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THE RED RANGE ROVER WAS THE PERFECT CRUISING VEHICLE FOR Avery’s cross-country journey. With the cruise control pegged at eighty mph and nothing in front of her but open road and an entire country to conquer, the Range Rover nearly drove itself. She’d purchased it a year ago after signing on as temporary host of American Events. It was the first time in her adult life that Avery Mason had made any real money of her own. She’d spent an obnoxious amount of money for four wheels and a souped-up engine, but there was some part of her psyche—perhaps the unbreakable link to her past life—that made it an easy purchase. Maybe she had more of her father’s blood in her than she cared to admit. The difference, Avery never stopped reminding herself, was that her status in the world had been earned honestly, and legally. The same certainly could not be said of her father.
She was headed to New York by way of Wisconsin, a journey that would cover more than three thousand miles. The airlines were faster and easier but were out of the question. As was rail travel or the thought of renting a car to avoid putting thousands of miles on her Range Rover. Airline reservations, train tickets, and rental car receipts left paper and digital trails. Avery wanted to make as few footprints as possible while she tiptoed across the country. She had business in New York and would do her best to conduct it under the radar. No one was watching her, she had convinced herself, and hitting the road rather than taking to the air was pure paranoia. Still, the fewer tracks she left, the better.
On Wednesday morning, she drove out of Los Angeles via the 605 and hooked up with Interstate 15 where she stayed for ten straight hours, less two bathroom breaks. She jumped onto I-70 and arrived in Grand Junction, Colorado, just as the last tussles of sunlight burned on the horizon. She found a Hyatt and paid cash for a single night. When she laid her head on the pillow she could still feel the smooth vibration from her hours on the road. She closed her eyes and hoped for sleep, always an elusive item during her summer treks. Like clockwork, memories of her family pushed themselves to the forefront of her mind during her cross-country trips. How could they not? Her family was what she had run from. Her family was what she was hiding.
During the rest of the year, Avery was a sound sleeper who never remembered her dreams. But each summer when she headed back to her past, her dreams were vivid and wild. They mostly alternated between her mother and father—a dead mother and a convict for a father. She loved her mother with all her heart, and had once loved her father the same way. But that love had been tainted by her father’s betrayal, and in its wake was a combination of hatred and scorn for the man Avery had once considered her hero. Tonight, though, holed up in a hotel somewhere near the Rockies, her parents were absent from her dreams. When sleep came to her, so too did memories of her brother.
The Oyster 625 weighed in at seventy thousand pounds and measured sixty-four feet in length. A blue water cruiser capable of handling the rough seas off the coast of New York, the sailboat was big, sturdy, and expensive. With a price tag north of $3 million, it was an obnoxious gift from her father for her twenty-first birthday. Designed to accommodate a racing crew of eight, the boat was also crafted for leisurely outings that could be handled by a pair of accomplished sailors, which Avery and Christopher were. Yet, two hours after Claire-Voyance left the marina, the sea churned with angry waves that crested at four feet and crashed over the sides of the boat. On downswings, the waves seemed to swallow the bow. The rain came in dense sheets that cut visibility to next to nothing.
They’d brought down the sails and the engine was fighting against the waves and the currents. The marina was more than two miles away and only choppy water and black skies were visible. The ocean lifted the magnificent boat into the air and dropped it like a toy into the crashing waves. Avery felt the Oyster pulling to the starboard side and she had trouble reining it in. The wheel wanted to twist clockwise and she fought to keep her westward course. The big boat, however, was pulling too hard. Something was wrong. Then she noticed the heel. No, not a heel but a dip. The bow was inching downward, as if ready to dive into the sea. She thought it was a swell that had dipped the front of the boat, but when it didn’t recover she knew it was sinking.
She lifted the cover of the DSC—digital selective calling—button and pressed it, sending a distress signal to the Coast Guard telling them the name of the vessel and her exact location in longitude and latitude. For good measure, and because she was scared to death, she picked up the transmitter and placed it to her lips.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Claire-Voyance. Mayday, mayday, mayday.”
The squawk of the voice was loud and static filled, yet barely audible over the rain and wind.
“Go ahead, Claire-Voyance, this is the Coast Guard. We have your location and are dispatching a crew. What’s your situation?”
“We’re an Oyster 625 in heavy rain and high winds. Four- to six-foot white caps and taking on water.”
“Roger that, Claire-Voyance. How many onboard?”
“Two,” she yelled over the roar of the waves. “We’re in a squall and taking on water. We’re heavily pitched to the starboard side.”
“What’s your timeframe, Claire-Voyance?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, as a wave crashed down over the bow of the boat. “My brother went below deck to find the source of the breach. To see if he could contain it.”
“Tell your brother to come above board. We’ll stay with you until our crew arrives.”
“We won’t have time,” Avery said as another wave engulfed the bow. “We’re capsizing.”
Avery bolted up in bed before she knew she was awake. It was her normal reaction to the recurrent dream, and she had determined it was a defense mechanism. Jolt herself awake so she didn’t have to relive the image of the Oyster’s bow dipping below the surface and then twisting vertically before spearing to the bottom of the ocean. Wake herself before her mind replayed her battle with the sea as she fought against the six-foot waves that did their best to drown her.
She lay back in bed and sunk her head into the pillow, pushing away all the confusing thoughts that hid in the shadows of her mind and waited to surface each summer when Avery made her trip home. She couldn’t allow those thoughts to distract her from what she needed to do. She had the summer to tie up the frayed and loose ends of her family’s saga. What happened after that would be out of her control. If, at that point, the floodgates opened and all the sordid details of her past spilled forth, at least she would have done her best for the ones she loved.
CHAPTER 8
Sister Bay, WI Friday, June 18, 2021
A VERY WAS BACK ON THE ROAD BY 6 A.M. THE FOLLOWING MORNING with a tall coffee in the console—two creams, two sugars—smooth reggae on the radio, and open road in front of her. East of Denver she slipped onto I-80 where she’d stay for two days. Lincoln, Nebraska, was her second overnight. On Friday morning, she crossed the entire state of Iowa before finding the Wisconsin boarder. She headed northeast, conquering the state on a diagonal track. White cedar and jack pines soon dominated the landscape as far as the eye could see. The lodge pole pines reminded her of her teenage years and the summers she spent in this part of the country.
By 3:30 p.m. Friday afternoon she made it to the southern edge of the thumb of the Door County peninsula. She drove north on Highway 42 and followed the two-lane road for forty miles. The shores of Lake Michigan’s Green Bay were to the west as she passed through the towns of Egg Harbor and Fish Creek. Eagle Harbor glistened in the afternoon sun as she navigated through the busy town of Ephraim. The red-striped awning of Wilson’s ice cream parlor filled her mind with memories of long, hot summers as a teenager—the best of her life.
Toward the tip of the peninsula Avery found Sister Bay, Wisconsin, the town where she had spent every summer of her childhood. Avery’s parents had shipped her from Manhattan to Wisconsin, where she spent the summer, starting in the sixth grade, along with other wealthy kids from around the country, at Connie Clarkson’s School of Sailing. Eighty percent of the kids at the summer camp came from the Midwest. The rest traveled from the West and East Coasts and were kids whose parents were hungry for them to learn to sail at one of the most prestigious and soughts after institutions in the country.
Avery’s parents had done the same for her older brother, Christopher, whose return home at the end of every summer came with grand tales of life on the water, harnessing the Lake Michigan winds and gliding through Green Bay. The names and places became legend to Avery. Washington Island, Rock Island, St. Martin Island, Summer Island, Big Bay de Noc, and Peninsula Point Lighthouse. Avery couldn’t wait for her turn. When it finally came, she seized the opportunity. By the time Avery was in eighth grade she could manage a twenty-two-foot schooner by herself. During high school, Avery returned to Sister Bay each summer as a sailing instructor—a position typically reserved for college students but one Avery earned from her advanced skills on the water. At seventeen she was a more polished sailor than any of the college-aged kids who taught at the school, and she could give many of the adults a run for their money. During college her summers were spent running Connie’s school as the chief instructor. Avery owed her work ethic and indomitable spirit to the summers spent in Sister Bay, and specifically to Connie Clarkson, the owner of the sailing school and Avery’s mentor. As she navigated the last mile of her journey, Avery’s thoughts shifted from those wonderful summers of her youth to the troubled times of recent. Things were easier as a kid, when all she cared about was being on the water and harnessing the wind. Things were easier then, before she learned that everything in her life was a fraud.
She pulled the Range Rover through the long, canopied drive that led to the parking lot of Connie’s sailing school. Sitting on ten acres, the property was forested and nestled along the bay. Twelve Northwoods-styled cabins were situated around the property to house thirty-two students each summer. Avery parked and stared out at the waters of Lake Michigan. A dozen boats were moored at the dock, with two lifts anchored in place to pull the skiffs from the water. In the middle of June the place was busy with students and instructors. Avery allowed the flood of emotions—from her time here as a young woman, to her relationship with Connie Clarkson, to the memories of her brother, and to the betrayal and destruction her father’s lies had caused—to overwhelm her.
She didn’t bother to camouflage her red-rimmed eyes or smeared makeup before she crossed the parking lot and walked up the steps of the main house. She knocked twice and waited. A minute later, Connie Clarkson answered. A smile came to the woman’s face. They embraced like mother and daughter.
“Claire,” Connie said into her ear. “I’m so glad you made it.”
CHAPTER 9
Manhattan, NY Friday, June 18, 2021
