Page 51 of Presumed Dead

They stood at the head of Pier Two with the afternoon sun warming the planking and the marina dry now around them and the cleat from slip ten on the planking beside her knee, and Ethan watched her drink her coffee, and he didn’t pretend not to.

“Sloane.”

“Yes.”

“When do you want the question?”

She held the mug in both hands, looked at the cleat, then looked at the cordless drill. She looked at the bag of marine sealant in her lap, then looked at him.

“Five-thirty. My office. Bring the answer.”

“I’ll bring the answer.”

“All of it?”

He took the count of two breaths.

“As much as I can. There’s a piece I can’t give you yet. I’m going to tell you that piece is there. I’m going to tell you why I can’t give it to you yet. I’m going to ask you to wait on it.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Two weeks. Maybe three.”

“Two or three weeks.”

“Sloane.”

“Ethan.”

“If I could give you all of it today I would.”

She looked at him.

Whatever he’d been carrying when he’d come down the pier with the two mugs was now in his face, and she saw it, and she didn’t look away. She let him stand there with it. The afternoon sun was on his cheekbones and on the small lines at the corners of his eyes and on the dust along the side of his jaw he hadn’t shaved that morning, and she looked at him with the careful, steady look of a woman deciding what she could believe.

“All right.”

“All right?”

“I’ll wait two weeks.”

“Sloane.”

“I’ll wait two weeks. After two weeks I’m asking for the rest.”

“After two weeks I’ll give it to you.”

“Don’t make me a promise you can’t keep, Ethan.”

“I’m not.”

She drank her coffee, set the mug down on the planking beside the bag of marine sealant, and picked up the cordless drill.

“Five-thirty.”

“Five-thirty.”

He went back up the dock with the empty travel mug in his hand and the other mug full beside her on the planking. He didn’t look back at her, because looking back was an admission he wasn’t ready to make in daylight, and the work he had to do between now and five-thirty was the work of writing the middle Caleb had told him to find.