afloat, mostly for his alcoholic brother, Grady. His twin brother.