Blindfold Game

JANUARY

“HI,” LILAH SAID.

“Hey,” Kyle said. “I was just going to call. How are the kids?”

“Ask them yourself.” Lilah put first Gloria and then Eli on the phone with their father. They told him all about the sea otter they had seen out the window of their hotel room every morning.

“How are you, babe?” Kyle said when Lilah got back on the phone.

“Bored. Lonely. Horny.”

He laughed. “I miss you, too.”

“I’m waiting for the but.”

Kyle took a deep breath, let it out. “Sara’s cutter is missing.” His wife said nothing. “Lilah?”

“How can a two-hundred-and-eighty-four-foot Coast Guard cutter go missing?”

“It’s been out of communications with District for over a full day now.”

“Did it sink?”

“They don’t know.”

They listened to each other think for a while. “Does Sara’s missing cutter have anything to do with why we’re here instead of there?” Kyle took longer to answer this time. “Kyle?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Kyle said. “But I’m afraid so. Hugh-”

“Hugh’s here?”

“No. He’s not here.” Kyle lent a slight emphasis to the last word.

“Oh,” Lilah said on a note of discovery. “Oh no, Kyle, no.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “Stay there for a few more days, okay, honey?”

“We’ll stay here,” Lilah said.

She hung up and stared out the window at Resurrection Bay, a deep fjord walled in by steep, snow-covered mountains. She was not blind to the beauty, but she couldn’t help but wonder what lay buried beneath its wind-whipped surface.

She very much hoped that Kyle’s two best friends weren’t.

The phone rang and she snatched it up, hoping it was her reprieve from purgatory. “Kyle?”

No, instead it was a preternaturally perky young woman who chirped brightly, “No, ma’am, this is Kenai Fjords Tours. Is this Mrs. Lilah Chase?”

“It is,” Lilah said, voice dull with disappointment.

“We’re calling to confirm your Resurrection Bay excursion, one adult, two children, departing at noon on January nineteenth.”

Four interminable days from now. “Yes, that is correct.”

“You’ll want to check in at our office down in the marina half an hour prior to departure. A hot lunch will be included with your tour.”

“Yes, I know. We’ve sailed with you before.” Twice in the past week, she thought. Stuck here much longer and they’d have to start repeating cruises.

“That’s fine, then, ma’am, thank you so much, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the nineteenth.”

She replaced the receiver and fought a sudden and irrational up-welling of tears. “Come on, kids, let’s hit the beach.”