“Grace’s daughter?” Andy asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not important now,” Daria said.
“What is important is that Pete was trying to free the pilot. She was trapped in her seat, twisted around in her seat belt, somehow. Pete kept having to go underwater to try to get to her belt. And then, suddenly, he started yelling at Shelly. Shelly was supposed to be keeping the plane afloat, but she was leaning on the propeller instead, actually dragging the plane down. She was”
“What?” Andy interrupted her.
“Is that what Pete told you?”
Daria stared at him.
“Yes,” she said.
“He” — “Son of a bitch.” Andy stood up, fire in his eyes.
“Shelly didn’t do anything wrong. How stupid do you think she is? It was Pete who dragged the plane down. I saw the whole thing. He didn’t mean to, I know that, but he was standing on the pontoon for a minute, and that pulled the plane and the pilot under. When Pete figured out what he was doing, he started yelling at Shelly. I didn’t get why he was yelling at her. She was just treading water;
she didn’t have a clue what he was yelling at her about. Pete is a frigging coward. He wanted to find a way to get you to lock Shelly up so you could go with him to Raleigh. “
“My God, Andy.” Daria’s face was ashen, and Rory knew she believed every word Andy had said.
“Iwish you’d told me sooner.”
“If I’d known he was pinning the blame on Shelly, I would have.”
“Poor Shelly,” Daria said.
“She probably overheard” -She turned at the sound of the door opening, and the woman physician who had been treating Shelly walked into the room. Rory stood up, and the others followed his lead, as they waited to hear what their futures would hold.
1 he sun was a creamy orange globe hanging low over the ocean as Grace drove to Rodanthe in the morning. She was exhausted and numb, confused and dazed. Shelly was not hers; that much was clear. Yet she had come to love her, and as she drove, she prayed. Prayed and cried.
She pulled into her driveway and went into the house. She’d been living there with Eddie ever since the day he’d followed her to Rory’s house. It was Eddie who’d persuaded her to go to the bonfire the night before. It was time she told everyone the truth, he’d said. She needed to do it to be sure Shelly was evaluated for Marfan’s syndrome. Chloe, though, had beaten her at the truth-telling game. How Grace’s heart had survived that revelation, she had no idea.
She’d called Eddie from the trauma center late last night to tell him all that had happened, and now she found him waiting for her in the living room. He handed her a cup of coffee, gave her a hug.
“How is Shelly?” he asked.
“She’s in critical condition,” she said, sitting down on the sofa.
“They only give her a fifty percent chance of pulling through. And if she does make it, she may have even more brain damage.”
“That’s terrible.” Eddie shook his head.
“What a shame.”
“I’m still in shock.” She lifted the coffee to her lips,
but lowered the cup again without taking a sip.
“I just can’t believe she’s not mine, Eddie.”
“I can,” he said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because,” he said, “I found the nurse.” “What?” She set the cup on the coffee table. “How did you” — “That doesn’t matter,” he said. “Does she know what happened to my daughter? Does she know who adopted her?”
He nodded.
“Yes, she knows. But she didn’t want to get into it on the phone. She asked that I bring you to her. She said it was the sort of thing she should talk to you about face-to-face.”
Grace looked at her watch. “Can we go today? Is it too early to go now?” She was ready to race out the door.
Eddie smiled.
“Let me give her a call first,” he said.
“But I think it will be okay.”
He made the call to the nurse, Grace dissecting his every word as she tried to imagine what Nancy was saying on the other end of the line.
Nurse Nancy. How Grace had hated her all these years!
Then Eddie called Sally to tell her they wouldn’t make it into the cafe today and to ask her to take over for them. Finally, they were ready to leave.
They were both quiet in the car as they drove up the Barrier Islands and across the bridge to the mainland.
