Everlasting (15 page)

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.

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 hunch 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.”

“Suicide! It couldn’t be!”

Bryan looked at her curiously.

Ivy caught herself. She hadn’t told Bryan that she had contacted Alicia, and she needed to think it through before she did. “I—I guess I just can’t imagine doing that.”

“They found her in the canal. Below the railroad bridge.”

Ivy shut her eyes. Was she to blame for this? No, Alicia went jogging every night. She could have run into the wrong person on any given night.

But the light Ivy had seen in the trees—should she have paid more attention? How do you tell a murderer from an innocent person walking a dog?

“The railroad bridge,” Ivy repeated, the details starting to sink in. “The one suspended high over the canal?
But that—” She caught herself again. It wasn’t anywhere near where Alicia had met them, but Bryan hadn’t told her where Alicia jogged. “It just seems impossible.”

They were silent for a long time. Ivy gazed at the garden, watching a butterfly dance among the white phlox. “Her parents and her grandparents. I feel so sorry for them.”

“I’m worried about Luke, how he’ll react if he hears about it.”

“Do you think the police will try to link it to him?”

“It would be convenient, wouldn’t it?” Bryan replied. “Another girl he was close to, dead. But I’m pretty sure her family doesn’t know she stayed in touch with him after they left River Gardens. So at least they won’t be pressing for it.”

“When they tried to arrest Luke,” Ivy recalled, “I told the police that a girl at the carnival recognized him. But I didn’t know her name then.”

“They might come around with a photo of Alicia and ask you if she was the one.”

Ivy nodded.

“Ivy, it would be better for Luke if they don’t make that connection.”

“I know.”

“Can you lie?” Bryan asked.

In the last year, Ivy had told herself she was merely
faking
it to survive, and merely faking it to help “Luke,” but
she had to face it, she was lying and getting good at it. “If I have to.”

“If Luke hears about this, he may come back, even at his own risk,” Bryan added. “He’ll be really upset, probably at himself. If he returns, he’ll contact you. Just giving you a heads-up.”

One way or another, Ivy thought, she might need Bryan’s help. She pulled out her cell phone. “Give me your number.”

TRISTAN STARED AT IVY IN DISBELIEF.

“Dead?”

In the bell tower’s dim light, he saw Ivy blinking back tears.

“How?”

She told him in gulps. He didn’t know that he was crying until Ivy wiped the tears from his face.

“I can’t believe it.”

“I can’t believe it was suicide,” Ivy said, and buried her head in his shoulder.

He listened to her breathe, felt the warmth of her body, reveled in her scent and closeness, and then felt guilty for rejoicing in the way Ivy was alive to him, while Alicia was dead. The sudden nearness of death made him cling to every physical sensation that meant life.

“I’m late because Officer Donovan stopped by to show
me a picture and ask if Alicia was the girl who recognized you at the Strawberry Festival.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I lied.” Ivy pulled back to look at him. “Tristan, did Alicia die because of us?”

“No! How can you even think that?”

“But what if the person who killed Corinne has been watching me? What if the killer needed to make sure that Luke never had an alibi? Last night, while you were talking to her, I saw a light. Someone was in the trees beyond the marshes, where I was standing. I told myself it was just somebody out on a walk.”

“Of course. Why would you think any differently?”

“It’s like Eric,” Ivy went on, her voice quivering. “Last year, when Eric asked me to meet him, he was going to tell me about Gregory—he was going to help me—and Gregory killed him before he could. It’s the same thing all over again.”

Tristan felt her shiver. “What?” he asked, pulling Ivy close again.

“It’s strange that they found her beneath the railroad bridge.”

Tristan thought for a moment. “You mean because of Gregory’s . . .
affection
for trains and bridges. Would he have the strength to throw her off?”

“The physical strength? I don’t know. Maybe not. It’s just creepy.”

“How’s Beth?”

Ivy told him about the amethyst. “She said the water wanted it, that she threw it ‘down to the water.’ Oh my God, I was thinking she meant the ocean. But what if she was at—”

“The canal? There’s no way, Ivy,” he said. “With or without the pendant, Beth isn’t capable of killing.”

“With Gregory inside her, she is capable of hurting. She put broken glass in my shoe.”

Tristan stared at her. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“And sometimes,” Ivy pressed on, “someone who means only to hurt or warn can go too far.”

“Ivy, I want you to stay with me tonight.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

He held her by the shoulders. “You can if you choose to.”

“And tomorrow night?” she asked. “And the night after that?” She shook her head. “We can hide from the police. And if there is someone who wants you dead, we can hide you from that person, too. But Gregory will find me wherever I am. Gregory isn’t stopped by walls.”

“Ivy, if he’s gaining power over Beth—”

“Then I had better deal with him now, before he gains any more.”

THE FEAR ON TRISTAN’S FACE WHEN IVY LEFT HIM
that night stayed with her even after she turned out the living room light. Arriving home, she had been glad to find Dusty waiting for her on the cottage step. Given the cat’s increasing wariness around Beth, his willingness to curl up with Ivy on the living room sofa reassured her. Ivy clicked on a nightlight and fell asleep listening to Dusty’s heavy purr. But sleep opened the door to dreams, and each of her dreams ended the same way.

She dreamed of Alicia, turning one last time to toss
“Luke” a kiss before she disappeared into the darkness; of Will, driving off fast in his car, as he did the night he and Ivy had broken up—disappearing into the darkness; of Beth, yanking away the hand Ivy had reached for and slipping under a sea of darkness.

Something in the darkness lay in wait for Ivy. Though she couldn’t see it, she sensed it moving, as if its secret motion riffled the air between them. It crept slowly toward her, draining all sound from the night; absolute silence signaled its nearness. It reached toward her.

The pressure on her ribs was light at first, no more than a cat resting on her. The cat leaped off, and something came down hard on her chest. Jolted awake, Ivy opened her eyes. The small bit of light she saw immediately disappeared.
Who’s there?
she cried out, but as in a dream, she couldn’t make a sound. She felt the rough texture of the sofa’s weave and the crevice between its cushions pressing against the back of her arms, and she knew it wasn’t a dream. Then she tasted the dry fibers of a pillow being held against her nose and mouth. She couldn’t breathe!

Terrified, Ivy clawed at the hands pushing the pillow against her face, then wrenched her head to one side, trying to get free of it. The pillow momentarily slipped, and Ivy gulped air, but the attacker came back at her, pressing down harder. The weight on Ivy’s chest increased, crushing her lungs, squeezing out her breath.

Her arms still free, Ivy clawed at the weight on her chest. Realizing her attacker was kneeling on her, and feeling fabric give way to skin, she scratched wildly, digging her nails in deep. The attacker pulled back for a moment. Ivy couldn’t see the attacker’s face, but the dim nightlight caught the texture and swing of her hair.