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“Excuse me?”
“Well, just between you and me. I knew I had to be strong for Jamie when she got pregnant a few years ago. But if she’d ever told me who the father was?” said Tom, and he balled one of his hands into a fist and threw it into his open palm, “there’d have been some kind of trouble. I promise you that.”
“Don’t doubt it,” I said, smiling. I was so fixed on his gaze, trying to tread carefully through the conversation, that I didn’t notice a young man making his way through the antique furniture.
“Mr. Slade,” he said, coming to a stop at my side. “Apologies for barging in on you like this, sir, only I’ve got something for you.”
“What is it, son?” I said.
“Right here, sir.” He handed me a sealed envelope. On it, my name and the address of the hotel had been printed in elegant, neat letters.
“Excellent,” I said. “Thanks very much.”
I opened the envelope and took out the paper inside. I read it. Then I tucked the paper back into the envelope and smiled at Tom.
“Where’s Jamie?” I said, and he looked around.
“I don’t know. She said she’d join me.”
Bythetimewe’dassembled in the ballroom, and the lights had gone down, Tom had left the hotel looking for Jamie. She was nowhere to be seen. But I didn’t know how I felt about that anymore.
In the dark hall of the conference room, I scanned the room for Jamie while I was making my speech. But I couldn’t find her. At the end, when I took questions, I watched for her raising her hand. I felt sure that she might turn up, maybe to try to frustrate me with one of her questions. But by the end of the session and at the reception afterwards, I realized that something had gone wrong.
How did I react to the news that I was the father of Jamie’s child?
Well, it’s funny. I didn’t react at all. Not a bit. From the moment I saw the paternity test I’d done on the DNA samples from the scarf, I’d gone cold. I was thinking rationally. I couldn’t believe it was true, and yet I knew it was.
Why had I gone so cold? Not just now but earlier, when Jamie told me to get out. I could have stayed and fought, but something in me seemed to switch off in situations like this. I thought of an awful day so many years ago.
I was standing in the middle of the reception when Tom came and pulled me aside.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Jamie’s gone. There’s no sign of her anywhere.”
“Are you sure?” I said. I knew that I should have done something, that I shouldn’t have left her alone. But it was too late to worry about now. I’d assumed that for the rest of the evening, Jamie would just want to avoid me. I didn’t realize that she might take off.
No doubt she was feeling as mixed up about everything as I was.
“You’re kidding,” I said. “In this?” I gestured to the storm outside. Even within the hotel, we could hear the wind howling. With weather like this, it wasn’t even safe to go walking on the beach.
“Where could she be?” said Tom.
“Me?” I said. “How should I know?”
“Come on, Eric,” he said. “You were always great at strategy and mission planning. What are the reasons she could have gone?”
“I guess her kid could be ill,” I said. “Or something might have happened which made her want to leave.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she went into Barnstable for something to eat.”
“Before the opening of the convention? I’m not sure, Eric. And besides, if she just went into town, why did she take her car?”
“I don’t know,” I growled. My heart was beginning to pound, and I was struggling to hold myself together. If Tom was concerned about Jamie, I knew that meant that I should be, too. But I could barely concentrate. I was busy thinking, trying to work out where she could have got to.
“Okay,” I said, eventually. “I can find her. But I’m not sure I should, Tom.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure that you should?” he said.
