He asked her, “Do they know?”
“About what I found in the mail?” Karen shook her head. “No. I don’t want to worry them. I’ve got my folks coming up next week for the graduation. Charlie’s mom, coming in from PA. They’re going to Africa on safari with my folks a few days later. Sam’s graduation present. I’ll feel a whole lot better the minute I get them on that plane.”
Ty nodded. “I’m sure. Listen….” He pulled some papers out of his jacket. “I’m sorry to bother you here like this.” He dropped them on the table in front of her. “You might as well read it yourself.”
Warily, Karen picked them up. “What is it?”
“It’s a transcript. Of two Internet conversations. From one of your husband’s car sites. They took place back in February and March. One of the outfits I gave the information you found managed to pick them up.” The tiny hairs on Karen’s arms stood on end.
She read through the transcripts. Emberglow. Concours. Greenwich. Her heart picked up a beat each time she encountered a familiar phrase. Suddenly it dawned on Karen just what this was. SunDog. The mention of a change of life, in the Caribbean. A reference to Charlie’s old screen name, CharlieBoy.
An invisible hand seemed to clutch her heart in its icy fist and not let go. She focused on the name for a long time. Then she looked up. “You think this is Charlie, don’t you?”
“What I think is that there’s an awful lot that sounds pretty familiar,” he replied.
Karen stood up, a jolt of nerves winding through her. Until now it had been safe to feel that it was all some abstract puzzle. Seeing his face on the screen; finding the safe-deposit box in New York. Even the horrible death of that person on his staff, Jonathan … It all just led somewhere nebulous, somewhere she never thought she’d actually have to confront.
But now … Her heart raced. SunDog. Karen could actually see him coming up with something like that. Now there was the possibility that everything that had happened was real. Now she could read words and phrases he might have said and almost hear his voice—familiar, alive. Out there—doing the same things, having the same conversations he’d once had with her.
A pressure throbbed in Karen’s forehead. “I don’t know what to do with this, Ty.”
“I had my contacts trace the name,” he said. “It’s a free Internet site, Karen. Hotmail. There’s no name registered against it, just a post-office box out of St. Maarten. In the Caribbean.”
Karen held her breath and nodded.
“The P.O. box was registered under the name of Steven Hanson.”
“Hanson?” Karen looked anxious.
“Does it mean anything to you?”
“No.”
Hauck shrugged. “No reason it should. But it did strike something in me. I checked it back against the list we got from Mustang World.” He handed her another sheet. “Look, there’s an S. Hanson right here. No address, but a P.O. box. This one’s in St. Kitts.”
“That doesn’t prove it’s him,” Karen said. “Only someone who’s interested in the same kind of cars—from down there. Lots of people might be.”
“Who’s keeping an awfully low profile, Karen. Post-office boxes, assumed names. I did a credit check on the name down there, and you know what came back? Nothing.”
“That still doesn’t mean it’s Charles!” Her voice carried an edge of desperation in it. “Why? Why are you doing this, Ty? Why did you quit your job?” She came back to the couch and sat down on the arm, staring at him. “What’s in it for you? Why the hell are you making me face this?”
“Karen …” He put his hand on her knee and gently squeezed.
“No!” She pulled away.
His deep-set eyes were unwavering, and for a second she thought she might just start to cry. She wanted him to hold her.
“You said there was an e-mail address?”
“Yeah. There is.” He reached over and handed her a slip of paper. Karen took it, her fingers shaking.
She read it over a couple of times, the truth slowly sinking in. Then she looked up at him with a half smile, as if stung, wounded.
“Oilman …” She sniffled, feeling lifted for a second, and at the same time let down.
A moist film burned in her eye.
“It’s him.” She nodded. “That’s Charlie.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She exhaled, as if fortifying herself against the dam burst of tears about to come down. “That number, 0716—we always used it for our passwords. That’s our anniversary—July sixteenth…. The date we were married. In 1989. That’s Charlie, Ty.”
The house was dark. Karen sat in Charlie’s office. The kids had long since closed their doors and gone to sleep.
Karen stared over and over at the e-mail address. Oilman0716.
Waves of anger and uncertainty coursed through her veins. Anger mixed with accusation, uncertainty at what she should do. She wasn’t sure if she even knew what she was feeling inside, but the more she stared at the familiar number, the more all doubt was gone. She knew it had to be Charlie.
And that took something out of her. The last ember of faith she still had in him. In the life they’d led. Her last hope.
You bastard, Charlie …
Contact him? She didn’t know what she could possibly even say to him.
How could you, Charlie? How could you have left us like that? We were a team. We were soul mates, right? Didn’t we always say how we completed each other? How could you have done these horrible things?
Karen’s head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. She thought of AJ Raymond and Jonathan Lauer. Deaths her husband was tied to. It repulsed her, sickened her.
Is it all true?
Over the past year, she had learned to make her peace with the fact that her husband had died. She’d done whatever it had taken. And now he was back. Alive—just as she was alive.
She could confront him.
Oilman0716.
What could she possibly say?
Are you alive, Charlie? Are you reading this? Do you know how I feel? How we would all feel if the children even knew? How badly you’ve hurt me? How you cheapened all those years we spent together. Charlie, how …?
She logged on to her own AOL account. KFried111. Twice she even summoned the courage to go as far as type in his address. Oilman.
Then stopped herself.
What was there to be gained from opening this all up? To have him say he was sorry. To have him admit to her that he was someone other than the person she knew. That he had done these things—while living with her, sleeping with her. Planned his way out. To hear the pretense that he had once loved her, loved them …
Why?