Everlasting

  “Been done,” he told her.

  “Yes, but as you may know, Luke McKenna was spotted a few weeks ago in Orleans, and the police have renewed their search for him. Here on the Cape there is a constant turnover of summer people, so not everyone read the previous article.”

  “Reprint it,” the man replied.

  “I’m an intern, sir. I’m writing my own piece. I aim to impress.”

  He laughed. “All right, just one question. This’d better not take long.”

  “Would you describe for my readers how and when you found the body?”

  “I was walking my dog—our usual route. We were three quarters the way around Four Winds. Rufus had just done his business, and we were hurrying back. We’re always back for the news.”

  Tristan and Ivy exchanged glances. Alicia had been with Luke till the end of Law & Order—eleven o’clock.

  “TV news? The local news?”

  “Only one I watch.”

  Ivy squeezed Tristan’s hand, trying to control her excitement.

  “At eleven p.m.? There wasn’t any delay, like for a baseball game or something? Was it on at eleven p.m. that night?”

  “Why else would we’ve been hurrying? But then Rufus started sniffing, started acting like a damned bloodhound, and found the girl in a clump of bushes.”

  “So when did you call the police?”

  “When we got home. Eleven ten. Wake-up Forecast comes on at eleven ten. I hate the way they string out the weather nowadays.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Oberg. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Ivy put down the phone and gazed at Tristan, her eyes luminous. “Last night I went on Mapquest and checked the driving time between Luke’s and Four Winds. Forty minutes! There’s no way Luke could have done it, if the body was found and reported by 11:10. We know for sure now, and we’ve got his alibi!”

  It felt as if shackles had been removed from Tristan’s hands and feet. He rested his forehead against Ivy’s. Was she thinking the same thing as he? If they could convince the police that Luke was innocent, he and Ivy would be given back their life together.

  “I’ll see Alicia as soon as I can,” Ivy went on, “and ask her to go to the police.”

  Tristan smiled, then saw the glow in Ivy’s face disappear. “You don’t think she’ll do it,” he guessed.

  “I’m positive she will, no matter how much trouble it makes for her. That’s the kind of person she is. But there’s something else we have to think about. Alicia asked me to tell Luke that she’d like to see him. ‘Just one more time’—she said it twice—she was begging me. She was his close friend to the end, and even more, I think she was in love with him.”

  Tristan ran his hand over the smooth grain of the old wood bench. “So you’re wondering if it’s right to ask her help in clearing the name of someone she falsely believes is alive.”

  “She’d want to clear Luke’s name, no matter what. What I’m not sure of is whether you should see her and try to tell her the truth.”

  “If we don’t tell her I’m someone else, we’ll be deceiving her,” Tristan said.

  “I know. And deceiving is always wrong, isn’t it? But Tristan, after you died, I would have done anything to see you just one more time—to see you as you looked in our life together. When I finally heard your voice inside me, it helped so much. It helped even when I had to let go of you again.” Ivy reached for his hand. “But that was really you. What if I learned later that it was someone else who had taken on your voice? Would the moments of happiness and comfort have been worth the lie?”

  Ivy rose, then walked up one aisle and down the other.

  “If Alicia was close to Luke, she might realize I’m not him,” Tristan pointed out.

  “But she believes you’ve had amnesia, so that would account for things you don’t know or remember. The awful irony is, the closer a person has been to Luke, the more believable you will seem, because that person will recognize all the details they knew about Luke’s appearance and voice. You even have the Rhode Island accent. It’s just your way of thinking that might seem different. And all that Luke had been through would explain that difference.”

  Tristan walked to the front of the church and sat on the altar step. The world outside the windows, muted by the stained glass, lacked color and definition. Inside the building, light flowed into shadow. Tristan longed for the boundaries of an ordinary life. Ever since Lacey had claimed that he’d fallen when he’d saved Ivy, the line between right and wrong seemed murky.

  “The problem is, Alicia saw you once on the Cape,” Ivy went on, “and her eyes have convinced her that Luke is alive. No matter what we said, who would believe in an imposter angel?

  “Of course, I could tell her that Luke is far away now, and that he couldn’t risk being in contact with anyone who was part of his life. But,” she added, “it would kill me, after all we’ve been through, if you chose to leave me without saying a word.”

  “Anything would be better than thinking you didn’t say good-bye to me,” Tristan agreed, reaching for Ivy as she passed him, pulling her down next to him. “So there’s our answer.”

  TRISTAN SHOWED IVY HIS “LOFT,” THE ROOM IN THE tower directly above the church vestibule, and invited her up to his “deck,” the sun-washed floor that supported the bell, beneath the tower’s steeple. They sat together, enjoying the warmth, gazing up at the framed patches of sky, then Ivy departed for Crowleys’ Farm Stand.

  Hours later, just after dark, she returned and whistled a song from Carousel. When Tristan joined her, they walked to the lot where she had parked her car.

  “I haven’t told Alicia anything yet—we only had time to set up where we were meeting—but when I asked for a place where no one would see us, I saw the hope in her eyes.”

  Tristan nodded solemnly.

  “She jogs every night on the beach, so her grandparents won’t think anything of her going out. Here’s the map she gave me.”

  Tristan studied it. “It’s close by. Why don’t we just walk from the beach by the church?”

  “We’d have to go past Chase’s house to get to the salt marshes. It’s safer to go to the town beach further down and work our way back.”

  The lot for the beach was empty when they arrived. They moved silently across the crescent of beach and turned east. The shore softened beneath their feet, its deep sand giving way to marshes of long grass. Streams of water ran in from the bay. Kayaks and canoes had been dragged onto the grass, their long curves shining with the night’s dampness. Alicia had told Ivy that there were just a few houses here, set far back from the water’s edge, behind the marshes and clusters of trees. Closer to shore, they were supposed to look for a woodshed used for storing boats.

  They rounded a point and Tristan saw her, a slender figure separating from the gray mass of a boathouse, moving tentatively at first, then coming toward them quickly. She stopped a foot away.

  “Luke,” she said softly.

  For a moment Tristan regretted his decision to come. He didn’t know how to make his voice respond with the same intense emotion as hers. So he said nothing and reached out his hand. Alicia took it, holding it gently. She lifted it to her cheek and he felt her tears running over his fingers.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, words that were true. He put his arms around her, his heart aching for her pain.

  “Call when you want me,” Ivy said quietly, and walked a distance down the beach.

  Alicia lifted Tristan’s baseball cap and laughed at his raggedly cut hair. With a light finger, she touched his beard. “You look—you look good,” she said.

  On this moonless night, Tristan knew that physical sight would tell a person nothing, but he also knew from watching Ivy in the dark, how love gave you sight not dependent on moon or stars.

  “You look . . . cared for.”

  He nodded. “I’ve been lucky. Alicia, thank you for all the time you’ve spent listening to me, caring about me. Thank you for all you
have given me.” It was what Luke might have said to her, if he had known all that Tristan knew now.

  “You look better than ever,” she went on. “I am really grateful to Ivy.”

  Tristan remembered, after his death, the pain of watching Will take care of Ivy. More than anything he had wanted Ivy to be comforted and loved. Even so, helplessly watching someone else take care of her had been for him a kind of agony. His heart went out to Alicia.

  “I didn’t know you at the carnival,” he told her. “I wasn’t trying to put you off. I had amnesia.”

  “I know. And now?”

  “I’ve been remembering—slowly.”

  “So all that we shared . . . most of it’s gone?” She looked in his eyes. “Yes, I can see it is.” Her voice shook.

  “But I am continually remembering more,” Tristan said quickly, no longer trying to tell a selective truth or even a truth Luke might have spoken, wanting only to ease her pain.

  “So maybe in time,” Alicia said.

  “In time, yes.” His eyes burned.

  Alicia touched his cheek with one hand, as if she would catch a tear before it fell. “You’re in love with Ivy, aren’t you.” It was a statement, not a question. “I’m glad for you, Luke. I’m glad you love someone who will be good to you. You deserve that.”

  Tristan felt humbled in the face of such unselfish love.

  “It’s okay. Really. It makes me happy seeing you happy. But there’s something I have to say, because I promised myself that if I ever saw you again, I would. I fell in love with you a long time ago. I love you still. I will always love you.”

  Tristan bowed his head. “I’m so sorry that I’m hurting you like this.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. He pulled her close to him. For a moment, he felt her pain so intensely there seemed no barrier between her soul and his.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, “for coming, for listening. And you know what I always say—”

  He would have given anything to be able to guess and say it back to her.

  She laughed. “Okay, remember it from now on: Endings are beginnings, and beginnings are ours to turn into something good.”

  IVY HAD RETRACED SOME OF HER STEPS, WANTING to give Alicia time alone with “Luke.” She had stopped at what she considered calling distance and studied the shoreline around her. At night the salt marsh had its own beauty, with its glistening grass, satin water, and deceptive stillness. Life teemed beneath its surface, but in the darkness, the only hint was its pungent smell, which Ivy liked. The marsh’s calm accentuated the smallest sound. When Ivy heard movement, she turned quickly toward the trees. Birds had been disturbed from their night roost. She saw a light. It disappeared, but she was sure she had seen it for a half second.

  There were houses behind the trees, she reminded herself, then strained to decipher the reassuring outline of a building. Even if there was no house there, people took walks, she reasoned; people walked dogs and brought flashlights with them. She and Tristan would have, if they didn’t have to worry about being seen. She continued to gaze toward the trees, until she heard Alicia calling her.

  When Ivy rejoined Tristan, Alicia touched her lightly on the arm. “Thanks, Ivy.”

  “Sure.”

  “Luke told me you found out something important.”

  “Yes. Yes, I should’ve noticed it before,” Ivy replied. “None of the articles written at the time of Corinne’s death gave an estimated time of death or information on how the body was discovered. But a recent one listed the name of the man who first called the police. He found her when he was walking his dog—before the eleven o’clock news.”

  Alicia looked from Ivy to Tristan. “He’s sure of that?”

  “He told Ivy that he made the phone call at ten minutes after eleven,” Tristan said, “when a regular part of the news came on.”

  “The police must have a record of the time,” Ivy added.

  “So the only thing they don’t know is that Luke and I were together until the end of Law & Order, and he could never have gotten there in time. Do you think they’ll believe me?” Alicia asked. “I’ll give a sworn statement, but you know what they’re going to say—why didn’t I tell them before?”

  Ivy nodded. “There’s an officer named Rosemary Donovan, part of Orleans Police. She questioned me the night they arrested Luke. I think she’d understand that you were afraid you’d make things worse for him.”

  “Rosemary Donovan,” Alicia repeated. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  Alicia and Ivy agreed to meet in the same place the next night. Ivy hugged Alicia good-bye, and Tristan did the same, letting go of her gently after she let go of him. Then Ivy and Tristan headed west, and Alicia east.

  Tristan stopped suddenly. “Alicia,” he called, his voice sounding husky with emotion.

  She turned around.

  “Endings are beginnings,” he said, “and beginnings are ours to turn into something good.”

  In the darkness Ivy couldn’t see Alicia’s face, but she saw her lift her fingers to her lips, then gracefully reach outward, tossing Luke a kiss.

  Seventeen

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON, WHEN WORK WAS OVER, IVY checked for texts and e-mails, but the only messages she had received were from Philip and her mother, who were flying with Andrew to California to visit friends. Alicia had promised to contact Ivy after she spoke to the police. Ivy guessed she was tied up with work at her grandparents’ stand; even so, Ivy was getting increasingly nervous.

  Suzanne still hadn’t responded to the request Ivy had texted yesterday. Sitting on the swing outside the cottage, Ivy sent her a second message, pleading with her to contact Will and tell him about her strange communications from Beth. Time was running out. Ivy believed that she and Will were strong enough to fight Gregory now, but she didn’t know how long that would last.

  She had just tapped send when Beth emerged from the cottage carrying a basket of dirty laundry.

  “Hey, how was your day off?” Ivy asked.

  Beth acted as if she hadn’t heard her.

  “Beth? Did you enjoy your day off?”

  She kept walking. Ivy leaned forward on the swing, trying to see if there was a glint of silver around Beth’s neck. Arriving home late from the meeting with Alicia, she hadn’t seen Beth last night, and Beth had been alone for the last seven hours. Ivy checked inside the cottage for the necklace; not finding it, she walked quickly to the inn’s laundry room.

  The washer was filling and the old dryer noisily tumbling clothes. When Ivy touched Beth’s arm, she jumped, then swung around. “Why are you sneaking up on me?”

  “I wasn’t. I was just coming to talk.”

  “Leave me alone.” Beth turned back to the washer, and started stuffing clothes into it. Her neck was bare, shining with small beads of sweat

  “Beth, where’s your amethyst?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You need to keep the amethyst with you. You need to wear it.”

  Beth didn’t respond. She leaned over the washer so Ivy couldn’t see her face.

  “It was a gift from Will and me. I think it helps you. We talked about this. Remember?”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I have no reason to lie to you. Where did you put it?”

  “I threw it away.”

  Ivy’s stomach tightened. “Why?”

  “The water wanted it.”

  “The water! The ocean?”

  “I was walking last night, and the water asked for it,” Beth said, her voice matter-of-fact. “I threw it down to the water.”

  “Where? Here?”

  “How would I know? It was dark. It’s gone.”

  “Oh, Beth,” Ivy said, resting her hand on her friend’s arm.

  Beth yanked her arm away. “Get away from me!”

  Footsteps in the hall silenced both of them. Ivy waited till the guest had passed, then left the inn, deep in thought. If her hu
nch was right, Gregory had realized the power of the amethyst and had told Beth to get rid of it. It was likely that Beth had gone no farther than the inn’s beach. But jewelry didn’t float like a shell—it wouldn’t wash up on the sand. Perhaps if the tide had been high when Beth threw the necklace . . .

  Walking through the garden, head down, Ivy didn’t see Bryan sitting on the cottage step until she was a few feet away from him. He was leaning forward, staring at the ground, hands clasped tightly.

  “Hey, what are you doing here? Kelsey said she was meeting you at Max’s place.”

  He raised his head. The usual mischief in his eyes was gone, and the absence of his smile made his face seem older, leaner. His broad shoulders were hunched forward.

  “Bryan, what’s wrong?”

  “You haven’t . . . heard,” he said, sounding uncertain, searching her face. “Sit down.” He made room for her on the step. “You remember we talked about Alicia Crowley, the girl who was close to Luke. . . . She’s dead.”

  “What?” Ivy leaped to her feet. “When? How? That can’t be!”

  Bryan reached up for Ivy’s hand and after a moment, pulled her down next to him. “They found her body two hours ago.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “They’d been looking for her since last night. I thought you’d hear it on the news or from one of your guests.”

  “Since last night.” Ivy’s stomach was a knot.

  “She’s been living and working with her grandparents this summer, here on the Cape, that’s what they said on the radio. My uncle has the news blaring every morning at six a.m.”

  Despite the warm day, Ivy felt cold all over.

  “Last night she went out for a jog. She didn’t come back.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Bryan said, “but it’s not possible. There’s no way Luke would do that to her, not the Luke I know.”

  “Do what? She was murdered?” Ivy began to shake.

  “In the news, they’re calling it a suspicious death.”

  Ivy struggled to think clearly. “What does that mean?”

  He started to speak, then hesitated. “Anything that’s not natural. Murder. Or suicide.”