Page 56 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
I’d never truly understood why she’d wanted to find this guy in the first place, but it wasn’t my place to understand, not really. It was my job to support her, and if she wanted to keep going, we would. If she wanted to quit, we’d do that too.
Pulling out my phone, I handed it to her. She stared at it for a long time before finally reaching out to take it. Stepping toward the window, she looked out over the dark ocean, broken up only by the faint glimmer of light from boats on the water. She tapped in the number, then set the phone down on the windowsill, putting it on speaker.
It rang for a long time, then a gruff voice answered. “Mitch Goetz speaking.”
Who the hell was Mitch Goetz?
Chapter28
Aviva
“Hello?” Mitch Goetz demanded from the other end of the line. “If this is a marketing call, I swear, I’ve had a hell of a day and I’m not in the mood.”
“Uh, hi. This is going to sound really strange, but I was wondering if you might know a man named Timothy Smith.”
The silence at the other end was electric, and I didn’t even breathe until Mitch Goetz said, “Where’d you hear that name?”
He knew him. He knew Nemo.
“This is going to sound insane, but I went on like, a quest or a scavenger hunt, chasing clues he left in Jules Verne novels. Your number was a clue in the last book.”
There was a huge sigh at the other end of the line. “I told him that no one would be nuts enough to do that, but hey, I stand corrected.” There was a slight hesitation, the silence heavy. “Did you find him?”
I swallowed hard, trying to blink back the tears that leapt to my eyes. “Yes.”
“Is he…?”
A sob passed my lips, no matter how much I tried to choke it down. “He…”
I couldn’t say it.
Hendrick wrapped an arm around my waist. “He committed suicide. Walked into the ocean on Stromboli, and when he washed up on shore, they buried him here on the island.”
The shuddering “Oh” on the other end of the line was filled with just as much emotion as I felt. “He sent me a letter, so I thought he might have…” Mitch Goetz cleared his throat. “I thought he might have given in.” I heard rustling. “So, who are you then?”
“I’m Aviva Ro— Kenley. Aviva Kenley.”
“And the guy with you?”
“Hendrick Kenley,” Drix said, tightening his arm around me again, like the man on the other end of the phone could see the possessive gesture.
“Why does that name sound… Oh fuck, you’re Senator Kenley’s kid?” Mitch Goetz snorted. “That’s pretty poetic.”
I frowned. “Why?”
Mitch Goetz cleared his throat again. “Will you be returning to the States anytime soon? I am assuming you’re both American, of course.”
Hendrick frowned. “Soon enough.” Yeah, we were all suspicious as fuck now.
Mitch Goetz laughed. “I don’t blame you, kid. The media storm over here is intense. Feds picked him up this morning, did you know? I heard that there isn’t a lot of love lost between you two, if the papers are anything to go by.”
“If he got hit by a bus tomorrow, I wouldn't cry for him.”
“Given what's being published in the papers, I don’t think there are a lot of people who would.” There was shuffling of paper. “Would you visit me, after you make your way back to the US? I’d like to have him exhumed and transported home, if I could.” He paused. “We were friends, but I was his lawyer too. I’d like to meet you guys, the ones who picked up this damn insane challenge that he concocted to keep himself going. I’d like to see the book. I can only assume he wanted me to know that he’d stopped fighting.”
My heart hurt for Mitch. Nemo had always been a figment of my imagination, and that was all he would ever be now. But for Mitch Goetz, he’d been a living, breathing person who had obviously affected his life greatly.
“I’d like that. I’d like to know more about him, if I could.”
