Chapter 2 #2
Brody left the hospital and continued east by north along highway 70, crossing the Radio Island bridge and then the newer structure linking Morehead to Beaufort.
This time of year, the tourist traffic was manageable.
He cruised down Front Street until he found what he sought, then swung inland and rounded a block, and parked by the Beaufort Grocery, an upscale restaurant occupying an eighteenth-century structure.
He walked away from the water, went down two blocks, then came up where the live oaks cast shadows strong enough to keep him hidden.
There it was, moored off the town’s main park and the Dock House restaurant.
The new boat that was his for the taking.
Atlantic Winds had been manufactured in the Netherlands by the world’s preeminent builder of carbon-fiber hulls.
The specially designed mast, constructed from the same superstrong material, rose to seventy-seven feet.
So tall it could not pass under the majority of US bridges, where sixty feet was the maximum height allowed.
Not that this restriction bothered Brody’s boss.
Jacob Whitinger was determined to win the prize that had long eluded him.
The Atlantic Cup was second only to the America’s Cup, the world’s oldest international sporting contest. The Atlantic Cup consisted of a race from Charleston to Newport, Rhode Island, followed by a second leg to Portland, Maine. Jacob had never won.
First prize carried a whopping sum of fifteen thousand dollars.
Brody had heard Atlantic Winds had cost just shy of two million dollars. And another two for outfitting and crew. Which Jacob was more than happy to pay—so long as they won.
The boat’s size and length of shape and so much else was spelled out in the Atlantic Cup rulebook. But just as with Formula One, there remained a certain amount of latitude. Or wiggle room, as Brody’s boss liked to call it.
Some people might say spending four million dollars for a winner’s trophy and fifteen thousand dollar prize money defined overkill.
Those people did not know Jacob Whitinger. Or the fanatical determination required to win at ocean racing.
Sooner or later, Brody needed to check with the crew he had helped put together.
They knew what he had told his company, that he needed time to deal with a family emergency, something so serious it kept him from completing the initial check of their new craft.
All that was true and not true. From his shadowy hideaway, Brody listened to the crew’s excited chatter, all of them happy with the down-east gift of unseasonably warm weather.
Five days to Christmas, and the midday temps approached eighty degrees.
The boat’s mooring said everything anyone needed to know about Jacob Whitinger.
There was an excellent marina just beneath the new bridge.
But no one outside the seaborne community ever went there.
Most visitors had no idea how to find it.
Which was why Jacob paid top dollar to moor where the entire world could come and stare and watch his wealth on display.
Brody wondered at his absence of any emotion. It was like staring at the boat of an old friend, someone he once knew. This craft and the prospect of racing simply did not hold him. He stood there, waiting to feel some draw, or regret. Anything that might suggest what next step he should take.
Instead, he felt nothing. There were no tidal currents pushing him in any particular direction. Regret, indecision, certainty over what he should do next, all that remained absent.
So far, his only concrete step had been that family-crisis email to his boss. Nothing more. He could easily step back into his role of number two on the new soon-to-be-winning boat.
And yet …
He returned to his car and drove back through More head City, then took the island bridge to Atlantic Beach.
Brody parked in the lot bordering the town’s small office district, then sat there, wondering at how a lifetime of yearning and struggle had brought him here: five days before Christmas, preparing to tear down everything he had spent years building up.
When it was time, Brody walked the two blocks to Rae Alden’s offices.
A youngish woman he vaguely recalled greeted him with the genuine warmth of an almost forgotten friend, and informed him that Rae was busy with a client call.
The offices were bright and fresh, and a miniature Christmas tree sat front and center on an otherwise empty second desk.
Brody was surprised and pleased to find the same print that adorned his home office on Rae’s side wall.
It suggested a connection that defied the silent years, one strong enough to spark a faint flavor of hope.
His earlier relationship with Rae Alden had been as close as Brody had ever come to true love.
Despite all the reasons to the contrary, including years where their only contact was a quick hello between old friends, seeing this painting on Rae’s wall brought up a surge of old emotions.
Which was ridiculous, and Brody knew it.
He tucked away those teenage absurdities just as Rae opened her office door.