“I can’t believe that juvenile wolf eel,” said Angela, pulling off her hood and shaking her hair. “He was absolutely gorgeous.”

She continued to talk about the wolf eel as Ben stowed his gear and started up the boat’s motor. Even during the bumpy, loud ride back to Hopkins she rhapsodized about the dive. Listening to her, Ben tried to imagine Caddie being so excited about, well, anything. He wasn’t sure she was capable of an emotion more exuberant than boredom.

He was tempted to ask Angela about her relationship with her father, then remembered that they’d already had that discussion, at least in an abbreviated fashion. She’d suggested that Caddie was simply going through a phase. He hoped she was right. But even if she is, he thought as they neared the dock, I doubt she’ll be out of it before the summer’s over.

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 20

When Brian called at two in the afternoon, Caddie was taking her second nap of the day. Actually, this second rest was accidental, occurring when she fell asleep in the middle of the last chapter of the book she was reading. Having gotten that far, she’d found that she didn’t care who had committed the murders that were central to the novel’s story, and despite her best efforts to remain with the characters to the end, she found it impossible to remain awake. She had been asleep for approximately thirty-five minutes when the phone rang, waking her up.

Her father, she discovered while racing through the house in an attempt to locate the source of the ringing, had only one phone. This was installed in the kitchen, requiring her to run down the stairs, in the process slipping and hitting her knee on the newel post. Cursing and limping, she made it to the phone on the seventh ring, for once happy that her father’s apparent disinterest in entering the twenty-first century meant either that his ancient (to her) phone had no answering mechanism or that he had failed to turn it on.

“Hello,” she said, rubbing her smarting knee.

“Caddie?” replied a male voice.

For a moment she thought it was Sam, and her heart swelled with relief and joy. Finally, a voice from home. She started to express her pleasure at hearing from a friend when the voice continued. “It’s Brian.”

“Oh,” she said, momentarily disappointed. “Hi.”

“Is this a bad time?” Brian asked.

Caddie rallied herself. “No,” she answered, trying to sound more enthusiastic. “I just fell on the stairs and whacked my knee. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Brian. “You’re sure you’re all right? I don’t want to be responsible for crippling you or anything.”