Kiss River

by Diane Chamberlain

  “They don’t,” she said. She turned to him, taking his hands. “Clay, I have no idea what will happen between you and me. Whether we have a future or not. I don’t know and you don’t know.” Her voice was strong now, the tears gone. “But I am through with lying and with keeping things from you, I promise you that.”

  He squeezed her hands, and asked her the question that had been on his mind since she’d first told him how desperate she was to get Rani. “How would you feel if someone else was able to adopt Rani?” he asked. “Maybe an Indian couple, so they wouldn’t be subject to the problems you’re dealing with.”

  She stiffened in his arms, and it was a moment before she answered. “If they would get her the surgery she needs right away…” She spoke slowly. “And if they were the sort of people who would…” She started to cry again, shaking her head. “But she’s my baby, Clay,” she said. “She’s my daughter.”

  CHAPTER 52

  “Ah, this twinkie’s gonna be nothin’ to lift.”

  Gina sat on the edge of the barge, listening to the barge captain, or operator, or whatever he was called, talking to Kenny about raising the lens. It was the third time she’d heard him call the lens a “twinkie,” and she assumed he was referring to the fact that, compared to the sort of things he usually had to retrieve from the ocean bottom, the lens was relatively light.

  She’d awakened that morning to the sound of voices slipping through the window of Clay’s bedroom. Peering outside, she saw Kenny standing in the knee-high water east of the lighthouse. He was wearing a short-sleeved wet suit and shouting something to a man who stood on a small, yellow-rimmed barge floating near the buoy. The early-morning sun tinted the entire scene with gold, and the sea was like glass. The crane rising from the middle of the barge looked like a giant, amber-colored insect standing upright on its hind legs.

  Gina awakened Clay, then dressed quickly in Lacey’s red bathing suit and rushed out to the beach.

  She and Clay had to swim out to the barge, climbing up the ladder attached to the rear of the floating deck. The barge was much larger than it had looked from the window of Clay’s room, and Gina felt dwarfed by the crane. On the deck, a short distance away from the crane, sat a square framework of wood timbers, perhaps a foot high.

  “The crane will put the lens down on top of that set of timbers there,” Kenny explained, pointing to the box. He was on the barge now as well, perspiring in his wet suit; the morning was very warm. “Then we’ll transport it to Hatteras to get it cleaned up.”

  Kenny explained the entire process to them in great detail. They would use a water jet to blow the sand away from the bottom of the lens, he said. Then they’d put lifting straps beneath it, attach the straps to the cable coming from the crane, and that would be it. “A snap,” Kenny said.

  She and Clay watched as Kenny and the other diver climbed down the ladder and into the water, carrying hoses and other paraphernalia needed to prepare the lens to be raised. Although the water was fairly clear today, she would not be able to see what was going on beneath the surface, since the barge was anchored a distance from the lens to prevent the crane from swinging the lens onto its side as it raised it into the air. Gina kept glancing at the framework of timbers where the lens would be brought to rest. If the bottom of the lens was too deep inside that network of timbers, she would not be able to see what she needed to see.

  “You excited?” Clay asked her.

  She was chewing on her lower lip. “What do you think?” she asked. “I can’t wait to get a look at that twinkie.”

  She knew that Clay was curious to see what, if anything, they would find, regardless of how harebrained her scheme seemed to him. He’d talked about searching the Internet once they had the name of the spy. Maybe they would be able to find out if he had been caught. Or if he was still alive, maybe they could find an address for him.

  She’d been feeling embarrassed for the past two days, ever since telling Clay her plan. She could see why he thought the scheme seemed crazy. It was crazy. But it was the only course of action that she had been able to see. It was the only course of action she could see even now.

  She’d had no word from Denise in three days, and that raised her anxiety level even higher. Denise used the computer in her hotel for her e-mail, and sometimes those computers were down. Gina hoped that was the reason for Denise’s silence, and that it was not an indication of something more ominous.

  Lacey had wanted to join them on the barge, but one of the other vet techs was out sick, and she’d had no choice but to go in to work. Gina was glad. It was going to be hard enough for her and Clay to examine the lens without arousing suspicion from the diver and barge operator and Kenny. It would have been just about impossible with Lacey there.

  Lacey had been very quiet since Alec told her the truth about her mother on Tuesday. She was nearly impossible to engage in conversation. Gina and Clay decided the best approach was to leave her alone rather than press her to talk. “She’ll talk when she’s ready,” Clay had said. But it was hard to watch Lacey’s sparkling personality slip into something dark and brooding.

  A half hour passed. Gina knew her skin was starting to sunburn. She hadn’t given a thought to sunscreen. She didn’t care, though. Clay rubbed her back as she closed her eyes, trying to breathe evenly, patiently, in an attempt to still her nerves.

  Finally, Kenny reappeared on the surface of the water and gave the guy operating the crane the thumbs-up sign. Slowly, with a grinding, whirring sound, the cable attached to the arm of the crane began to rise, dragging seaweed with it. In less than a minute, the giant, algae-covered beehive broke the surface of the water. It rose into the air, a series of waterfalls pouring from the tiers of glass.

  Gina and Clay stood well out of the way as the crane lifted the lens high into the air, then turned and began lowering it into the timber frame.

  “It’s on an angle,” Clay said to her.

  She had already noticed that fact, and it was good news. The lens was not upright, but rather lying nearly on its side in the cradle of straps. If it was still on its side when the crane let it down on the frame of timbers, she and Clay would be able to see the prisms at the bottom of the lens with relative ease.

  A couple of workers from the barge guided the lens into the frame, laying it almost on its side, in the same position it had been in in the cradle.

  Gina and Clay walked toward the lens, ignoring the crane operator’s pleas to keep their distance.

  “This is the bottom,” Gina said, her hands already feeling the prisms beneath her palms. Don’t let the name have been on the missing panel, she thought. She scraped at the algae-covered prisms with her fingernails, while Clay used a rag he found on the deck of the barge.

  “Gina!” Clay suddenly called from the other side of the lens. “I’ve got it! I can see a couple of letters.”

  Quickly, she circled the lens to see him holding the grubby rag in his hand, a look of shocked disbelief on his face.

  She followed his gaze to the prism. The glass was nearly clean, and the etched name was more vivid for the green algae held deep in its crevices: Walter Liscott.

  CHAPTER 53

  Sitting next to Clay in the waiting room of the rehab center, Gina played with the clasp on her backpack. It had been mere hours since they’d seen the name on the lens, and Clay had wanted to wait a day before they went to Elizabeth City to talk to Walter, but Gina could not have put it off another minute. She had to confront the man who had betrayed Bess Poor and his country.

  “How long do you think his exercise session lasts?” Gina asked, looking at her watch. They’d been waiting forty minutes already.

  “Has to be over soon,” Clay said. Then he sighed. “You know, Gina, Walter’s a really nice guy.”

  “So was my husband,” Gina said. “And Sandy-slash-Walter was extremely nice to Bess, too, before he turned on her.”

  “That was sixty years ago.” Clay took her hand. “People can change a lot
in sixty years. I know you’re hoping he’s some sort of multimillionaire, but Walter doesn’t have any money socked away. I’m sure of it. If he ever received it, he spent it long ago. He lives in a little bungalow.”

  She feared he was right. Frankly, she no longer knew what she hoped to discover by speaking with Walter. She was having a difficult time reconciling the kind old man she’d come to care about with the traitorous Coast Guard patrolman who had turned on Bess so cruelly. But she’d had trouble reconciling the fact that Bruce had changed so radically, too. She wondered if Clay was destined to change, as well.

  She squeezed Clay’s hand. “I’ll be gentle with him,” she said. “I promise.” She knew Clay was afraid that confronting Walter might cause him to suffer another heart attack.

  It was a few more minutes before Walter wheeled himself into the waiting room.

  “Well, it’s nice to see you two,” he said, a broad smile on his face. “I sure do miss home. I miss Shorty’s. Not a soul to play chess with here.”

  “Is there someplace private we can go, Walter?” Gina asked him. There were other people in the waiting room and this was not going to be the sort of conversation that should be overheard.

  He lost his smile. “Is everything all right?” he asked. “Everybody all right?” He probably thought something terrible had happened to Brian or Henry.

  “Everyone’s fine,” Clay reassured him. “Gina and I just need to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  “We can go to my room.” Walter pointed toward the hallway behind them. “I have a roommate, but he’s getting PT right now, so it’ll be private, at least for a while.”

  They followed him down the long corridor to his room. There was only one chair, and Gina sat down on it, clutching her backpack in her lap, while Clay sat on the edge of Walter’s unmade bed.

  Walter looked from one of them to the other from his wheelchair. “What’s on your minds?” he asked.

  Gina glanced at Clay. Now that she was face-to-face with Walter, she was unsure where or how to begin.

  “We wanted to talk to you about when you were in the Coast Guard,” Clay said.

  Walter wore a look of confused surprise. “You do?” he asked. “I wasn’t in all that long. Henry and Brian could tell you more than I could.”

  “Walter,” Gina said suddenly, “you’re my grandfather.”

  “I’m what?” Walter laughed.

  Gina reached into the backpack and pulled out the pink diary.

  “This is the diary Bess Poor kept the year she was fifteen,” she said.

  The color drained from Walter’s face and he stared at the book. Then he shook his head. “Bess,” he said, more to himself than to either of them. He pointed to the diary. “What does she say in there?” he asked.

  “She talks about falling in love with you. With Sandy.”

  He chuckled. “Sandy. Haven’t heard that name in a long time. She sure was the only person in the world who ever called me that.”

  “She adored you,” Gina said.

  “And I adored her, too.” Walter looked suddenly somber and sad. “I worry her life didn’t turn out too well.”

  Gina felt angry and had to struggle to control her voice. “And whose fault was that? You sent her away from her home. Were you ever caught? Were you paid millions of dollars by the Germans?” The words spilled over each other as she rushed to get them out.

  Walter looked dumbfounded. Finally, he spoke. “Maybe I should see that diary,” he said.

  She pictured him ripping the pages out, tearing them up before she could do a thing about it. She should have made a copy of the book.

  “She tells about you spying for the Germans, Walter,” Clay said, his voice much calmer than Gina’s. “Don’t worry. We’re not going to tell anyone. It’s water under the bridge. We just wanted to know if it’s the truth.”

  Walter suddenly laughed. “Is that what you two are worried about?” he asked.

  Neither she nor Clay said a word, and Walter sobered at the serious expressions on their faces.

  “Well,” he said. “I can see I have some explaining to do.” He looked at Gina. “But what’s this about you being my granddaughter?”

  “Bess was pregnant when she left Kiss River,” she said. She felt like adding, Withdrawal is a lousy method of birth control, but managed to bite her tongue.

  “Oh no.” Walter turned away from them, staring blankly out the window. “For many, many years, I didn’t know where she had gone,” he said. “Her parents didn’t know, either. No one did.”

  “Did you care where she went?”

  “Yes, I cared.” He faced Gina, sounding a bit defensive. “It wasn’t easy for me to let her go.”

  “Let her?” Gina asked. “You sent her.” She was not doing a good job of treating him gently, and Clay leaned forward to wrap his hand around her wrist.

  “Take it easy,” he admonished her.

  Walter looked down at his lap, where his hands lay still, one resting upon the other. “Listen to me, you two,” he said. “I…I was never really in the Coast Guard.”

  “What do you mean?” Clay asked.

  “I was actually working for the FBI as a double agent.”

  Gina frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “We had some intelligence that German saboteurs were planning to come ashore,” Walter said. “The FBI sent a fellow to the area to gather information, but he got himself murdered, probably because he spoke German with a terrible accent and they grew suspicious of him. That’s when they sent me. German was my first language, since my parents were both born in Germany.”

  “You never told Bess that,” Gina said.

  “Of course not,” Walter said. “There was plenty I didn’t tell her. My job was to make the Germans think I was working for them while I was really working for the government. Bud Hewitt, the chief warrant officer, didn’t even know. It would have compromised the entire mission if anyone knew. Ultimately, we were able to prevent the subs from landing any saboteurs along the coast there.”

  “You told Bess they were paying you millions,” Gina said.

  “Millions?” Walter laughed. “The only money I got was my paycheck. If I did tell her that, it was because it was the only thing I could think of to say at the time. When Bess realized I was in cahoots with the Germans, I panicked. I didn’t dare tell her the truth. She was in real danger. She could have been killed by the Germans or…well, it wouldn’t have been the first time an American was killed to protect a mission. I’d put her in danger by falling in love with her.” There was a sheen of tears in his eyes. “I sent her away, scared her away, because I loved her. I told her I killed the fellow on the beach. I hate that she left thinking the worst of me. I know it must have been very painful for her. But now, to find out she was pregnant!”

  He mistook Gina’s numb silence as disbelief. Wheeling over to the night table, he fumbled in the drawer for a set of keys and he handed them to her.

  “In my house, in the file cabinet in the den, there is a file labeled Personal,” he said. “In it, you’ll find a quiet little letter signed by J. Edgar Hoover, commending me for my service to the United States government in 1942.”

  Clay slowly shook his head, stunned. “Holy shit, Walter,” he said.

  Walter looked at Gina. “Now, please,” he said. “Tell me about you and how you came to be my granddaughter.”

  Suddenly, she saw her mother in his eyes and in the shape of his mouth. She felt herself starting to tear up, and she looked down at the diary. There was so much to tell. She hardly knew where to begin.

  “Bess gave her baby—your baby—up for adoption,” she said, leaning forward to press the keys back into his hand. Settling deeper into the chair, she prepared herself to tell him the story, from start to finish, forgetting for just a moment about money and Rani and India. For the first time in her life, she had a grandfather.

  CHAPTER 54

  Monday, February 8, 1943

&n
bsp; Four days ago on February 4, I had a baby girl at the hospital where SueAnn works. I came home today, glad to get away from all the happiness and sounds of crying babies that filled that place, while my arms were empty. I didn’t even see her. I wanted to. Even though I knew it would be hard, and I would have to hand her over to the nurse to take her away forever, I still wanted to see her and look in her face. I wanted to see Sandy in her, because his face is so lost to me now, and I wanted that little reminder of him. But if I’d seen him there, I would never have been able to let her go. Maybe they knew that. Maybe that is why the nurses wouldn’t let me see her.

  I had a very difficult time giving birth to the baby. I honestly don’t remember very much of it. They kept me asleep, or nearly asleep, most of the time, and when I was awake, I kept calling out for Mama. They told me I may not ever be able to have another child. Something about my uterus. Right now I don’t care. I am fifteen. I don’t want a child. Except maybe the one I just gave away.

  The priest took her away. She is going to a “good Catholic couple” he said. She will have a good life. I asked him if the couple went to our church, if I might get to see her from time to time, but he said, “Certainly not,” as though I’d asked the most stupid question in the world.

  Dennis is being real kind to me, even more than usual. SueAnn told him some women get very sad (melancholy was the word she used) after they have a baby, even if they don’t have to give that baby up. I think that’s what’s happening to me. I just want to sleep. I want to wake up and have this whole year erased from my life and my heart.

  CHAPTER 55

  A pall had settled over the keeper’s house. Clay was living with two pensive, tearful women. One felt as though she had lost her child, the other her mother. He had never seen his sister like this, so quiet, so withdrawn. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” she told him, and he understood. She had wanted so much to be like their mother, to keep Annie alive in that way. She had not realized exactly how much like her mother she had become, in both good ways and bad.