The Color of a Promise (The Color of Heaven Series Book 11) (21 page)

He frowned. “No one could identify that because, as I said, everything is in pieces. I’ve asked if we can get cameras down there before we start bringing stuff up.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I need to see exactly how she landed on the ocean floor. Can you get me out there so I can view the camera feed and supervise the recovery?”

Gary nodded. “I’ve already ordered a chopper to take us out. Can you be ready to go in ten minutes?”

“Of course.” I stood up and went to find Brent, to let him know he’d be in charge at the hangar until I returned.

A short time later, Gary and I were climbing into the helicopter, which would take us out over the choppy Atlantic to where the Coast Guard vessel had found the wreckage.

I was just buckling into my seat when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and checked the call display.

Malcolm
.

I stared at it for a few seconds and knew I couldn’t possibly talk to him now when we were about to lift off the ground. So I ignored the call. I slipped the phone back into my pocket and finished buckling in.

Ten seconds later, as I was reaching for my headset, I caught Gary looking at me. “Did you need to take that?” he asked.

“No. It can wait.”

“You sure?”

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, and wondered if it might be an emergency. Quickly, I decided to check it before I switched to airplane mode.

Again, it was Malcolm. This time, he was attempting to reach me by text.

I just tried to call you. You must be busy. Maybe we can talk later, but I think you’re right. It’s time we took a break. I just had to get that off my chest so that we’re clear. No hard feelings. And you don’t need to call if you don’t want to. I’ll understand. Take care of yourself.

As I read Malcolm’s message—which was so like him, to be completely unemotional and direct—I felt a sudden twinge of sadness. Was this truly our last good-bye? It seemed so final…so strangely uneventful, considering he had been such a big part of my life for so many years.

Not that I wanted it to be dramatic or hysteric. It wasn’t as if I had any reason to be angry with him—unlike my break-up with Kyle, who had behaved like a lunatic caveman.

I couldn’t possibly resent Malcolm in any way because I was the one who had suggested the break-up in the first place. He hadn’t cheated on me or mistreated me. We were simply caught in a rut and we hadn’t even realized it.

For that reason, it was time to go our separate ways. Life was like that sometimes. We change and we grow.

Taking a deep breath, and not feeling entirely certain about what I should say, I texted him back.

Ok.

I stared at my phone for a moment.

I considered typing something more. Surely this warranted a more personal response.

I started to type
I hope we can still be friends
, but I deleted it, because that sounded cliché.

I stared at my screen for a few seconds, and finally added:

It’s all good, Malcolm. I appreciate the text. You’ve never been one to mince words and I appreciate that. You’re a good man and you will always hold a special place in my heart. And I’m happy to hear you say that there are no hard feelings. I feel the same. Take care and keep in touch
.

I pressed send, knowing in my heart that this was the right thing to do, because I didn’t want to live out the rest of my life in such a state of indifference. Not when it came to my romantic relationships. I wanted more than that from the man I loved and who was supposed to love me.

Finally, I switched my phone to airplane mode and slipped it back into my pocket.

A few minutes later, when the chopper lifted off the ground, I was surprised that I felt no anxiety whatsoever. I didn’t realize it until we were away from the airport, flying over the water. That’s when I realized I had been thinking of other things—like what was possible in my future, which was suddenly wide open before me.

Vacations, maybe?

Sandy beaches and sundresses.

Laughter.

Relaxation.

Passion.

Love.

And every other thing that made life worth living.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Jack

Katelyn clung to me, squeezing fistfuls of my shirt in her hands. “What if he doesn’t make it? I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“He’ll make it,” I said, even though it was a promise I had no business making, because I had no control over what was happening in that trauma room, nor did I have the slightest clue how badly Aaron had been injured. All I knew was that Katelyn needed to hear those words and I wanted to take away her pain.

She stepped back, out of my arms, and I realized other people in the waiting room were staring at us. The last thing I wanted was for this to end up on YouTube.

Taking hold of Katelyn’s hand, I made a move to lead her out of there, somewhere more private, when I noticed a bearded man rise from his chair and follow us as we passed. He was wet, as if he’d just come out of the rain, but it wasn’t raining outside. He wore faded blue jeans and a navy windbreaker and appeared to be in his early fifties.

I was about to turn around and ask him to back off, to please allow us some privacy, but Katelyn turned also.

“Vince.” She broke away from me and walked toward the man, led him to a private space we claimed in a nearby corridor. “Thank God you were with him.” She took hold of the man’s hand. “My God, look at you. You’re soaking wet. Are you all right? What happened?”

Vince nodded at me, and only then did Katelyn realize that we had never met before.

“I’m sorry. Vince, this is my brother-in-law, Jack Peterson. Jack, this is Vince. He works closely with Aaron at the factory.”

We shook hands. “It’s nice to meet you,” Vince said. Then he turned his attention back to Katelyn. “Have you seen him yet?”

“No,” she replied. “They won’t let us in. I don’t even know what happened to him. Can you tell me?”

Vince regarded her with a look of regret. “He took a bad hit, kiddo. That speedboat came at us like a torpedo. It broke a giant hole in the hull. The boat’s gone.”

“It sank?” Katelyn asked, taking in the enormity of the situation, then shaking her head as if to clear it. “But I don’t care about that. I just want to know what happened to Aaron. You said he was distracted.”

Vince nodded. “Yes, ma’am. He was having a rough time today, even before this happened.” Vince glanced around to make sure no one was listening, and lowered his voice. “We were working with the Coast Guard, fishing out small pieces of floating debris, bagging everything and labeling it to deliver to the investigators, when Aaron spotted something more substantial than a scrap of metal. We both had a bad feeling as we motored closer, and sure enough, it was what we thought.”

Vince paused and looked down at his feet. “It was a little girl with curly blond hair. She couldn’t have been more than three.”

Katelyn covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, no.”

“We were surprised to find her all in one piece without a single cut or bruise. Aaron leaned over the side to grab hold of her by the shirt collar and lift her aboard. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but when he looked down at her face, I think he saw the faces of his own kids, Katelyn, and he lost it. He completely lost it.” Vince bowed his head.

“We’d both seen a lot of bad stuff over the past few days, but this was… It was tough on both of us.” Vince’s eyes lifted. “Aaron cradled that little girl in his arms and he wept with a despair I’ve never seen in another human being, not in all my God-given days.”

Katelyn covered her face with both hands and sank onto a chair, shaking with quiet sobs.

Vince sat down beside her. He put an arm around her to offer some comfort, while I just stood there, imagining my brother holding that little girl in his arms. I knew the feeling. I had seen a child, too, and a battered teddy bear…

Katelyn looked up. Her cheeks were wet with tears. “Is that why he was so distracted?”

Vince nodded. “He was on his knees, rocking that little toddler in his arms when the speedboat came out of nowhere. I turned around at the last second and had a chance to grab onto something, but Aaron didn’t see a thing until it was too late. They rammed us on the port side and Aaron and the girl were catapulted up into the air. He struck his head on the way down, on the side of our boat as it was tipping over. He landed in the water. I dove in to get him, and but I got tangled up in the rigging and I thought for sure we were both goners. The only blessing was that there were enough rescue boats around to come and help us out. People were diving in, left, right and center. They pulled us aboard a fast little cruiser that took us over to the Coast Guard vessel where a chopper flew us here.”

“Thank God,” Katelyn said. “Was Aaron conscious at all?”

Vince hesitated, then shook his head. “It wasn’t good, Katelyn. They had to do CPR when they pulled him out of the water.”

She blinked a few times. “He wasn’t breathing?”

“No, but they got him back. I swear, I met some amazing heroes today. We were as lucky as two men can be.”

It was my turn, then, to sink onto a chair and comprehend everything Vince had just described. I thought of Aaron, the brother I’d always resented, grieving so deeply for the death of that child.

I thought also of the day I woke up in the hospital in Germany, and he had been there, at my side.

I had made some effort over the years to forget about the past—for the sake of my nieces and nephews, and Katelyn—but it was only a surface forgiveness. Deep down, I still clung to grudges and age-old conflicts.

I realized suddenly that I had not called Aaron to try and connect with him the day before, as I had promised Katelyn I would.

I wished, in that moment, that I had kept my promise. Because how many second chances could one man possibly be given?

Chapter Thirty-eight

Meg

By late afternoon, Gary and I were settled on board a Coast Guard vessel approximately twelve miles east of Kennebunkport, watching a row of video monitors.

A submersible remote control camera had been sent down to the murky depths where the wreckage had been found. With bated breath, we watched the screens as the camera lights illuminated the sandy bottom of the ocean, now a somber, lonely graveyard for what remained of BSA Flight 555.

Fish swam about, curious perhaps.

It wasn’t easy to behold the evidence of all those lost lives—broken pieces of luggage, a woman’s shoe, a busted laptop, a pair of white plastic sunglasses.

And body parts.

I swallowed uneasily and turned my face away for a moment, then forced myself to focus on what I could make out of the aircraft.

“There she is,” Gary said, pointing at the tail, which was painted with a cartoonish image of fluffy white clouds against a turquoise sky—the recognizable logo of Jaeger-Woodrow Airways.

I sat forward in my seat. “There’s not much left of it, but at least it’s something.” I pointed. “Look, there. The way the metal is twisted. That’s likely where the explosion occurred, on the port side, to the rear of the cargo hold.” I turned to Gary. “We’re definitely going to have to bring her up, and every piece of her that we can get our hands on down there.”

The camera continued to cruise along the length of the hull, shining its light on the exterior.

“Can you get some footage of the inside?” I asked, pointing again. “Go in right there. Yes. Good. Now can you turn the camera to the right?” I squinted to try and get a better perspective on the damage.

“Do you see what I see?” Gary asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Look at that molten metal. There must have been a fire before the explosion, but what caused it? And why didn’t the pilots notify air traffic control? Were the smoke detectors not working?”

“We should know something about that fairly soon,” Gary said, “now that we have the CVR.” He checked his watch. “They’re probably listening to the cockpit recordings this very minute.”

“In the meantime, let’s keep looking,” I said. “It’s a pretty large debris field down there. Can we go explore a bit, just follow the wreckage.”

The tech guy maneuvered the camera to travel along the sandy field of mangled metal and scorched electrical wires. We passed a few more busted laptops, and more burned up rubble from the cargo hold—suitcases, shampoo bottles and all sorts of devices like tablets and cell phones.

Then all at once, the beam of light from the camera illuminated what appeared to be a wide, dense field of shiny silver objects, gleaming as the light passed over them.

“Oh my God. Do you see that?” I asked Gary as I bent forward and inclined my head. “What the heck? No way.”

Gary removed his glasses and bent to peer more closely at the screen. “No, that can’t be,” he said. “There are thousands of them.”

We stared at the screen while the camera panned from left to right and floated over a dense expanse of lithium-ion batteries of all types and sizes. There were button batteries, 9-Volt batteries, double and triple A’s, rechargeable battery boxes… Some were shiny and new, while others were black and burned.