The bar. On deck. Everywhere. Nowhere. When I got back to my cabin, I had a message from Sophia.” Jimmy’s eyes were anguished, his tone wooden. “She asked me to come and see her.”
Glenn asked quickly, “What time was the message recorded?”
Jimmy rubbed his temple. “At ten-eighteen, but I was out on deck. I couldn’t stand being in the cabin. I had a drink in the topside bar, then went up to the sundeck.”
Glenn’s stare was neither believing nor disbelieving. “Was anyone else on the sundeck?”
“I had it to myself.” Jimmy’s tone was somber, a man who’d stood alone in the darkness grappling with failure, the worst kind of failure: the end of caring. “I don’t know how long I stayed. A long time. I had no reason to go below. Finally I went down to my cabin, and that’s when I got Sophia’s message.”
“What time was that?”
Jimmy’s shoulders lifted, fell. “Late. Maybe around eleven.”
Glenn frowned. “Did you go immediately to Mrs. Lennox?”
Jimmy pressed his lips together, was long in answering. He stared at Glenn with pain-filled eyes. “No. I was angry. I almost called and told her she was too late. Instead, I fixed myself a drink. I was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. I thought it was Sophia again. I didn’t pick it up. Oh God, maybe if I had—”
I shook my head. “That was me. I’d just called Sophia. When she didn’t answer and you didn’t answer, I contacted Mr. Glenn.”
“I should have answered. I didn’t. I sat there and stared at the phone until it stopped. I didn’t pick up the message, but I kept hearing Sophia’s voice in my mind, what she’d said earlier. She said she was sorry. She said she loved me too much and she”—Jimmy glanced toward me—“was jealous and that’s why she was stupid about her fall. I kept thinking about what she said. Sophia never apologizes. She’s always right. It’s part of the structure that keeps her world intact. For her to apologize was unbelievable. That’s when I decided to go and see her. I knew what I had to do. She was—she is my wife.” There was a strange bravado in his voice. He wasn’t giving up. “I had to go and tell her…”
“Tell her what, Mr. Lennox?” Glenn’s glance flicked from Jimmy to me and back again.
I had a sense of impending disaster. “Jimmy, Sophia knew she’d made a mistake. She wasn’t thinking. She was upset.”
“Let Mr. Lennox finish, Mrs. Collins.” Glenn was abrupt, irritated at my intervention.
Jimmy blinked, stared at me as if just now fully comprehending my presence. “Henrie O, how did you know something was wrong?”
I told him quickly, my decision to give Sophia the packet he’d prepared before the journey, my talk with her, Sophia’s understanding that the danger she faced came from the Riordans, her decision to call him, and finally, reluctantly, I described that dreadful moment in my cabin when I’d realized the Riordans likely knew Jimmy planned to disembark in Helsinki. “Don’t you see? If you left the ship, none of them would dare attack her. I was sure that put her in terrible danger tonight. But I can’t believe she opened the door to any of the Riordans. It doesn’t make sense.”
Glenn watched us, his eyes thoughtful. “If your visit progressed as you describe it, Mrs. Collins, it is unlikely Mrs. Lennox would have been so foolish.” His voice was uninflected. Clearly he was skeptical of everything I’d told him. Skeptical of me. Skeptical of Jimmy.
Glenn turned toward Jimmy. “What were you going to tell Mrs. Lennox when you went to her cabin?”
Jimmy’s face might have been carved from stone, but he looked directly at Glenn. “That I was going home. Without her. I’d realized we couldn’t go on.” He took a deep breath. “How do you think that makes me feel? She needed me and I wasn’t there. If I’d come straight to her when I got her message, maybe she’d be safe. I didn’t go to her.” Jimmy struggled to keep his composure. “But nothing matters now except Sophia. What are you doing? Where are you looking? She’s got to be somewhere.”
“We have not given up, Mr. Lennox. The ship is being searched again, everywhere. The ship is turning now. The Clio will return to her location at twenty-two hundred. At daybreak, we will mount a search. The captain has already alerted the authorities in both Russia and Finland. Air rescue units will assist in our search.”
Another swell lifted the ship. Jimmy stared at Glenn. “The seas are rough.”
Glenn didn’t answer. Instead, he stood. “We are doing everything possible to find your wife, Mr. Lennox. I suggest you and Mrs. Collins attempt to rest. There is nothing either of you can do tonight to help.”
Jimmy looked combative, face hard, hands balled into fists. “How about the Riordans? Have you checked them? Found out where they were tonight? If anything’s happened to Sophia, one of them is responsible.” He glared at the telephone. “That announcement went into every cabin, right?”
Glenn nodded, his face thoughtful.
“Where are they?” Jimmy demanded. “Why haven’t any of them responded? I know they hate Sophia, but you’d think one of them would be decent enough—”
The phone rang.
Glenn bent, lifted the receiver. “Staff Captain Glenn.” He reached over, punched a button.
Evelyn’s voice, high and strained, filled the small office. “Mr. Glenn, this is Evelyn Riordan.” She took a breath as if air were hard to find. “What’s happened to Sophia? She hasn’t been herself at all, short-tempered and upset and really angry with—well, you heard her last night. Making family decisions in public. That wasn’t like her at all. And I couldn’t believe it when she made you give her husband another cabin. That shows she wasn’t herself, suspecting Jimmy of trying to hurt her. Where’s Jimmy? He will be frantic. What can we do to help? I talked to the children. None of them saw her tonight. Please, tell us what’s happening.”
Glenn’s glance at Jimmy was faintly ironic. He spoke soothingly. “A search for Mrs. Lennox is in progress. We have been seeking her since shortly before midnight. She is not in her suite. She has not been seen since twenty-two hundred. Are you certain no one in your party spoke with her after dinner?”
“Oh yes. That’s the first thing I asked everyone. Oh, if only I’d gone to her cabin. I knew she was upset, but I didn’t feel well.” Evelyn sounded tearful.
“So none of you know anything that will aid our investigation?” Glenn’s question seemed perfunctory.
I looked toward Glenn and knew that in his own mind the search for Sophia was now an investigation into the circumstances of her disappearance.
“I’m sorry. I wish we did.” Evelyn sounded sincere. “We want to help. We’ll do everything we can. Should we come to your office? Can we help look?”
“That will not be necessary. I will speak with each of you tomorrow. Thank you for your call.” He reached down, clicked off the speakerphone. “Good night, Miss Riordan.”
When he replaced the receiver, he looked at Jimmy.
Jimmy scowled. “Evelyn’s clinging to a dream world. She refuses to face reality. She’s going to convince herself that Sophia jumped or fell.”
Glenn’s voice was patient. “At present, Mr. Lennox, we have yet to exhaust the search for your wife. When—if—she is deemed lost, we will mount a thorough investigation and consider all possibilities. Accident. Suicide. Murder.”
I clung to the railing to keep my balance. The Clio had picked up speed, breasting swells. Stars blazed in magnificent splendor, bright as diamonds spattered on black velvet. Twin searchlights beamed down from the bridge toward the dark water.
Jimmy gripped the railing, looked out at dark water. “Even if she’s there, we wouldn’t see her.”
Narrow beams of searchlights illuminated a swath of water. It was an effort, the best that could be managed in the deep of the night.
“Jimmy, I’m sorry.” I wished I could give him encouragement. I couldn’t. Sophia had to be in the cold, dark sea, somewhere along the Clio’s course.
He was long in answering. When he did, his voice was flat. “Sophia’s gone.”
“Yes.” Reality trumps desire. We might wish with all our hearts that Sophia would once again brush back golden curls with an impatient hand, give her quick, bright smile, move fast, always in a hurry, with thoughts to think, love to give, demands to make. Wishing wouldn’t make it so.
“It’s my fault.” His voice was deep in his throat. “If I’d gone to her—”
My fingers clamped hard and tight on his arm. “Stop there. You thought Sophia was safe because Glenn knew what happened at the Hermitage. You thought she’d be careful, keep her door closed. I’d swear she was fully aware of the danger she was in when I left her. I can’t believe she was foolish enough to open her door to any of them. When we know why she did that, we’ll know everything. As for blame, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I might as well have engraved an invitation to murder. You see”—I looked toward him, tears streaking my cheeks—“I told Kent we were leaving the Clio, flying to London from Helsinki. You know he told the others. It’s my fault.”
Jimmy slipped an arm around my shoulder, drew me close. “That’s not true. You did your best to protect her. You went to her, told her the truth. She knew who threatened her. But I should have been there.” He stood apart from me, moved back to the railing, gripped it. “I was her husband. I should have protected her.”
“Jimmy, come below. Go to your cabin. Get some rest.” My head ached. My eyes were grainy, my legs leaden from fatigue. We needed sleep, both of us, fitful and uneasy and haunted as it would be. The living must do as the living do, no matter how hard and painful the moment.
He didn’t answer.
I left him at the railing, staring out into the night.