Emily's Ghost (38 page)

Back in her room she took
one last tour of the rose terrace before darkness set in. The
fragrance was even more pronounced at night; she went around and
smelled every plant, wondering if Fergus was around to enjoy her
enjoyment. After a few minutes she went back inside and scooped up
yet another armful of Hattie's mementos. As before, she pulled out
the photos first to spare them further bending and
mutilating.

And then, quite simply,
her heart stood still. In her hand she held a sepia-toned studio
photograph that was a variant of the one she had found stuck in the
drawer of the desk in the tower of Talbot Manor. Same fern, same
family, different pose. In this shot both parents were looking
adoringly at the infant in the mother's arms; the father's face was
obscured. One of the boys was smiling tentatively, and one remained
formal and impassive.

Emily turned the photo
over. Her hand began to shake. The names of the subjects were
written clearly in a woman's hand on the back: John Talbot, Celeste
Talbot, Hessiah, Stewart, and -- a complete surprise -- James. So!
She'd been right all along, and the first feeling that roared
through her was one of triumph. But little James with his timid
smile was a puzzle. There was no mention of him in Celeste Talbot's
obituary. Was he even her child? Had he already succumbed, as so
many children of the period did, to fever and disease?

In a blaze of enthusiasm
Emily dove back into the trunk for another armful of memorabilia.
If there was one photo, there must be others. She shuffled through
the photographs feverishly, looking for more evidence of the
Talbots. Before very long she sat back on her heels.

Waitaminnit.
Hattie Dunbart should link back to Mayor Henry
Abbott, not to the Talbots. So why was the Talbots' photo among the
Abbotts' keepsakes? It's not as if they were family. Would a bridge
partner ask for and keep so personal an item as this?

Oh, hell's bells,
she thought, dazed and confused. It was like
unwinding a coil of hopelessly tangled line.
This is what happens when you rush a job,
she thought, illogically annoyed with Hildie.
I should've gone home with the trunk.

She was still sitting back
on her heels, staring blankly into space and trying to remember
what was in her computer, when the door was swung open with no
warning.

"My God. You
are
here."

Emily jumped up in panic,
sending papers flying in every direction. She felt as if she'd been
caught breaking and entering. Like a fool, she instantly blurted,
"Hildie said I could stay."

Lee Alden's grin lit up
his eyes, lit up the room, lit up every one of her nerve endings.
"If Hildie says so, then I guess it must be all right," he said
with good-humored irony. "Hi."

"We thought you weren't
going to be here," she added. That, of course, explained
everything.

Lee was leaning against
the doorframe now, arms folded across his chest, completely filling
the doorway. He was wearing a navy polo shirt; she could see damp
circles under the sleeves, as if he'd been running.

"I see my sister-in-law
has clothed you," he said, casting an attentive eye over Hildie's
shorts and scanty tank top. "But has she taken the trouble to feed
you?"

"Oh. Yes. Sure. Inez made
an omelet," Emily said in a rush, then fell to her knees and began
haphazardly scooping the stacks of papers back into a common pile
much the way Hattie's niece would've done. "I'm so embarrassed
about this, Lee," she said, hardly daring to look at him. "It
seemed like such a good idea at the time. I had no idea you might
be dropping in-–"

"Dope.
You're
the reason I'm 'dropping
in,'" he said, unfolding himself from the doorway. "I called a
little while ago, and Inez told me you were here." He came into the
room and crouched down in a catcher's pose, facing her. "So I
hopped a flight with a pal to the Edgartown Air Park, then forced
him practically at gunpoint to drive me across the
island."

"Gee, you didn't have to
do that," she said without looking at him, hurriedly unsorting her
sorted piles. "Your silver would've been safe from me."

"Yeah, but would it have
been safe from Fergus?" he asked, casually plucking out a photo,
then tossing it back on the pile.

Her head came up; a
dangerous flush tramped across her cheeks. "We've been around this
block before, Lee." She threw an armful of mementos into the trunk
and gathered up another. "So leave Fergus out of it."

Lee grabbed both her
wrists, flattening her hands over the pile of papers that fell from
her arms. "Emily, please. Stop. Wait.
Listen."

"You sound like a crossing
guard," she said, feeling the anger rise in her gorge. "Let go of
me."

His blue eyes were inches
from her face; his forehead was damp with sweat. The veins in his
temple were working overtime; she'd seen the look before. "I asked
you nice," he said. "Now I'll try another way. Shut up for a
minute. I have something to say."

She made a sudden hostile
motion, trying to whip her hands free, but he held them fast. It
was bizarre -- the two of them, kneeling on a pile of old photos
and mail, locked in physical combat.

"What?
What can you possibly have to say to me that you haven't said
before? That after the elections we can try again? That you didn't
realize until now that I really, really wasn't fooling about
Fergus? That you've thought it over and you'll give me thirty days
to solve the murder and get him out of here? That -—"

Lee brought his hand up
and clamped it over her mouth. "I
can't
shut you up," he said, almost
in wonder. "There's no way to shut you up. How can I get a word in
edgewise? How can --"

He took her face in both
his hands and kissed her, a hard, uncompromising kiss, hot and
deep, in every way a match for the kiss she'd given him before she
marched out of his office and out of his life. Emily had thrown
down the gauntlet that day in his office; now he was picking it up.
She didn't expect this, couldn't imagine that he'd throw off his
instinctive caution and claim her this way.

"I ... I don't ...
understand," she said, reeling under his assault. She staggered to
her feet.

But he was right there,
quick and relentless. "Does this explain it?" He kissed her again,
harder, hotter, then broke it off suddenly.
"I love you, Sherlock,"
he said,
taking her by her shoulders, giving her an almost symbolic shake.
"Don't you get it? You get everything else -- can't you get this
one simple thing?"

She stared at him, still
in shock, her body trembling in the aftermath of their encounter.
She'd spent weeks backing away from him emotionally, telling
herself that her interest in him was academic, even accepting
Hildie's invitation just to prove the fact. And now Lee Alden had
come flying back into her life on the wings of some twin-engine
plane, kissing her until she begged for mercy, insisting that he
loved her. It took her breath away.

"What about Fergus?" she
whispered, because she knew that when everything was said and done,
it all came down to Fergus.

She expected Lee to recoil
under the blow, but if anything, he became more animated. "Fergus.
Okay; Fergus. I've been thinking about that, pretty much night and
day."

He began to pace, then
looked down and realized that the floor was carpeted with papers;
he stopped abruptly and dropped into the wicker chair near the
door. "He's a project you're working on," he said, his agitation
barely under control. "I accept that. You see him; I don't. You
hear him; I can't. So what?"

He leaped up from the
chair, as if a shot had been fired in the darkness somewhere. "Some
of the profoundest thinkers in history have heard and seen things
the rest of us haven't -- from Dionysius to Nostradamus. Should we
have locked them up, shunned them, because we were too caught up in
the noise and clatter of everyday life to hear what they heard? I
don't think so. I don't think so."

He began to pace again,
remembered the papers again, stopped again. He was next to her, and
almost as an afterthought, he kissed her -- gently this time, as if
her lips were flower petals. "You've found something that I've been
searching for for years," he said in a voice blended of envy and
awe. "What right do I have to insist you're wrong?"

She was reeling again,
this time from the strength of his conversion. "When ... when did
you decide this?"

He laughed softly. "The
day you first told me about Fergus, I suppose. I fought it, of
course. It was too wildly illogical. How could a woman as rational
as you have the ability to see into another dimension? Let's face
it, Em," he said, caressing her cheek with his hand, "you don't fit
the profile of a mystic."

He slipped his arms around
her waist. "But when Inez mentioned that you were here, that's when
it all fell into place for me. You were
here.
That's all that mattered.
There's plenty of space, literally and figuratively, for Fergus. He
can have this room," Lee added, bringing his mouth down on Emily's
in a kiss of surpassing tenderness, "and we'll take the
master."

Lee was keeping it light,
but she could tell from the suppressed excitement in his voice that
he was dead serious about Fergus. One way or another, Lee was
willing to move over and make room for her convictions. She was
intensely moved by his act of faith. And then, of course, there was
the fact that she was in his arms, and his warm cheek was pressing
hers, and his voice, low and persuasive, was telling her what she'd
been waiting a short lifetime to hear.

She closed her eyes and
savored the moment. Lee Alden, the very first man she'd ever loved,
was very much here and now, while Fergus was ... somewhere,
sometime. Emily took a great swallow of air, then let out a
shuddering sigh.

Lee held her away at arm's
length and lowered his head to meet her averted eyes. "Emily? Did I
just make a royal ass of myself? Was I so busy with my speech that
I didn't understand the sound of your silence?"

When she said nothing, his
breathing became very controlled, very deliberate, as if he were
replaying the scene in his mind. "My God," he murmured. "I was
wrong. You're not in love --"

Now it was her turn to
clamp her hand over his mouth. "That's not true!" she said
passionately. "If you knew how I've been waiting for you
..."

She released her hand, and
then they kissed again, deep, hungry kisses. She had the sense that
they'd been in an impenetrable forest, and then they'd become
separated, and now they'd found each other again. For the moment it
didn't matter that they didn't know how to get out; it mattered
only that they were together again.

"Will you let me make love
to you?" he whispered. For her answer Emily reached over to turn
off the bright reading light that she'd been using to study. In the
golden glimmer of a small Chinese lamp they removed what little
they were wearing, and then, wrapped only in the night's sultry
heat, they pulled back the bedcovers together. For one wild second
Emily wondered whether the television would stay off this time; and
then she forgot about the television, and Fergus, and what Lee had
called the noise and clatter of everyday life, because she was in
his arms again.

"I fell apart when you
walked out on me," he confessed, burying his face in the curve of
her throat. "They had to glue me back together. Please, darling,
don't ever," he begged between kisses, "do that ... to me ...
again."

"No ... no, how could I?"
she murmured. "Everything's different now ... night-and-day
different ...."

"What's different, for
pity's sake? Any fool could see he's loved ye all
along."

Of all the voices in the
world -- this world or any other --that voice was the one voice
Emily was not prepared to hear. She shut her eyes; she became stiff
as a barn board.

Lee pulled away. "Emily?
What's wrong?"

"Tell him, Em," she heard
Fergus prod. "Test his faith."

"Oh, God," Emily
whispered, afraid to open her eyes. "Not
now.
How could you?"

"Emily, are you serious?"
Lee demanded, his voice shaky with frustrated passion.

"Yes. No -- I don't mean
the sex. Is that what you're thinking of?" she asked Lee, bolting
upright and looking around the room frantically.

"At this minute? Yes," Lee
confessed in a wondering voice.

"He's not kidding, ye
know." Fergus, standing with his arms crossed at the foot of the
bed, was perusing Lee with a kind of good-natured leer.

"Oh! How
could
you?" Emily wailed
to Fergus, pulling a sheet up over her breasts. "We're not even
dressed!"

"But ... that's the
general idea," Lee said in hapless confusion.

Emily, wide-eyed, didn't
respond. Lee waved his hand in front of the fixed expression on her
face, then said in an instantly more serious tone, "He's here,
isn't he?"