Emily's Ghost (49 page)

"Oh," she said
breathlessly, "wait right here." She dashed down below and rummaged
in the cupboard for the last of their bakery bread and a box of oat
crackers. "There's a huge swan swimming alongside, Lee; you really
should come out and see it."

"Hmm? That's nice," he
answered, completely lost in his book.

Outside, she tore off
hunks of bread and held them up for the swan to take from her hand.
She had no idea how he was able to see the food; despite the moon,
despite the lightning, it was an inky night. From the west she was
able to see black clouds headed for a mixup with the lightning and
after that, the moon.

"Where's your mate?" she
whispered to the swan, feeding him the last of the
bread.

Hiss-s-s-s-s.

He floated alongside,
waiting, and then began to leave -- in anger, it seemed to her. She
opened the box of oat crackers quickly, and at the first crinkle
sound of the plastic liner the swan returned. He took an oat
cracker from her, then dropped it in the water. He would not take
another.

"
Picky
,"
she
murmured.

Hiss-s-s-s-s.

He circled once, twice,
then glided off. It depressed her somehow, as if she'd failed him.
She remembered a bran muffin she was saving for her breakfast and
ran below to fetch it, on the chance that the swan might come back.
For ten minutes she sat alone, holding her muffin in her lap,
waiting.

He was no ordinary swan,
of that she was sure. He was too big, too powerful, too vocal. Lee
had told her that all the waterfowl around here panhandled: the
ducks, the geese, the sea gulls. They brought their young;
generations, he said, had done it. But he'd said nothing about a
swan, a swan without a mate.

Hiss-s-s-s-s.

He was back! On the other
side of the boat! Delighted, Emily broke off a chunk of muffin and
tried feeding it to him. He accepted it with an offhand arrogance
that Emily had run into only once before in her life. She caught
her breath.

"Fergus?" she whispered,
faint with wonder.

Hiss-s-s-s-s.

The moon and lightning lit
up the sky, lit up the nearly uninhabited shoreline, lit up the
great white swan. In six swipes at her fingers the muffin was gone.
She had nothing more to give him. He circled alongside, imperial
and impatient. "That's all there is," she said sadly.

The swan paused and
circled, then swung away from the boat and struck out for the
entrance to the harbor. Emily could see him in the moonlight for
perhaps a thousand feet or so. And then the first of the black
clouds from the west passed over the moon, and the great white swan
was swallowed up in darkness.

But then a tremendous bolt
of lightning ripped the sky open. In its flash she saw the swan one
last time. After that the lightning moved off, and the rest of the
black clouds moved in, and darkness reigned. It was
over.

"Good-bye, Fergus," she
whispered, a tear breaking through and rolling down her cheek.
"Goodbye."

When she went below again,
Lee was just closing
The Hunt for Red
October.
"Great read," he said, reaching
up one arm behind him and catching her in his embrace. "They always
are. What've you been up to?" he said, pulling her toward him for
an upside- down kiss.

She let herself test the
novelty of his mouth from the new position and said, "Just saying
good-bye to a friend."

"Same old friend?" he
asked in a quiet, thoughtful way.

"Yes," she said, smiling.
"He was just passing through."

An old secret, a new mystery, and dangerous
passion buried in the ashes of an historic fire -- ashes that
become embers, easily fanned into flames ....

To Meg Hazard, it seemed like a
good idea at the time:  squeezing her extended family into the
back rooms of their rambling Victorian home and converting the rest
of the house into a Bed and Breakfast in the coastal town of Bar
Harbor, Maine.  But that was before the leaky roof, the balky
furnace, and the fuel oil spill in the basement.  That was
before the inheritance of an exquisite, museum-quality dollhouse
with a haunting story of its own to tell.  And that was before
her much-loved, much-younger and very beautiful sister Allie fell
in love with Chicago cop Tom Wyler, who was there simply to put
himself back together physically and emotionally after a shattering
episode of violence back home.  Meg, the Responsible One, has
complete sympathy for everyone.  What she doesn't have is
complete control over her emotions ....

"A deft blend of mystery and romance ...
Stockenberg, who won a RITA [for
Emily's Ghost
], is sure to
win more kudos for her latest."

--
Publishers Weekly

"A well-written, engaging story of two caring
people who have all but given up on finding love."

--
Library Journal

"All the ingredients that whisper 'best
seller' ... reading
Embers
is a night of pure pleasure."

--
Gothic Journal

"
Embers
is a delight -- a beautifully
crafted, wholly involving story that explores the complexities of
family, sisters and love, creating relationships that sparkle with
warmth, wit, and authenticity.  I thoroughly enjoyed it."

--Katherine Stone

"Antoinette Stockenberg has become a major
force in women's contemporary mainstream romantic fiction. 
Embers
is a moving work involving obsession, betrayal, and
thwarted passions ... The chilling use of supernatural elements to
emphasize the events of the past only enhances a book that has
'classic' written all over it."

--
Affaire de Coeur

Meg Hazard, shivering in
the predawn chill, pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and
said, "Money isn't everything, Allie."

Her sister laughed
derisively. "Oh,
come
on." She threw her head back in a way that profiled her long
neck and thick black hair to perfection. "The only ones who say
that are those who have it and those who don't. And
I
say, both sides are
lying through their teeth." She pulled her knees up closer to her
chest.
"
God,
it's cold up here. Was it this
cold when we were kids?"

"Of course. We're on top
of a mountain. In Maine. In June. You know the saying: In Maine
there are two seasons
—"

"—
winter and August. Mmm. I do know. Which is another reason
I'll take a job anywhere but here. You can't make any real money in
Maine, and meanwhile you freeze your buns off trying."

Meg smiled and held one
end of her blanket open. "Park your buns under the blanket with me,
then. I
told
you
to bring something warm."

She glanced around at the
dozens of tourists sharing the rocky summit with them. Some were
murmuring; some were silent. All were waiting. "The sun will be up
in precisely
—
four minutes," Meg said, peering at her watch.

The two sisters huddled
together under the pale
pink sky, their
breaths mingling, their minds in tune.

"Tell me
why
,
exactly, I let you talk me into this again?" Allie
asked.

Meg laughed softly and
said, "I was just thinking about that. You were five and I was
seventeen when I brought you up here the first time. You were so
excited, you forgot your Thermos of hot chocolate. I had to drive
us back for it
—"

"—
and Dad woke up and said we were crazy and if Mom were alive
she'd give us what for
—"

"—
and then, when we finally got up here, you were mad because
we weren't the only ones on Cadillac Mountain, so how could we
possibly be the first ones in the whole U.S. to see the sun that
day?"

"You told me we would be,
Meg. I distinctly remember."

"So you stood up and told
all the other tourists to please close their eyes because
you
wanted to be
first."

Allegra Atwells looked
away with the same roguish smile that had melted every single male
heart that had ever come within fifty feet of it.

And then she threw off her
blanket, stood up, and shouted at the top of her lungs: "Would
everyone please close their eyes so that I can
finally
be the first one to see the
sun rise in the United States? I'm from Bar Harbor, folks. I
live
here."

Virtually every tourist
there turned in surprise to gape at her. Meg groaned and buried her
face in her hands, and when she looked up again, a thin sliver of
bright gold had popped up into the now blood-red sky, casting the
first of its rays across Frenchman's Bay below.

Allie Atwells had probably
got her wish.

"Twenty-five, and still
the same," Meg said, leaning back on the palms of her hands and
looking up at her sister with a kind of rueful
admiration.

Allie stood defiantly on
the rocky outcrop with her hands on her hips. The rising wind
whipped her long black hair across her face and pressed the white
shirt she wore against her shapely breasts. Her face
—
even in the early
morning sun, even without makeup, even after an all-nighter spent
deep in gossip
—
was cover-girl gorgeous, the kind that modeling agencies
would kill to represent.

"Of course I'm still the
same! How can I be anything else?" Allie said, throwing her arms up
melodramatically. "I've been stuck in this god- forsaken corner of
the country all my life. I haven't
been
anywhere,
done
anything,
met
anyone ...
Thanks to your nagging, I've done nothing but work and study,
work and study, work and study."

Meg laughed. "And now here
you are, six years, four apartments, two majors, and eleven
part-time
—"

"Twelve," Allie said with
a wry look. "You forget -- I worked for a week at the front desk of
the Budgetel before you talked me into coming home for the
summer."

"I did that because
finding a full-time job is a full-time job. Anyway,
twelve
part-time jobs
later, and you have a degree. Think of it, Allie," Meg said,
motioning to her to sit back down beside her. "A
degree."
She threw one
arm around her sister and pressed her forehead to Allie's
temple.

"The first one in the
family; we're all so proud of you."

"Oh, Meg," the younger
girl said modestly. "It's not as if it's from
Cornell's
hotel school. It's no big
deal. I still have to start at a pathetic wage in an entry-level
job. A degree doesn't make me any better than you or Lloyd. It only
means I didn't marry young the way you two did."

"Yeah, and I know why,"
Meg said with an ironic smile. "Because the minute you say yes to
someone, ninety-nine other men are sure to cut their throats, and
you can't bear the thought of all that blood on your
hands."

Allie's violet eyes turned
a deeper shade of perfection. "That isn't why I've never married,
Meg, you know that," she said in a soft voice. "I just haven't
found the right one."

Meg sighed heavily and
said, "Whereas I, on the other hand, married my one and only
suitor
—
and then
lost him."

Allie shook her head.
"Paul wasn't the right one for you, Meg. You know he
wasn't."

Meg's brow twitched in a
frown, but then suddenly she smiled and said: "Was too."

"Was not."

"Was too!"

"Dammit, Meg!" Allie
grabbed a short brown curl of her sister's hair and yanked it hard,
then said in a voice endearingly wistful, "It's good to be back,
Margaret Mary Atwells Hazard. I've missed you."

"And I," said Meg softly,
"have missed you too, Allie-cat."

They sat there for a long
moment without speaking, content to watch the kaleidoscope of reds
and pinks that streaked across the morning sky. On a good
morning
—
and
this was one of them
—
the view of the sea from Cadillac Mountain went on
forever.

"Maybe you're right, Meg,"
Allie murmured at last. "Maybe money
isn't
everything."

Meg nodded thoughtfully,
then stood up and stretched. "Let's go home, kiddo. We've got work
to do."

****

Homicide Lieutenant Tom
Wyler was stuck in a traffic jam as thick and wide as any he'd ever
had to cut through back in Chicago. But at least
there
he had resources:
a siren, a strobe, a hailer to warn people to get the hell out of
his way. Here, creeping along the main drag through Ellsworth,
Maine, he was just another tourist, without authority and without
respect.