I hadn’t planned that far. I said the first thing that came into my head.
“His sunglasses.”
“Okay. What’s his name? I can check the lost and found.”
“Mark. Mark Ellison.”
The line went quiet.
Not a normal quiet. Not the sound of someone setting the phone down to look in a box. A heavy, holding-your-breath kind of quiet.
Then Carol said, very carefully:
“Is this his wife?”
Everything in my body went cold.
“Yes,” I said.
Another pause. Longer this time. I heard her breathe out.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, honey.”
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
I hung up.
I didn’t even say goodbye. I just pressed the red button and threw the phone onto the kitchen table like it had burned me. It slid across the wood and fell onto the floor and lay there, face down.
Is this his wife?
Why would a waitress at a marina café three hours away know who I was?
