“Maxie, sometimes you’re not at your own parties,” Bryan pointed out.
“I’m there.” Max studied his cards then laid one down. “I take breaks, that’s all.”
Bryan dropped a card on top of Max’s. “Bad move, Max.”
“Bad move, Bryan,” Kelsey said triumphantly, placing a card on his.
Chase laughed and threw down his hand. “She cheats.”
“She wins,” Kelsey corrected him. “Maybe if you paid more attention to the game, you’d win.” She turned over his cards. “You were dealt a better hand than me. You should have taken me.”
“I compete only when it matters,” Chase said, tipping back his bottle of green tea and taking a long sip.
“Like at Max’s party?” Kelsey baited him. “I couldn’t believe it when you bet Stefan all that money that you could beat him at pool. What were you thinking?”
“He got under my skin,” Chase said. “Is that guy on steroids or something?”
Bryan leaned back, resting on his elbows. “All hockey goalies are crazy.”
“It was more than that,” Dhanya said, looking up from her book. “He looked kind of scary.”
Bryan grinned. “You ought to see him during the season, when he’s all banged up.”
“Why does he call you ‘Top’?” Dhanya asked.
“It’s a nickname. I’m good at spinning away from defenders.”
“You know where your teammate’s from, don’t you?” Chase remarked, then paused and slowly screwed on the top of his bottle, waiting to make sure he had everyone’s attention.
Will wore a poker face, but Ivy could see from the way his pencil dug into the paper that Chase had gotten to him.
“The same hood as Luke McKenna.”
“Really?” said Max. “He told you that?”
“He was bragging and started talking about the rink at River Gardens. I know the hood—it has some blue-collar types and a lot of lowlifes, a lot of drugs,” Chase said with a dismissive flick of his hand. “My dad has a few clients there.”
“Your dad sells drugs?” Will responded, and everyone laughed but Chase.
“He’s a criminal defense attorney,” Chase replied coolly.
The same neighborhood, Ivy thought, and the same age. It was a sobering reminder of how many visitors to the Cape might recognize “Luke” if she and Tristan got careless.
The conversation moved on to other people who’d attended the recent party.
“If you can tear yourself away from your Gatsby parties, I’m having some people over on Saturday night,” Chase said. “Some friends who have ski homes near ours at Jackson Hole. You’d like them.”
“What are Gatsby parties?” Bryan asked.
“Parties like those thrown in the Fitzgerald novel,” Will guessed.
Chase nodded. “The Great Gatsby. Rich guy with all kinds of toys tries desperately to win a girl, letting people get drunk at his expense.”
Ivy figured this plot summary was a putdown of Max.
“Sounds good to me!” Kelsey said enthusiastically.
“Chase’s party or Gatsby’s?” Bryan asked.
“Gatsby’s, of course,” Kelsey replied, lifting her auburn hair from her shoulders and waving it about, making her ponytail a fan.
“I’d like to come, Chase,” Dhanya said.
“Me too,” Max chimed in quickly. “Since we’re both going, why don’t I pick you up, Dhanya?”
Dhanya blinked, caught by surprise. “Well, uh, I did have plans with Ivy tomorrow night.”
This was news to Ivy—and it was pretty lame. But Chase nodded, not seeming to recognize a rejection of his offer. “Great. I’ll bring the other car. It’s got room.”
“And Will and Beth,” Dhanya added.
Will stopped sketching. Kelsey rolled her eyes at Dhanya’s contrived excuses. Ivy figured that somewhere in the Moyers’ fleet of cars there was one big enough for all of them, but Max had caught on. His tan became tinged with pink.
“So,” Will said, loudly enough to draw attention from Kelsey’s grimace and Chase’s smug smile, “since it’s easier to keep plans sort of the same, the four of us will meet you there, Max.”
“And Max will be my date,” Bryan added.
“What about me?” Kelsey demanded.
“I thought you preferred Gatsby parties,” Bryan teased. “But you can bum a ride with us if you want.”
Ivy listened to the banter for a little longer, then stood up and walked to the ocean’s edge, letting the wind blow away the group’s conversation and laughter. It seemed as if it would be forever until that night, when she’d see Tristan again.
They both knew they were taking a chance by meeting. It would be easier to take precautions if they knew who had threatened them. Had Gregory learned that Tristan was inside Luke’s body? If Gregory knew, would he openly attack Tristan or lie in wait for a vulnerable moment? Maybe Gregory wouldn’t have to do anything but help Luke’s enemies. To kill the body that was now Tristan’s would be just as good as killing her.
But who were Luke’s enemies? If Andy was right, someone or maybe several someones out there had planned a successful murder—though they didn’t know how successful they’d been. Would they try something else just as effective? Was she going to lead Luke’s enemies directly to Tristan?
A light touch on Ivy’s elbow startled her.
“Hey.”
“Bryan—hi.” Turning, she caught her long hair as it whipped around in her face. “Going in the water?”
“No. Hanging out,” he said with a jaunty half-smile.
Not this again, Ivy thought, recalling the night he had flirted with her at the skating rink. He’d denied it was an attempt to make Kelsey jealous, but getting a rise out of each other was their favorite sport.
Bryan moved closer to Ivy and faced the beach—so he could enjoy Kelsey’s reactions, Ivy thought. “Bryan, isn’t there another big party going on tonight?”
“Yeah, a couple houses down from Max’s. Want to come?”
“No. I want you to wait till then and find some party girl to make Kelsey jealous. You should remember this from college: Roommates are off-limits.”
His green eyes sparkled with laughter, then suddenly grew serious. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “I’m going to smile while we talk and touch your hand, like the great flirt I am—”
“Please don’t.”
“But it’s all for show.”
“No kidding!”
“Because there’s something I need to talk about, and it’s hard to get the time to do that with you alone.”
Ivy had begun to turn away, but turned back. “What do you mean?”
“It’s about Luke.”
Now he had her full attention.
“We were friends.”
Ivy stared at him with amazement. “Friends!”
Bryan barely nodded, then said, “You’re looking kind of intense. I’m going to tilt my head and smile at you as if fascinated—”
Ivy grimaced.
“Good thing you’re not facing the beach,” Bryan added, laughing.
“You know Luke? Why did you wait till now to tell me?” All this time, Bryan had known facts that she and Tristan had desperately needed.
“Because I’m a coward.”
Ivy studied him. “I don’t think so.”
“Really, I am. The pressure’s off now. Luke’s gone. I don’t have to figure out what’s right, what’s wrong. I don’t have to decide whether to help him again.”
“You helped him before?”
“I told you, he was my friend.”
“A close one?”
Bryan glanced over Ivy’s shoulder, checking out the others, then said, “We grew up together. Yeah, in that hood Chase speaks so highly of. I knew it would come out sooner or later. Luke and I skated together. His mother was an alcoholic, drank herself to death. His father was gone all of his life—who knows where. Luke spent a lot of time at our house.”
Bryan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s really hard for me to believe that everything a person knows about his life can be erased—that everything we did together is suddenly gone.”
Ivy remained quiet.
“But I guess it’s better for Luke that way.”
“Better?” she asked sharply. “Not knowing how to defend himself or who to fear?”
“The truth is, Luke didn’t know that even when he remembered everything,” Bryan said. “Mind if we walk a little? I know Kelsey’s body language—she’s thinking about joining us. But she’s got too much pride to chase us.”
They walked silently for several minutes, Ivy watching the frothy surf roll over her feet, trying to work out what this discovery meant.
“Luke was a good person,” Bryan said at last. “He’d do anything to help out a friend. But he was a bad judge of character, and when you grow up in a tough area where survival is the first order of business, you have to know your friends from your enemies.”
“Did he have many enemies?”
Bryan stopped to watch a gull wheel and drop toward the water. “You only need one. But no—most people liked Luke, and those who didn’t just blew him off.”
“What was his relationship with Corinne?”
“He was totally in love with her.” Bryan shook his head and continued walking. “She played him for a fool.”
“That’s hard to deal with, but unless you’re the possessive, abusive type, you don’t usually murder the person who breaks up with you,” Ivy said. “Was he abusive?”
“No. But Luke’s feelings always ran strong—you must have seen that yourself. At times his passion made him a brilliant hockey player; other times it destroyed his game. He couldn’t harness his feelings. And like a lot of guys, the way he played his sport was the way he lived his life. When he drank, he had even less control.”
“Was he drinking the night she died?”
“Yes.”
“So how did you help him?” Ivy asked.
“I pretended to cooperate with the police by giving them a tiny piece of accurate info. Then I gave them enough fake leads to send them rushing in the wrong direction, allowing Luke time to escape. I drove him a hundred miles or so and gave him some cash. The police were pretty ticked, but they chalked it up to me being a stupid hockey player from a bad hood—to being a lowlife, as Chase puts it, ultimately loyal to another lowlife.”
Ivy’s hair kept blowing in her face; she turned her head as she tossed it back. “Kelsey’s coming.”
“Is she? So I guess Luke isn’t the only poor judge of what a girl will or won’t do,” Bryan replied with a wry smile. “Ivy, no one on the Cape but my uncle and Stefan—the guy Chase was talking about—knows my connection to Luke, and I want to keep it that way.”
“Okay.” It was in Tristan’s best interest to keep things quiet. And she thought it better to let Bryan assume “Luke” had fled the Cape until she and Tristan had thought things through.
“I’ve told you all this for a reason,” Bryan continued. “I know my friend. If Luke has feelings for you, he’ll come back, even if it means risking his life.”
Ivy worked hard to keep her face neutral.
“If you need my help, you know where I—”
“Well, hello,” Kelsey interrupted. “Feeling all energized, Ivy?”
Ivy took a step back from both Kelsey and Bryan. “Actually, I’m dragging,” she replied. “I was just heading back to my beach towel.”
Ivy walked away quickly—too quickly, she realized, for someone who was supposed to be tired. Reaching her towel, she glanced up the beach and saw Kelsey pushing Bryan toward the water and Bryan pushing back. He was laughing—she was not.
When Ivy sat down, Dhanya gazed at her with obvious curiosity. The conversation must have looked like a flirtation to more than just Kelsey.
“I wish Bryan wouldn’t tease Kelsey that way,” Ivy said.
“Yeah,” Dhanya replied a bit faintly as if unconvinced that it was just Bryan’s game.
Ivy glanced toward Will. He met her eyes with the coolness she’d seen for the last several weeks. Whatever trust she had earned from Will earlier in the afternoon had just been lost. One step forward, one step back.
Ten
“BRYAN!” TRISTAN EXCLAIMED. “NICE OF HIM TO SAY something now that I’ve finally figured out who I’m supposed to be.”
“That was my first reaction,” Ivy replied. “But then I reminded myself that at least he kept your secret. It was Will, not Bryan, who told the police where you were.”
Tristan wanted to pace. He wanted to snap branches in half and kick stones. He was starting to feel like a caged animal, but it was ten thirty at night and campers were still awake. On a night lit only by a slender peel of the moon, most people weren’t taking hikes, so they were relatively safe. But this morning, a child, bored by fishing, had wandered away from his family and found Tristan asleep. Later in the afternoon, in search of attention, the child had returned. It wouldn’t be long before the kid was boasting about his new friend.
“The first time Bryan would have actually seen you was the night of the carnival,” Ivy went on, “the night before the police came for you. Until then, he’d only heard of you as someone named Guy.”
“Can we trust him?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Ivy said. “He’s torn between his friendship and what he thinks is the right thing to do.” Ivy recounted everything that Bryan had told her. “I think we should wait a little longer before I tell him you’re here.”
“Still, he knows the things I need to know,” Tristan pointed out.
“Things that I can find out without revealing anything,” Ivy replied. “He knows I fell in love with you—with Luke. My curiosity will seem natural to him.”
Tristan studied Ivy. Her amazing dark-gold hair was completely hidden by a tightly wrapped bandana. And she had come from a different direction tonight, her shoes muddy from walking the edge of the pond rather than following the bike trail. She was as worried as he was that the police—and Luke’s enemies—would find out where he was.
“What? What is it?” Ivy asked.
Tristan flexed his hands. “I don’t know. . . . Just the feeling of being watched.”
Ivy bit her lip.
“You feel it too,” he guessed.
“Last night I did, yes.” She took a deep breath. “Tristan, I think you need to leave the park. I think you need to leave the Cape.”
“No!”
“You need to get far away, Tristan.”
He held her by the shoulders. “I’m not leaving as long as Gregory is here.”
“Just for a while,” she said. “When I’ve learned a little more about Luke and who his enemies are—”
“No.”
“Tonight I can drive you somewhere off the Cape, to the other side of the canal,” Ivy rushed on. “Tomorrow night, I’ll leave earlier and drive you farther.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “Next week, Mom, Philip, and Andrew are going to California, but no one at the inn knows that. I’ll ask if I can go home for a few days. We’ll stop there, get provisions, then I’ll drive you miles away.”
Tristan took her face gently in his hands. “Listen to me, love. Between here and ‘miles away’ there are bridges and tolls—there are cameras everywhere. Officer Donovan warned you that I’d come back, and she’ll check on you. If the police find you’ve left the Cape, they’ll check your home, then put out a bulletin.”
Tears ran down Ivy’s cheeks. He pressed his cheek against hers, as if he could stop them.
“Tristan, if Luke’s murderer finds you, I—I couldn’t survive having you die twice.”
“And if Gregory destroys your life, how could I survive that?”
She buried her face in his shoulder.
“Let’s think it through. There must be a place. Is there another park on the Cape?”
“The national park or any place farther along the Cape is too o
pen, and going in the other direction. . . . The church!”
He almost laughed, but afraid he’d hurt her feelings, said gently, “I don’t think Father John’s going to welcome me back.”
“Another church, a small one, about three miles from here. A group is raising money to restore it as a community arts center, but the grass is long, and no one seems to be around. One of the basement windows can be opened—Will was there the other day taking pictures.”
“What if Will comes back?”
“You could fix the window with the broken latch, put a piece of wood in it so he can’t open it. If someone unlocked the front door and entered that way, you would probably hear it and have time to escape through the basement.”
“Can you give me directions?”
“I’ll drive you,” she said.
“Better for me to walk there later tonight.”
She began to shake her head.
“Ivy, we don’t want a little white Volkswagen to be seen near the church.”
She nodded solemnly, then looked into his eyes.
They had had so little time together, he thought, for sharing the simple happiness of walking side by side, exploring a summer night, and being in each other’s arms. It would have been better for her if she had never loved him.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s wrong,” Ivy said, then held him tightly until they both knew it was time to part.
WHEN IVY ARRIVED HOME FRIDAY NIGHT, ONLY DUSTY was there to greet her. Hoping to find out more about Luke’s life so she could figure out who might want him dead, Ivy opened her laptop on the kitchen table and typed in “River Gardens Providence.” A map of the neighborhood came up and, after studying it for several minutes, she sent it to her cell phone. A survey of the other Google entries revealed a hair salon, barbershop, two liquor stores, several bars, and an elementary and middle school that bore the neighborhood’s name. But most of the entries were articles she had read a week ago about the death of Corinne Santori. Two photos ran with the articles, both showing a striking nineteen-year-old girl with dark hair and dark eyes. According to the articles, she and Luke McKenna had gone through school together, but Luke had dropped out at sixteen. Friends said they were secretly engaged, until Corinne ended the relationship in February, two months before she was murdered.