“Pete’s a sailor. We both saw him at Menemsha, aboardHuntress. They’d been out in the ocean.”
“I don’t follow,” Reid said.
“The stars, idiot.”
“Okay. They’re over the ocean. And every other place,” Reid said.
“Celestial navigation,” Tom said. “It’s old school, but a lot of yacht guys like Pete learn it. They buy expensive sextants, find someone to teach them to shoot sun lines, steer by the stars. Makes them feel like old salts, worthy of their million-dollar yachts.”
Reid’s mind was racing. He wasn’t a sailor himself, would have had no idea how to recognize a sextant if his brother hadn’t lived his life on the sea. He could picture the heavy mahogany box his brother’s sextant was stored in, the beautiful brass instrument inside, with fine optics and a half-moon-protractor-looking component, used to measure angles between the horizon and the sun, the earth, and the stars. Had anything like that been cataloged at the gallery, at the Lathrops’ house?
“Your phone’s ringing,” Tom said, gesturing.
Reid grabbed it off the bar. He recognized Kate’s number.
“Conor Reid,” he said, answering. Playing it cool.
“Do you know about Jed Hilliard?” she asked.
“No,” he said, drawing a blank on the name. “Why?”
“Because he’s someone my sister loved. I’m beginning to wonder if Pete was even the father of her baby,” she said.
Reid was stunned. He’d never even heard of him. “I’ll be right over.”
When he hung up, Tom nodded.
“You’ve got to go,” he said.
“Yeah,” Reid said.
Tom gestured at Reid’s half-empty glass. “I got this. Next time’s on you. And think about the connection.”
“The stars,” Reid said. And he left the bar.
33
It was nearly midnight. Tyler had a cold, and Nicola rocked him, trying to get him to sleep. She couldn’t bear that he was so uncomfortable, and Pete’s glower from across Mathilda’s library didn’t help. He wasn’t supposed to be here in Mathilda’s house—Kate had been very clear about that—but he’d spent at least part of every night with her and Tyler. He wanted Nicola to be grateful for it, but mostly it wore her out and made her nervous. The French doors were open to a cool breeze blowing off the river. The late-summer sounds of crickets, rustling leaves, and a distant owl came through.
“You don’t have to stay,” Nicola said to Pete.
“I’m waiting for him to stop crying.”
“Well, he’s not feeling well.”
“I realize that,” Pete said with exaggerated patience.
“It’s normal for babies.”
“It wasn’t normal for Sam. Beth always seemed to know just what to do. She always got Sam to sleep through the night.”
“Guess I’m not Beth.”
“I guess you’re not.”
Things had changed so drastically. Back when Nicola was working at the gallery and she and Pete were first getting together, he spoke about all the things Beth did wrong. How she wasn’t supportive of him, how she had always been distracted by gallery work, neglecting Sam. He’d complained about how she would rather catalog paintings for the next show instead of watching Sam’s soccer games.
Now all he did was praise Beth. Nicola thought his current attitude reflected the real Beth, not the one he’d created to justify their affair. Nicola had loved her; she could say that honestly.
