Chapter 2 - The Whispers in the Wake
The salt air in Wilmington usually had a way of settling things, bleaching out the sharp edges of whatever trouble blew in from the mainland. But by Tuesday morning, the humidity hung over the Intracoastal Waterway like greasy plastic, and the parking lot of my marine repair shop, Cape Fear Precision Outboards, was empty in a way that had nothing to do with the tide.
I stood in the service bay with a socket wrench in my grease-stained hand, staring at the phone on the tool chest. It hadn’t rung twice since seven o’clock. Normally, by ten, I had three commercial fishermen whining about their lower units and two retired yankees asking why their four-stroke Yamahas were sputtering on ethanol gas.
Instead, there was just the hum of the overhead fluorescent tubes and the steady *plink-plink* of condensation dripping from the metal rafters.
At ten-fifteen, the screen lit up. It wasn’t a customer. It was Rick Hendricks, who owned the dry-stack marina two inlets down.
"Travis," Rick said, not bothering with pleasantries. "You seen Brent this morning?"
"No," I said, leaning my hip against an overturned bait cooler. "And I don't plan on it."
"He’s down at the yacht club lounge. Having breakfast with Arthur Vance."
My stomach turned over with a cold, sickening drop. Arthur Vance wasn't a family counselor. He was a shark of a divorce litigator whose billboards lined Route 17 from Hampstead down to the state line—*Protecting North Carolina Husbands Since 1994*.
"Brent’s got a right to hire who he wants, Rick," I said, keeping my voice level.
"Ain't just hiring him, buddy," Rick muttered, dropping his voice as if someone were hiding in the bilges behind him. "North Carolina still has the Alienation of Affection statute on the books. Heartbalm law. Word on the dock is Brent’s serving Jody by Friday afternoon. Vance is talking half a million in damages for criminal conversation and intentional interference."
"That’s complete bullshit," I snapped, my knuckles going white around the phone. "Jody didn't touch her. Jody spent four weeks hanging shiplap and leveling quartz counters while Brent sat in the living room drinking bourbon and watching golf."
"Doesn't matter what you or I think, Trav," Rick sighed. "Jody’s a residential contractor. The moment Vance files an alien-of-affection complaint, it's public record down at the New Hanover County courthouse. The local paper prints the civil dockets every Thursday. You think the country-club wives on Figure Eight Island are gonna let Jody inside their beach houses with that hanging over his neck?"
Before I could answer, the gravel outside crunched. I looked up through the open bay door. Jody’s beat-up silver F-250 had pulled in, engine idling with a wheeze that told me his serpentine belt was about shot.
"I gotta go, Rick," I said, and hit end.
Jody didn't get out right away. He sat behind the windshield, his forearms resting on the steering wheel, his head bowed down until his forehead almost touched the Ford emblem. Jody and I had pulled mullet nets together when we were fourteen. We’d stood beside each other at our weddings. When my boat took on water during Hurricane Florence, Jody showed up in chest waders with two trash pumps and a case of motor oil before the eye had even passed over.
When he finally opened the cab door and stepped down onto the crushed shell, he looked like a man who hadn’t slept in seventy-two hours. His Carhartt t-shirt was wrinkled, and the five-o'clock shadow on his jaw was shot through with grey I’d never noticed before.
"Sherry took the boys to her mother's in Burgaw," Jody said without preamble. He didn't come into the shop; he just stood at the edge of the shadow cast by the roll-up door, like he didn't feel entitled to the roof over my head.
"Jody," I said, setting the wrench on the workbench. "Come inside. Let me get you a Coke."
"She asked me straight out, Travis," Jody said. His voice cracked, a rough, dry sound like oyster shells grinding together. "She sat at the kitchen table with our boys' cereal bowls still out and looked me in the eyes and asked if I laid hands on Lacy while I was framing out that kitchen island."
"And you told her the truth."
"I swore on my father's grave! I swore on Liam and Noah!" A vein bulged in his temple, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "She looked at me and said, 'Brent wouldn't say it in front of thirty people at a little girl's birthday party unless he had proof.' That’s what she said, Trav. *Why would a man humiliate himself like that if he wasn't sure?*"
"Because Brent is an arrogant son of a bitch who’d rather burn down the whole county than admit he failed at something," I said fiercely, closing the distance between us. I grabbed Jody by the shoulder, feeling the tight, trembling knots in his muscle. "Listen to me. Lacy didn't cheat on him. She sat on my living room floor until four in the morning crying until her eyes were swollen shut. She didn't know about the vasectomy, Jody. He kept it from her for five years."
"Then whose baby is it, Travis?" Jody asked. His eyes were bloodshot, haunted by the kind of terror that only comes when a man watches his entire life slip through his fingers. "Because if it ain't Brent's, and the whole town thinks it's mine... I’m done. My two biggest remodel jobs called this morning to cancel their start dates. The bank called about the line of credit for the lumber package on the Masonboro project. If Sherry files for separation, I lose the house. I lose my boys."
"We’re getting a test," I said.
"A test? You can't do an amniocentesis until fourteen weeks, and that carries a miscarriage risk! You think Brent’s gonna wait fourteen weeks while Arthur Vance files injunctions against my bank accounts?" Jody shoved his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hitching. "He’s doing this to destroy me, Trav. Because two years ago, when he shorted me eight thousand dollars on that screened porch addition and tried to claim the miter cuts were off, I threatened to put a contractor’s lien on his house. He never forgot it. He smiled, wrote the check, and waited."
The realization settled over me like a sheet of ice. Brent wasn't just reacting to an unexpected pregnancy; he was running a calculated campaign. He had staged the announcement at my daughter's birthday party precisely because the maximum number of our mutual friends, neighbors, and church members were gathered within earshot. He had turned Harper's tenth birthday into an execution ground.
"Go home, Jody," I said gently. "Go home, lock the doors, and don't talk to Arthur Vance. Don't talk to the deputies if they come by with paperwork. Just call my lawyer, Dan Miller. I'll pay the retainer."
"You can't afford that, Travis. Not with the shop slow like this."
"I said I'll handle it," I told him, staring him down until he finally nodded, exhausted, and climbed back into his truck.
When he drove off, I walked out back to the salt marsh behind the shop. The tide was running out, exposing the black, sulfurous mud and the fiddler crabs scuttling between the spartina grass. I pulled out my phone and dialed my home landline.
Missy answered on the second ring.
"How is she?" I asked.
"She hasn't left the guest room," Missy whispered. In the background, I could hear the television running in the den—some cartoon Harper was watching with the volume turned low. "Travis, she hasn't eaten since yesterday lunch. I brought her toast and sweet tea, and it just sat on the nightstand until the butter went hard. Her mother called from Raleigh."
"What did Mom say?"
May you like
Missy let out a tight, bitter breath. "She asked Lacy if she was 'sure' Brent was the father. Lacy hung up on her. Travis, you need to come home. There’s a process server parked at the end of our cul-de-sac."
***
