“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Deanna said with a sly smile, “you didn’t come in here because you found the letters. You came in here because you’re interested in this Garrett fellow.”

Theresa’s mouth opened, and Deanna laughed.

“Don’t look so surprised, Theresa. I’m not a complete idiot. I knew something was going on these last few days. You’ve been so distracted around here—it’s like you’ve been a hundred miles away. I was going to ask you about it, but I figured you’d talk to me when you were ready.”

“I thought I was keeping things under control.”

“Perhaps for other people. But I’ve known you long enough to know when something’s up with you.” She smiled again. “So tell me, what’s going on?”

Theresa thought for a moment.

“It’s been really strange. I mean, I can’t stop thinking about him, and i don’t know why. It’s like I’m in high school again and I have a crush on someone I’ve never met. Only this is worse—not only have we never spoken, but I’ve never even seen him. For all I know, he could be a seventy-year-old man.”

Deanna leaned back in her chair and nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true . . . but you don’t think that’s the case, do you?”

Theresa slowly shook her head. “No, not really.”

“Neither do I,” Deanna said as she picked up the letters again. “He talks about how they fell in love when they were young, he hasn’t mentioned any children, he teaches diving, and writes about Catherine as if he had only been married a few years. I doubt if he’s that old.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

“Do you want to know what I think?”

“Absolutely.”

Deanna spoke the words carefully. “I think you should go to Wilmington to try to find Garrett.”

“But it seems so . . . so ridiculous, even to me—”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know anything about him.”

“Theresa, you know a good deal more about Garrett than I did about Brian before I met him. And besides, I didn’t tell you to marry him, I just told you to go find him. You may find out that you don’t like him at all, but at least you’ll know, won’t you? I mean, what can it hurt?”

“What if . . .” She paused, and Deanna finished her statement.

“What if he’s not what you imagine? Theresa, I can guarantee he’s not what you’re imagining already. No one ever is. But to my mind, that shouldn’t make any difference in your decision. if you think you want to find out more, just go. The worst thing that can happen is you find out he’s not the kind of man you’re looking for. And what would you do then? You’d come back to Boston, but you’d come back with your answer. How bad would that be? Probably no worse than what you’re going through now.”

“You don’t think this whole thing is crazy?”

Deanna shook her head thoughtfully. “Theresa, I’ve wanted you to start looking for another man for a long time. Like I told you when we were on vacation, you deserve to find another person to share your life with. Now, I don’t know how this whole thing with Garrett will work out. If I had to bet, I’d say it’s probably not going to lead to anything. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. If everyone who thought they might fail didn’t even try, where would we be today?”

Theresa was silent for a moment. “You’re being much too logical about this whole thing. . . .”

Deanna shrugged off her protests. “I’m older than you, and I’ve gone through a lot. One of the things I’ve learned in my life is that sometimes you’ve got to take a chance. And to me, this one isn’t all that large. I mean, you’re not leaving your husband and family to go find this person, you’re not giving up your job and moving across the country. You’re really in a wonderful situation. There’s no downside for you to go, so don’t blow this out of proportion. If you feel like you should go, go. If you don’t want to go, don’t. It’s really as simple as that. Besides, Kevin isn’t around and you have plenty of vacation left this year.”

Theresa began twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

“And my column?”

“Don’t worry about it. We still have the one column you wrote that we didn’t use because we published the letter instead. After that, we can run a couple of repeats from past years. Most papers hadn’t picked up your column then, so they probably won’t know the difference.”

“You make this sound so easy.”

“It is easy. The hard part is going to be finding him. But I think these letters have some information we can use to help you. What do you say we make a few phone calls and do a little hunting on the computer?”

They were both silent for a long time.

“Okay,” Theresa said finally. “But I hope I don’t end up regretting this.”

*  *  *

“So,” Theresa asked Deanna, “where do we begin?”

She pulled her chair around to the other side of Deanna’s desk.

“First off,” Deanna began, “let’s begin with what we’re pretty sure about. First, I think it’s fair to say that his name actually is Garrett. That’s how he signed all the letters, and I don’t think he would have bothered using a name other than his own. He might have done so if it was only one letter, but with three letters, I’m fairly confident that it’s either his first name, or even his middle name. Either way, it’s the name he’s called by.”

“And,” Theresa added, “he’s probably in Wilmington or Wrightsville Beach, or another community close by.”

Deanna nodded. “All his letters talk about the ocean or ocean themes, and of course, that’s where he throws the bottles. From the tone of the letters, it sounds like he writes them when he gets lonely or when he’s thinking about Catherine.”

“That’s what I thought. He didn’t seem to mention any special occasions in the letters. They talked about his day-to-day life, and what he was going through.”

“Okay, good,” Deanna said, nodding. She was getting more excited as they went on. “There was a boat that was mentioned . . .”

“Happenstance,” Theresa said. “The letter said that they restored the boat and used to sail together. So, it’s probably a sailboat.”

“Write that down,” Deanna said. “We may be able to find out more about that with a couple of calls from here. Maybe there’s a place that registers boats by name. I think I can call the paper down there to find out. Was there anything else in the second letter?”

“Not that I can tell. But the third letter has a little bit more information. From what he writes, two things stand out.”

Deanna chimed in. “One, that Catherine has indeed passed away.”

“And also that it looks like he owns a scuba-diving shop where he and Catherine used to work.”

“That’s another thing to write down. I think we can find out more about that from up here as well. Anything else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, it’s a good beginning. This might be easier than we think. Let’s start making some calls.”

The first place Deanna called was the Wilmington Journal , the newspaper that served the area. She identified herself and asked to speak with someone who was familiar with boating. After a couple of transfers, she found herself speaking with Zack Norton, who covered sportfishing and other ocean sports. After explaining that she wanted to know if there was a place that kept a registry of boat names, she was told that there wasn’t.

“boats are registered with an identification number, almost like cars,” he said in a slow drawl, “but if you have the name of the person, you might be able to find out the name of the boat on the form if it’s listed. It’s not a required piece of information, but a lot of people put it down anyway.” Deanna scribbled the words “Boats not registered by name” on the pad in front of her and showed it to Theresa.

“That was a dead end,” Theresa said quietly.

Deanna put her hand over the receiver and whispered, “Maybe, maybe not. Don’t give up so easily.”

After thanking Zack Norton for his time and hanging up, Deanna looked over the list of clues again. She thought for a moment, then decided to call information for the phone numbers of scuba-diving shops in the Wilmington area. Theresa watched as Deanna wrote down the names and numbers of the eleven shops that were listed. “Is there anything else I can do for you, ma’am?” the operator asked.