Six years was too long to live a lie. Standing at the railing with her back to the sea, Kathleen Shaw watched her husband cross the teakwood deck. His generous smile would have broken her heart if she’d had a heart to break.
When he got close enough, he slid his arm around her and leaned down to kiss her cheek.
“I don’t know which is more breathtaking, darling, you or the sea. No wonder you spend so much time up here.”
“The water is peaceful, Earl.”
He pulled her close, and she leaned against him, unconsciously reaching for the gold locket that nestled between her breasts.
“Enjoy it while it lasts. We’ll be docking at Cape Town tomorrow, and you’ll be the belle of a social whirl that will make Mardi Gras seem tame.”
“You’re the one who will cause the stir, Doctor.”
“My Kathleen. Always sweet and sassy.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Are you ready for dinner, darling?”
“You go ahead. I’ll be down in a while.”
“Don’t take too long. Time drags when you’re not at my side.”
She blew him a kiss, and he caught it in his left hand and pressed it to his lips. Dr. Earl Lennox, brilliant scientist, great humanitarian, adoring husband. How could she ever tell him good-bye without destroying him?
As soon as he was out of sight, she hurried to their cabin and got a small silver box that was buried underneath her lingerie. Just holding the box felt like a betrayal of her husband. He would be sipping a glass of wine now, probably smiling, expecting at any moment to see her slip through the door and take her place at his side.
Her hands trembled as she pressed the spring on her gold locket and took out a tiny key. Opening the box, she took out the contents, a stack of letters yellow with age.
She was shivering now with the need to see the words that had sustained her for so many years, but she couldn’t bear to read them in the room she shared with her husband, in view of the bed where they had made sedate, gentle love. With the letters pressed close to her heart, she hurried topside. The moon was out and the water had turned to pewter.
Leaning against the railing, she opened the first letter and began to read: Kat, Even as I write I can feel you lying naked in my arms. I can see the pattern the sun makes on your skin as it comes down through the Spanish moss. Here is my heart, love. Wear it next to yours until I come again. Hunter.
She’d worn the locket over her heart and waited for him, waited seven long years. At first she could track his quest for his father through his letters. Then the letters had stopped.
And when he finally came, it was too late.
She unsnapped the locket and looked at the photograph—Hunter at eighteen, with his untamed black hair blown even wilder by the ride on the ferris wheel, his arm thrown carelessly across her shoulders as if he had no need to hold her closer, as if he knew she would always be his. How they had laughed when they crowded together in the cheap booth at the carnival and posed for the photograph. Then, afterward, in the heated closeness with the tinkling music of the carousel coming through the curtain, they looked at each other and their laughter died.
“Kat,” he whispered with his cheek against hers. “Will you love me forever?”
“Yes. Forever.”
His kiss set them off on a journey of frantic exploration. A security guard had threatened to call the cops if they didn’t come out.
Slowly Kathleen closed the locket. A breeze from the Atlantic ruffled her hair and cooled her hot cheeks. She carefully refolded the letter and slipped it into her pocket; then, turning, she looked out across the sea. Somewhere in the distance was Africa. And deep in its dark heart was Hunter La Farge.
Below decks, her husband would be glancing at his watch, wondering what was taking her so long and trying to decide whether to start the first course without her. If she didn’t go down soon, he would come up to look for her.
She took one last, longing look across the water, and then she turned her back on the sea and started below to her husband.
The first explosion tilted the deck and knocked her back against the railing. The second spewed fire into the night sky.
“Hunter!” Kathleen screamed.
And then she was sucked into the center of the holocaust.