Warren Lane Page 19

  “She must be, Warren. There were no bodies in the house.”

  “Take me home,” Ready said.

  “Warren...”

  “Take me home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  She drove him back to the marina and as he opened the door to leave, he stopped and said, “Do you remember that day at the hotel?”

  “When you tried to rush me out of the room?”

  “Yeah. I promised I would tell you who it was.”

  “It was her?”

  “Yes.”

  Susan took a deep breath. “It’s a good thing she didn’t show up, Warren. That would have been bad.”

  “But she did show up,” Ready said. “When you were kissing me. She was there in the doorway, watching. That’s the last image I have of her, looking at me with that hurt in her eyes. I don’t know if she’d ever take me back.”

  Ready left the car, and Susan watched him crawl into his boat like a hermit crab withdrawing into its shell.

  Though the thought of him with Will’s mistress turned her stomach, Susan’s devotion to him was unyielding. She meant what she had said earlier, that she would do anything to see him happy—even if it meant relinquishing him to a woman she detested.

  Chapter 56

  When she returned to the hotel, Susan dug through the files Ready had given her from Will’s computer and found a series of emails between Will and Ella Weyland. She looked up the name on the Internet, but found nothing. Browsing again through the files, she found one angry message from Ella to Will that was signed “Eleanor.”

  A search for Eleanor Weyland turned up a web page from a modeling agency in New York announcing Eleanor Weyland as the agency’s newest addition. The page had been posted just a few days ago and promised that her portfolio would be available soon. Susan studied the lone photo of Ella. “She is pretty,” she thought.

  Susan went to the contact page and found the agency’s phone number. She started to dial it, and then hung up. She went back to the computer and did a search for doctors in New York. Then she dialed the agency again. When a woman answered, Susan said, “I’m calling for Ella Weyland.”

  “I can put you through to her rep,” the woman said. “Just a moment.”

  Another woman picked up and said, “This is Pat.”

  “Hi, I’m calling for Ella Weyland.”

  “Is this about an engagement?”

  “No. This is doctor Meredith Bergman from Columbia University Medical Center. I need to speak to her about her lab results, and I can’t reach her through the number we have on file.”

  “Oh. Hold on,” said the rep. “Let me get you her number.”

  “Do you know where she is?” Susan asked.

  “She’s in Hawaii. They’re just wrapping up a shoot.”

  “How long will she be there?”

  “They finish today. After that, I don’t know. She has a week before her next shoot. I don’t know what her plans are. Do you want her number?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Susan took down the number, thanked the woman, and hung up. Then she picked up the hotel phone, took a deep breath, and dialed.

  The phone rang four times before someone answered. Expecting to hear the energy and assertiveness of the young woman in the video, Susan heard instead a shy and tentative “Hello?” Struck by the honey-smooth voice, Susan could say nothing.

  “Hello?” Ella repeated.

  “Ella?” Susan asked.

  “Yes?”

  There was a long silence as Susan tried to stop shaking and speak. Finally, she asked in a timid voice, “Where are you?”

  “At the Halekulani. Who is this?”

  “How long will you be there?” Susan’s voice trembled.

  After a brief silence, Ella asked again, “Who is this?” She waited a few seconds for an answer, but Susan couldn’t bring herself to speak again, and Ella hung up.

  Susan looked up the Halekulani’s web site. “Nice place,” she said, as she clicked through the photos. Then she went to Expedia and searched for plane tickets. She called Omar as she searched.

  “Can you fly to Hawaii today?” she asked.

  “What?” asked Omar.

  “I want you to take Warren to Hawaii,” she said. “Today. As soon as possible.”

  “Oh,” Omar hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “Please do this for me, Omar. Do it for Warren.”

  Omar was silent.

  “Just say yes,” she said.

  “OK,” said Omar.

  “I’m booking your flight now. What’s your last name?”

  “Ramos.”

  “Can you come directly to the hotel?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll be there in half an hour. What room?”

  “414.”

  Susan met him at the door when he arrived. “Here are your boarding passes,” she said. “Your flight leaves in two hours. This is the hotel you’re going to.” She handed him a page printed from the Internet. “It’s all on my card. This is the woman you’re looking for.” She handed him a photo of Ella. “Make sure he finds her. Please do everything in your power to find her.”

  “Why don’t you take him?” Omar asked.

  “Oh, I...” she choked up. “I couldn’t hand him over to her.”

  “So I’m supposed to tell him I’m taking him to Hawaii to meet this girl? This is the one he’s been pining for, huh?”

  “Don’t tell him anything about the girl” Susan said. “I’m afraid if we get his hopes up and she’s not there, the disappointment will be too much.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to go with me?” Omar asked.

  “This is Warren we’re talking about. Ask him to follow you over a cliff, and he’ll say, ‘OK, yeah.’”

  Omar shook his head. “He’s not like that anymore. He doesn’t want to do anything.”

  “Hold on a minute,” she said.

  She wrote a note on a piece of paper, folded it up, and handed it to him. “If you get stuck, read that to him.”

  “All right,” Omar said.

  “OK, now go,” Susan said. “Hurry!”

  Chapter 57

  Lying in his bed in the cabin of the boat, Ready heard Omar’s voice call from the deck above. “Come on, buddy. Today’s the day.”

  “What day is it?” Ready asked.

  “The day you say goodbye to this boat,” Omar said as he entered the cabin. “We’re goin’ on a trip.”

  “Where are we going?” Ready asked.

  “To Hawaii.”

  “What for?”

  “What do you mean, what for? When did you start askin’ questions?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Omar looked him in the eye and said, “Come on. I really want you to do this, man.”

  Ready stared back at him for a moment, not sure what to make of this earnest, direct appeal. He shrugged, “OK.”

  He put a change of clothes into his backpack, and in five minutes they were on their way to the airport. Ready complained that Omar drove too fast.

  “We don’t want to miss this flight,” Omar said.

  A short while later, as they passed through security, Ready grew anxious. “There are too many people here,” he said.

  “You don’t like being around people?” Omar said.

  Ready shook his head. “No.”

  “Just look down at the floor, man, and hold my hand. I’ll take you to the gate.”

  Ready did as Omar asked, but when they reached the gate, Ready pulled back.

  “What’s the matter?” Omar asked.

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Then go,” Omar said.

  Ready was still in the bathroom when the desk agent made her second call for all passengers to board. Omar we
nt into the bathroom and yelled, “Yo, Warren!”

  There was no response.

  He walked down the row of stalls, looking under each of the closed doors. One door had no feet behind it.

  Omar knocked and said, “Warren. Come on, we gotta get on this flight, man.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Too many people?”

  “Too much everything,” Ready said. “I want to go back to my boat.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Yes I do,” he said. “I don’t want to see anyone and I don’t want to do anything.”

  Omar heard the final boarding call come through the speakers. “Come on, we gotta go! Now!”

  “No,” said Ready.

  Omar removed the folded note from his pocket. “I got a message for you here from Susan.”

  “From Susan?”

  “Yeah. She says...” He held the note up and read it. “All joy begins with yes.”

  Ready opened the stall door and examined the note. “Did Susan ask you to do this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, buddy. Just get on the fuckin’ plane, all right?”

  Omar looked at him waiting for a reply. “What do you say?”

  Ready looked again at the note. “Yes.”

  Omar grabbed his arm and pulled him to the gate, which the desk agent closed behind them.

  As the plane taxied onto the runway, Omar said, “You know, I think this trip is already doin’ me some good.”

  “How’s that?” Ready asked.

  “My girlfriend’s pregnant, so I gotta work on my parenting skills. Haulin’ your ass through a crowded airport is good practice. When you started freakin’ out at security, and I had to hold your hand, I just kept sayin’ to myself, ‘See, you can do this Omar. You don’t have to lose your temper and beat his face in. Just hold his hand and you’ll get through it.’”

  “I’m happy to be your teacher,” Ready said.

  “But let’s get one thing straight right now,” said Omar, pointing a warning finger at Ready as the takeoff pushed them back against their seats. “If you try to exit this plane during flight, I will beat the living shit out of you!”

  Ready looked out the window and watched the city fall away beneath them. After a brief layover in Los Angeles, they both slept through the long flight to Honolulu.

  Chapter 58

  Susan spent the next few hours watching television, fidgeting, and checking the status of Ready’s flight. When Omar texted her to say they’d landed, her anxiety increased.

  As Omar and Ready climbed into their taxi at the airport, Ella was just getting into hers at the hotel. A few minutes later, Susan’s concern for the success of the plan surpassed her fear of talking to Ella, and she called her directly from her own phone.

  “Hello?” Ella said as her cab made its way down the street.

  “Ella?”

  “Who is this?” Ella demanded angrily.

  “Susan Moore. Will’s wife.”

  Ella was quiet for so long, Susan finally asked, “Are you still there?”

  “What do you want from me?” Ella asked.

  “I want you to go to the hotel pool.”

  “Why?”

  “To meet Warren Lane.”

  “Warren’s dead!” Ella shouted. She hung up.

  She stared out the window of the cab. The camaraderie and diversion of work, the sea and warmth and open skies would all be behind her in a few hours. Ahead was the chill of autumn, the lengthening nights, concrete and noise, and the seething canyons of Manhattan.

  She would return to the small apartment she shared with her sister and resume the silent labor of her grief, trying to stuff back into that broken heart the hurt it could not contain. The little bit of color the days of sun had put into her cheeks began to fade.

  “You OK, Miss?” the driver asked. Ella looked up to see him watching her in the rear-view mirror.

  “No,” she whispered, and shook her head.

  Her phone chimed, and she looked down to see a text from Susan: “You can’t let it end at that room in the Canary, with him kissing another woman.”

  She stared at the message in bewilderment for a long time, until finally, overcome with curiosity, she called Susan. “How did you know about that?” Ella asked softly. “I never told anyone.”

  “Warren told me this morning,” Susan said. She waited, but there was only silence at the other end. “Ella, the man my husband killed was not your Warren. Didn’t you see the photos in the news?”

  “No,” Ella said in a flat, numb voice. “I left right away, and I never looked back. It was too painful.” In a barely audible whisper, she added, “It was my fault. I provoked him.”

  “Ella, go back to the pool,” Susan said. “I sent him there to find you. He’s waiting for you. Please go claim him. Otherwise, he’s just going to drift forever, like lost luggage. You know how he is.”

  “Look, I’m sorry for what I did with your husband,” Ella said, her voice breaking with regret. “I truly am. But if this is your way of getting back at me, it’s too cruel. You can’t be that cruel.” She hung up and looked out the window, struggling to regain control of her emotions.

  She thought back again to the day she first met Ready. How helpless he seemed when she had teased him! She remembered how he had left her alone on the back of the boat, forcing her to learn how to sail on her own. She remembered how their physical and emotional responses to each other were so much stronger than their reason and their will.

  Then Susan’s words made her smile. He was adrift. He did need to be claimed. Susan must have known him to have chosen those words.

  Then she wondered. Could someone I so brazenly wronged really want to do me a favor? Or could anyone be so cruel as to send me out to that pool to wait for a love that would never return?

  Susan’s question echoed in her mind. “Didn’t you see the photos in the news?”

  Ella took a deep breath and picked up the phone from her lap. The taxi carrying Ready and Omar passed her on its way to the hotel, but she didn’t see it as she turned her eyes to the little screen. She typed into the search box “Warren Lane.” The last word, “murder,” appeared on its own, and she tapped the search button.

  The first result was the news report she had heard that day in the juice bar. She tapped and listened again to the final words of her former life:

  “A shooting in a downtown office late this morning left one man dead. The victim was identified as Warren Lane, a private detective. Witnesses say local business owner William Moore walked into Lane’s office and shot him to death, apparently without provocation.”

  Then she saw the photo of the smug, green-eyed man and the caption at the bottom of the screen: Warren Lane.

  In a breaking voice, she cried, “Turn around! Take me back!”

  The driver lowered his head to look at her in the rear-view mirror. “You want to go back to the hotel?”

  The cabbie swung the car around.

  * * *

  Omar received a text from Susan as his cab pulled into the hotel drive.

  “Go directly to the pool. And let me know what happens.”

  Omar grabbed Ready’s arm and said, “Come on, man, we’re goin’ to the pool.”

  “I didn’t bring a bathing suit,” Ready said.

  “So, swim in your damn clothes,” he said as pulled Ready through the hotel entrance.

  “I thought you wanted to work on your parenting skills,” Ready said.

  “Sorry, man. It’s just...I got a mission, and I don’t want to fuck it up.”

  “What’s your mission?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Omar said. “But your mission is to follow me, and if I tell you to do somethin’, you say...”

 
; “Yes.”

  “That’s my boy!”

  * * *

  Ella’s cab pulled into the hotel drive just as Ready’s left with a new set of passengers. She stepped out and walked slowly toward the entrance, leaving the cab door open behind her. In the fading distance, she heard the diver’s voice calling. “Miss? Your bag! Miss?”

  She picked up her pace as she passed through the lobby, her heart pounding with a mixture of anticipation and fear. What if he wasn’t there? Would the disappointment break her? Would that be enough to send her over the edge once and for all?

  Before she knew it, she was outside again, at the beachside pool, where the moist ocean air smelled of salt. As she scanned the crowd in silence, she felt as if she were in one of those recurring dreams where she would spot Ready in the crowd, and he would disappear before she could reach him.

  Omar stood ten feet in front of her, looking from chair to chair in search of Ella. Ready stood a few feet off to Omar’s right, turning slowly round to take in the scene about him. His anxiety began to rise in the great open space and the presence of so many people. As he turned toward the sea, Ella approached him silently from behind.

  She reached for his shoulder, half-expecting him to disappear, as he always did in the dreams. But his flesh was firm beneath her fingers.

  As he turned around, she feared she would see someone else’s face.

  But it was him, and he looked bewildered. He couldn’t make sense of the face that was staring up at him. It was Ella, but it was not the bright young spirit he had known.

  She examined him silently for a few seconds before saying his name. “Warren?”

  “Ella?”

  Omar turned at the sound of her name. “So this is the one,” he said.

  “I thought you were dead!” Ella blurted. “I thought you were dead, and I flew away, and I never wanted to go back there. My heart was broken! What happened? Where did you go? Warren, I missed you.”

  She hugged him, pressing her face hard against his chest, and clung to him tightly for a moment before pushing herself away to look at him again.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  He stared at her dumbly while she studied him with Susan’s wondering gaze. “I... I don’t know,” he stammered. His response brought the hint of a smile, and dawn broke upon her face like pale sun over a sodden country.