Half-Past Dawn

CHAPTER 8

Jack burst through the side door of his childhood home, raced through the small New England foyer, and charged up the stairs. He tore open the door at the end of the hall and peered into the dark room.

The curtains were drawn; daylight had yet to arrive in his old bedroom. His eyes struggled to focus as he stepped in, careful not to trip on the scattered toys. And as his eyes finally adjusted, he sighed in relief. Hope and Sara lay sound asleep in his old queen-sized bed, their small bodies lost amid the sheets and pillows. He smiled to see Hope’s right palm resting on her cheek, her kissing hand protecting her as her mother had promised.

Jack headed back downstairs to search for his mother. Assuming that she was walking her dog, he stepped outside and took a breath of fresh sea air.

The white clapboard house sat on a two-acre parcel of land surrounded on three sides by a forty-acre preserve; on the fourth side, behind sea-grass-covered dunes, was the Atlantic Ocean. The roar of the early-morning waves rolling over the sandy hills instilled a temporary peace in Jack, one that he always felt at his childhood home.

With momentary relief, he stood on the dunes, staring out at the ocean, absorbing the serenity, hoping that it would help him focus and fill the holes that dotted his memory, where he knew that the answer to finding Mia lay.

His gaze was drawn to Trudeau Island, the spit of land two miles off the Connecticut shore, the private enclave where Marguerite Trudeau used to throw her lavish parties back in the ’30s for the New York high-society crowd. Jack and his friends spent too many summer nights to count riding Doug Reiberg’s boat out, beaching it on the southern shore, and throwing makeshift keg parties on the beach with bonfires, music, and girls.

The southern section of the island had become a potter’s field, donated by the Trudeaus in the 1940s to the city of New York for the unclaimed bodies of John and Jane Does, for orphaned children who died alone, for prisoners whose sentences of banishment from society would be extended into eternity. It was said that the hundred-acre southern section had been filled up by the ’50s and so they began doubling up the graves, burying the dead upon the dead. By the ’60s, the city had turned to cremation, and by the ’80s, the potter’s field was nothing more than a graveyard overgrown with trees, shrubbery, and weeds, erasing the memory of the forgotten.

It made for great stories around the beach bonfires, tales that grew more outlandish as the beer consumption increased, stories that would send the girls into the arms of their boyfriends. And while Jack never believed in ghosts, it always disturbed him that so many died alone, forgotten, with no one to speak of their lives.

The cries of the distant gulls startled him out of his thoughts, and he turned to see his mother emerge from the paths of the nature preserve. Theo, her golden Lab, fought to break free of his leash, howling with excitement at the sight of Jack. As her ninety-eight-pound body fought to hold him back, Jack’s mom nearly collapsed when she saw her son. Jack raced to her, and she clasped him as she did when he was child and stayed out past dark.

“The news said…” She gasped, her small body trembling.

“I know.”

“I tried to call…” Heidi Keeler said as she brushed her gray hair from her face. “Where’s Mia?”

Jack looked into his mother’s fragile blue eyes, seeing the fear in his answer. “I don’t know.”

Morning sun poured through the large picture window of the great room as Heidi Keeler busied herself cooking the way she always did when she was stressed. Eggs and bacon sizzled on the stove, English muffins toasted under the broiler, and the smell of fresh coffee filled the air.

With the blue and brown bears tucked under his arm, Jack raced around the great room, determined and without pause, reaching behind the media console to disconnect the TV and unplug the radio.

“You didn’t need to bring those bears. We have so many toys here-”

“No television, no radio today, Mom. Keep the girls out at the beach and away from phones.”

“OK,” his mom said. “Is your friend going to come into the house, or should I bring his breakfast out to the car?”

“He’s on the phone. We can’t stay long.”

“Then I’ll pack something up for him,” Heidi said as she pulled out the tin foil.

“Where’s your computer?”

“In the study on the-”

But Jack was already out of the room and in the adjacent study. It was paneled in a bleached oak; driftwood and shells were scattered on the shelves between the books on yachting, golf, fishing, and finance. He found his mother’s computer on the desk, lit with a screensaver of Hope and Sara, and turned to the all-in-one printer-scanner on the side table. He quickly rolled up his sleeve, lifted the scanner cover, and laid his tattooed left arm on the glass. After closing the lid, he hit scan and watched as the bright light poured through the machine. Within a few seconds, the scan of his arm filled the computer screen, looking like some Maori appendage that one might see in a Smithsonian magazine article.

“What did you do to yourself?”

Jack turned to see his mom alternately staring at the computer and his arm. “Long story.”

“What’s going on, Jack?”

He took a seat at the computer and opened his mother’s e-mail. He attached a copy of the tattoo image to a document and hit send. “I have no idea and not much time. You don’t know any language experts, do you?”

His mother shook her head as she leaned in and studied the tattoo on his arm. “That thing is horrific.”

“Thanks.”

“Columbia.”

“What?” Jack’s BlackBerry beeped. He pulled it out and saw the incoming e-mail he had just sent himself.

“They have a huge language and sociology department.” Heidi looked closer at the tattoo. “And I’m pretty sure linguistics and anthropology. Jeez, Jack, that thing is ugly.”

“Remember what I said about the girls.” Jack kissed her cheek and ran from the room.

He headed back up the stairs and stepped into his old bedroom to see the girls still fast asleep. He stared at them, taking comfort in the knowledge that they were safe, that they had no idea what was going on; their young minds were still unblemished with the dangers and realities of life. He silently walked to the bed and tucked the two bears under the covers between them.

As he turned to leave, he nearly jumped out of his skin, for sitting there was the one man he didn’t expect to see. If Jack’s relationship with his father-in-law was bad, the one with his own father was far worse. They hadn’t spoken in months, and the conversations they did have over the years were few and far between. They would start out cordial, with false smiles and handshakes, talking of the weather and the girls and maybe the Yankees, but after thirty seconds of niceties, David Keeler would only speak of himself, his world, his fishing and golf, how hard he worked. And the conversation would soon devolve into criticism and words of disappointment. His father was critical of his career choice, wasting his education on politics, living the life of an elected official; he never saw his son’s life as one of sacrifice, of protecting the people, of fighting crime. He would tell him he was wearing a white shirt in a blue-collar world.

He made Jack feel like a child, inadequate and small, with a diminished mind not worthy of a life.

But as Jack stared at his father, sitting calmly in his old wooden desk chair, his father looked back with eyes Jack hadn’t seen in years. They were filled with concern, with worry, so contrary to his usual expression of disappointment.

Jack stared at him for a long moment and walked out of the room without a word.