The Keeper of Happy Endings(92)

Rory laid the article aside, staring at the grainy photos beneath. She had never laid eyes on Anson Purcell, and yet the young man looking back at her seemed eerily familiar. She couldn’t remember Soline ever describing him in any detail, but somehow his face felt . . . right. Pale eyes and a wave of fair hair, a mouth that was at once sensuous and serious. He was wearing a dark suit with a narrow tie. Below the photograph, she could make out part of a blurry caption—ANSON WILLIAM PURCELL, CLASS OF 1941.

He was dressed in khakis in the second photo, a leather jacket slung rakishly over one shoulder, like Van Johnson or Tab Hunter, the handsome, wholesome American hero. This was what he had looked like the first time Soline laid eyes on him. And the last time.

There was one more photograph, a five-by-seven color shot taken fairly recently. Rory stared at it, a hand to her mouth. For a man in his sixties, he was still strikingly handsome, with an athletic build and a head of silver-gold waves men half his age would envy. But he wasn’t the young Anson of the yearbook photo or the dashing Anson in uniform. Deep lines fanned out from his eyes, and the once-square jawline had softened with time.

And there was something different about the mouth. The earlier sensuousness was gone, leaving a firm, almost grim line in its place. Not a mouth used to smiling, Rory concluded. There was pain there, old pain that had hardened over the years. But then, after what he’d endured at the hands of the Nazis, he was probably entitled. And yet, he’d dedicated his life to good works.

A barrage of questions assailed her as she continued to stare at the photo of present-day Anson. Captured and held for five months. Two years in Switzerland, learning to walk again. What had gone through his mind when he returned to find Soline gone? What had his father told him about her—and about the baby? And more importantly, why had he not come looking for her? Or perhaps he had looked and hadn’t been able to find her. That seemed unlikely, though, given his obvious resources. Was it possible time and events had simply blunted his feelings for her?

The last question sent a prickle of dread through her. Perhaps because it struck too close to home. For months, she’d been fixated on Hux coming home to her, safe and sound and whole. Not once had she let herself imagine him returning a changed man, broken and tormented by what he might have endured at the hands of his captors.

Rory shoved the thought down as she gathered the photos and clippings and slid them back into their envelope, preferring to focus on the matter at hand. She had asked Doug to dig up a photo of a dead man, and instead, he’d managed to dig up the man himself. And now she was going to have to figure out how to tell Soline that the man she’d been mourning for more than forty years was very much alive.

One thing was certain. She wasn’t breathing a word about any of it until she’d looked Anson Purcell in the eye and gotten some answers. Soline deserved at least that much.





THIRTY-SEVEN


RORY

September 24, 1985—Newport

Rory pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine, then glanced at the Post-it note stuck to the dash one more time. Purcell Industries Ltd., 6 Commercial Wharf, Newport, Rhode Island. This was the place. Not an ideal venue for the kind of conversation she was about to have, but it was the only address directory assistance had.

She grabbed her purse and headed up a meticulously landscaped walk toward a pair of smoked glass doors. It was a massive building of dark red brick, with a steeply pitched roof and arched windows that gave it the look of an old mill or railroad depot.

She hesitated as she reached the door, noting the elaborate matching logos etched into the glass. Was she really doing this? Ambushing a stranger at his place of business and demanding to know why he wasn’t dead? And when all was said and done, what did she think she was going to accomplish? Perhaps the whole thing was better left alone. Except she was here now, after a nearly two-hour drive, with a long list of unanswered questions. If he refused to talk to her, all she’d have lost was half a day and a tank of gas.

She pulled back the door, stepping aside to let a man in navy shorts and deck shoes exit. The interior was clean and open with a high blue ceiling meant to mirror the sky and gleaming floors of honey-hued teak. There was a tall glass reception desk, where the Purcell Industries logo was again on display. Rory cleared her throat as she approached, hoping to convey the kind of confidence her mother displayed when entering a room.

The receptionist lifted her head, smiling. “Good morning. How can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Purcell.”

The woman’s smile slipped as she peered at Rory over half-moon glasses. “Mr. Purcell?”

“Anson Purcell,” Rory clarified, realizing there might be more than one.

She smiled politely but with the slightest shake of her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Purcell doesn’t work in this office. If you care to tell me what it is you were hoping to discuss, I might be able to direct you to the correct party.”

She was the gatekeeper, Rory realized, strategically positioned to prevent random women from wandering in off the street to ask impertinent questions. “It isn’t business-related. I’m here about a friend of his. An old friend of the family, actually,” she added, thinking of Thia. “Do you know how I might get in touch with him?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t give out that information, but if you’d like to leave a contact number, I could pass it along to his assistant.”