32
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION, WESTERN NEW YORK
Will focused like a laser on what he had to do the entire drive to their family’s summer home in Chautauqua. By the time he’d reached the wood-framed, old stone mansion, the sky was streaked with gold and red. He inhaled deeply of the lake air as he stepped out of his Land Rover and stretched his tight back muscles.
He loved this place, had loved it since he was a boy. Gazing toward the house, he scanned the expansive front porch. This was the time of day his father would sit in his favorite rocker, book in hand, enjoying the view. Since Bill Worthington wasn’t on the porch, he was likely out of town.
That meant Ava was down by the lake watching the sunset. “Maybe it’s my heritage showing through, but I feel most at peace when I’m close to the water,” she’d told Will once. Her family still owned a picturesque castle and grounds and several estates in Wicklow overlooking the Irish Sea. Will and Laura had honeymooned at the castle.
Perhaps the fact his mother was by the water would somehow make the news easier.
Will headed for her favorite spot. The year that he had left for his freshman year at Harvard, Bill had hired artisans to craft a winding cobblestone path strewn with Ava’s favorite flower bushes and grasses. Then he’d added a selection of vintage rockers that could withstand the weather changes year-round. Bill had scoured the best antique shops nationwide to secure the rockers and surprise her. He’d told Will it would help Ava deal with the transition of her first baby heading off to university. Will remembered it distinctly because it was one of the rare times his father revealed his tender love for Ava. He was usually so pragmatic and business-oriented.
Will was right. His mother was sitting in one of the rockers beside the path. The lowering sun glinted gold on her auburn hair that peeked above the top of the chair. She held a wine glass in one hand.
“Mom,” he said softly, so as not to startle her.
She turned and peered around the side of the chair. “Will? My goodness! What are you doing here? I didn’t expect you.” Setting her wine glass on the table nestled next to the chair, she got up to hug him.
Within a minute, though, she stepped back from the hug. “You’re stiff. That means you have news to tell me. And it’s not good.” Her eyes met his. “Out with it. I can take it. Whatever it is.”
She always could read him like a book. But he wasn’t sure she could take this news.
“Why don’t you sit down, Mom?”
A visible shiver coursed through her. “It’s about Sean, isn’t it? And no, I will not.”
He stayed close, in case he needed to catch her if she swayed. “Yes, it is about Sean.” He gave the news the only way he could—honestly. “Last week a man jumped off the Peace Bridge in Buffalo. His description has similarities to Sean.”
“Thursday.”
“When?”
“Very late Thursday evening.”
She was quiet. He could tell she was calculating the hours. “He left our flat . . .”
It was a little over six hours’ drive from New York City to Buffalo, Will knew—and so did his mother.
“Oh my.” Ava swayed, and Will reached out to catch her. She batted his hand away. “So it’s possible. But Will? It can’t be. It just can’t be. He couldn’t have—”
“Drew is checking out every lead he can right now. No body has been found, and no one is certain of anything. But we know the possibility exists.”
Ava’s body trembled. “It can’t end like this. Sean can’t end like this. He always was fascinated with Niagara Falls.”
Will remembered. Sean had been eight when the family visited there. He’d been enthralled with the racing white water and the story of Annie Edson Taylor, who went over the falls in a barrel in 1901. “Someday I’m going to do that too,” he’d claimed. Will’s careful research—of others who had tried and died—at last curbed Sean’s desire to try it.
But the trip whet Sean’s appetite for adrenaline-rush adventures. After he hit adulthood and was away from his mama bear’s clutches, he’d trained with the best white-water rafting experts and had since traversed the gorge downstream from the falls many times. He’d never told his mother about those and other daredevil stunts. But Will knew, since he’d been called to rescue Sean from many of those stunts, especially when Sean was in his early twenties.
Now Will felt a kick in his gut. Would Sean choose to end his life there, near the falls? He shook his head to refocus. “You had to know, and Dad has to know of the potential connection. No matter what happens, I couldn’t withhold this news from you until we knew one way or the other. I couldn’t tell you on the phone. Laura agreed I should come in person.”
“Thank you for telling me, son. But your father is in DC. He’s not coming home for a few days,” she whispered.
“I’ll talk to him. He’ll be on the next flight home, I can guarantee that.”
Ava grabbed his arm. “I have to tell your father the whole story.”
“Yes, Mom, you do. It’s the right thing to do. For Sean, for yourself, for Dad, for all of us.”
She dropped her head for a minute. When she looked at Will again, the haze of weepy emotion that had plagued her for weeks had disappeared. Her face was stoic, but fiery determination glimmered in her eyes.
“Yes, Will, you are right. Absolutely right.” She lifted her chin. “I am afraid of what this might mean, especially for me, for your father. But I have lived with that fear ever since that night at Camp David. Now I need to face it. I can’t hide from it anymore.”
The Ava Worthington who took on challenges regally and defeated them was back.
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
“The new witness you uncovered said what?” the man behind the mahogany desk demanded.
“That he swears he saw the guy pause before doing a nosedive into the Niagara. Oncoming headlights blinded the witness for an instant. The next thing he saw was the jumper had disappeared. But a guy was running down the Peace Bridge toward the Canadian side.”
“Is the witness sure?”
“As sure as a dotty old man of 87 can be,” his contact said. “But his granddaughter, who was with him at the time, swears he’s fully all there in the head and has excellent vision. I checked the background on the witness. He was a sharp attorney in Maryland before his retirement. Seems quite credible.”
So the options were getting more complicated.
The supposed jumper might be Sean, or it might not be.
The jumper might have jumped, or he might not have.
If he did jump, his body might be found, or not.
If he didn’t jump, he might have exited the Peace Bridge in Canada and be hanging out there for a while, hoping to be incognito.
The last option was the one the man was most interested in right now, because the others were dead ends in finding Sean Worthington alive.
“You know what to do,” he told his contact. “Pull strings with immigration in Canada. If he crossed, they should have a record. Check with the border officials on both sides.”
“Already in motion. I was pretty sure you’d say that.”
“Good. Call me with any leads.”
“Always.”
The man ended the call. His plan was set in motion. He knew his source would apply the right amount of pressure to get the job done. After all, his contact had never taken no for an answer in his career before, and he certainly wouldn’t now. It was why the man had kept him on his payroll all these years.