Everlasting (5 page)

Andy glanced around the room, looking for a free table. He paused for a moment when he caught Tristan looking at him. Tristan quickly lifted up his newspaper, feeling like a detective in a corny movie.

Would Andy talk to him? Would he call the police? Even if Andy hadn’t read one of the newspapers that were
everywhere in a hospital, someone must have said to him, “Hey, remember that patient you took care of? The one who skipped out on you? He’s wanted for murder.”

It took just fifteen minutes for the nurses to finish their lunch, but it seemed like an eternity to Tristan. When the three of them carried their trays to the drop-off station, Tristan stood up and followed, quietly calling Andy’s name.

The nurse turned and gazed at Tristan with the same quick, assessing look he had worn when Tristan was his patient.

“Sorry,” said Tristan, “but I had to ditch the robe.”

Andy’s eyes widened, then he turned to his companions, who had started toward the hall. “I’ll see you upstairs,” he called to them. When they had moved on, he turned back. “Guy?” he asked, using the name Tristan had been given when he didn’t know his identity.

Tristan nodded.

“Jesus! What are you doing here? Tempting fate?”

“I have to talk to you. Can you sit—just for a minute—please?” Tristan gestured to the table where he had left his coffee. Andy followed him.

For a moment they sat quietly, Andy taking the seat against the window, Tristan facing away from the crowd in the cafeteria.

“You look well,” Andy said in a low voice.

“I owe you my life.”

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“I’m not. I—”

“You do owe me the robe I gave you so you wouldn’t moon the other patients in your hospital gown.”

Tristan laughed a little, and Andy smiled, his tan face lighting up, his expression younger than the weathered lines around his eyes. Then he glanced around. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, but you’d better cut to the chase. Hospitals are full of nosy people. Why are you here?”

“I need information. When I came in, what was my medical condition?”

“I didn’t see you until you were brought up to my floor.”

“But you must have read the reports from the ER.”

Andy nodded. “You’d swallowed a lot of saltwater. Because you were so confused when you regained consciousness, we thought there was brain trauma, but the scans showed nothing. Have you gotten back your memory?”

Tristan shook his head. “No. I can’t recall anything from the life of a guy named Luke.”

Andy studied him curiously, perhaps because of the way Tristan had phrased it. But Tristan didn’t see how he could add that the guy named Luke wasn’t him—not without the nurse recommending he reconsider seeing the hospital psychiatrist.

“You don’t remember . . . anything?” Andy asked slowly.

“You mean like committing murder? No.”

“Your blood alcohol level was elevated,” the nurse said. “Everyone has a different threshold for inebriation, depending on their physical makeup and their history of drinking, but I remember being surprised your number wasn’t much higher. You were unconscious for a long time. You had lost blood, but not an excessive amount—the knife wound wasn’t as deep as it appeared. You could have been knocked out by a blow to the head, but as I said, there were no signs of a serious blow. Despite the seawater you swallowed, there were no signs of oxygen deprivation from being underwater for an extended period of time. You were a true medical puzzle.

“And speaking of medical puzzles,” Andy added, “how’s Ivy?”

“You knew?” Tristan asked, surprised. He hunched over. “They put her in the paper, didn’t they?”

“No. They didn’t. Under eighteen, they protect your identity. But Ivy came to see me the same afternoon you left here. And besides, the day I sent her friends and her to the solarium, hoping to cheer you up, I saw your face when you shot out of there.” Andy smiled. “She’d gotten under your skin.
And
I saw you go back after her friends left.”

“You don’t miss much,” Tristan said.

“No, just my patients checking out by way of the stairwell,” Andy replied dryly. “Guy—Luke—there’s one more thing. We did toxicology tests and no drugs showed up.
But there are drugs, not the kind people use by choice, that don’t leave an identifiable chemical trace in the body. The one I’m familiar with is used for medical purposes—it temporarily paralyzes the patient. Some patients react to it afterward with muscle twitches, especially when awakening. It’s one of those things you observe as a nurse, and I observed it with you.”

“Did you tell that to the police?”

“When you were here, the police were interested only in what the first responders and doctors had to say, not a lowly nurse.” Andy met Tristan’s eyes. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Tristan nodded slowly as he realized what this information meant. “That I might have been given a drug that would keep me from running or swimming to safety, a drug that would prevent me from fighting back.” A chill swept over him. “That this thing that landed me in the hospital, it wasn’t just an argument that got out of hand or a fight between two drunk guys. It was premeditated murder.”

“And the person who tried it the first time,” Andy said, “might try it again. Be careful.”

Tristan heard the soft beep of Andy’s pager.

The nurse ignored it. “Do you have a safe place to go?”

“Yes,” Tristan lied.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

The beeper sounded a second time, and Andy glanced at it. “Sorry. I’ve got to get upstairs.”

“Are you going to tell the police you’ve seen me?”

“What do you think?”

Tristan stood up, picked up his coffee, and swirled it around in the paper cup. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t report being contacted by a murderer.”

Andy nodded. “And I don’t understand why, on one morning, I was given two patients with strange medical histories, a guy who still can’t remember anything about the killer he is supposed to be, and a girl who should have been dead on arrival but left the hospital with barely a scratch. I truly don’t understand it. But twenty-three years of nursing have taught me to respect miracles and simply do what I’m trained to do—heal.”

“Thank you.”

“However,” Andy added as they parted, “I might report the stolen robe.”

“GO AHEAD! REALLY, I MEAN IT. I CAN FINISH THE BEDS,”
Ivy told Dhanya and Kelsey at two o’clock that afternoon, shooing them down the inn’s second floor hall. After serving breakfast, she, Kelsey, and Dhanya had vacuumed rooms, wiped out sinks, and changed towels, while Will took care of the suites in the barn. Now Will was outside with Beth, finishing up the yard work. Ivy wondered if Aunt Cindy had noticed Beth’s strangeness and purposely assigned her niece a job that kept her away from the guests.

“I’m not in a hurry. I can handle what’s left,” Ivy said.

“But I thought you were going with us to Chatham,” Dhanya protested.

“Another day,” Ivy replied. “Promise.”

Kelsey dumped a load of folded sheets in Ivy’s arms. “C’mon, Dhanya, we’re wasting time. Gather ye daisies while ye may.”

“It’s
rosebuds
, Kelsey. Gather ye rosebuds,” Dhanya told her friend. With one last glance at Ivy, she followed Kelsey down the back steps.

It had been nine days since Tristan had escaped arrest. Ivy felt as if it was getting harder rather than easier: the not knowing, the creeping fears that something had happened to him and she would never know. She preferred work to lying in the sun—she preferred any activity to sitting still and thinking.

Ivy had just begun to separate the clean sheets for today’s check-ins when Aunt Cindy called to her from the stairway landing.

“Ivy, would you come downstairs? Ms. Donovan’s here.”

Aunt Cindy never called Rosemary Donovan “Officer.”
Perhaps
, Ivy thought,
to keep guests from worrying about a maid continually being checked on by the police
. And the young police woman often came before she began her shift, dressed in casual clothes. Ivy suspected Officer Donovan was attempting to develop a trusting relationship with her in the hope of catching “Luke.”

“I’m finishing the beds,” Ivy said, emerging into the hall. “Okay if she comes upstairs?” Ivy disliked sitting across a table from Donovan, as if they were in an interrogation room.

“No problem,” Donovan replied from below. “I’ve always wanted a peek in the rooms.” She climbed the steps quickly, looking as she always did, dark hair pulled back in a low ponytail and curved sunglasses up on her head. “Oh! Homey!” she said, entering the room called
Apple Time
. “Homey and pretty.”

“This is one of my favorites,” Ivy replied as the policewoman took in the stenciled borders, apple-red quilt, and bedside tables made of old apple bins. Donovan chose to sit in a rocking chair with a needlepoint cushion. “One day I’m going to have a house with rooms like this.”

Ivy nodded and spread a clean bed pad over the mattress, anchoring it at the corners.

“So, I have some news,” Donovan said. “Luke’s moved on.”

Ivy was shaking out the bottom sheet and stopped, letting the cotton float slowly down to the bed. For a moment, her heart had stopped. “Moved on—where?”

“Off the Cape. He may be out of Massachusetts by now.”

Ivy wanted him to be safe, but . . . “How do you know?”

“He dropped his cell phone at a service plaza stop. It was found by the cleaning staff about 5 a.m.”

“Where?” Ivy knew she’d asked the question too fast, with too much interest, but she couldn’t help it.

“On the Massachusetts Turnpike. Ludlow. The bad news is he could have hitched a ride going anywhere from there, north or south on Route 84, or west to the New York Thruway.” Donovan paused, studying Ivy. “The good news is that he’s probably far away from you by now.”

Ivy turned her back, pretending to be focused on making the bed.

“Ivy.”

She yanked on the final, tight corner of the sheet. “Yes?”

“Criminals who are lone wolves often run out of money and helpful strangers. It’s not unusual for them to return to the last person who assisted them. I want you to be cautious in the next several weeks.”

“All right.” Ivy positioned the top sheet so it hung evenly on each side.

“He’s dangerous.”

“Right,” Ivy said, tossing a summer blanket over the top sheet.

“Very dangerous.”

“I know.”

Donovan stood up and took hold of the blanket edge, facing Ivy across the bed, not letting go till Ivy looked up. “Listen to me, Ivy. Even if you don’t yet believe that Luke is a murderer, you can’t ignore the viciousness of the fight he
was in. You saw his condition in the hospital. One way or the other, Luke is part of a violent world. Don’t get caught in the crossfire.”

“That’s good advice.”

“Yeah,” Donovan muttered. “If only you would take it.”

They finished the bed and Donovan left.

Half an hour later, passing through the garden that lay between the inn and the cottage, Ivy saw Beth and Will sitting on the yard swing. Beth held an open sketchpad in her lap, but she didn’t seem interested in it. Will sketched on another spiral pad. Ivy longed for the way it used to be, so easy between the three of them. She had loved watching them, their heads bent together, laughing and creating, totally lost in the world of their graphic novel. Couldn’t Will see it—the distance Beth was keeping from everything that used to matter to her?

“Hi,” Ivy said.

Although Beth refused to acknowledge her, Will looked up. Having been the one to go to the police about the stranger they called “Guy,” he would have recognized Rosemary Donovan. Ivy fought her leftover anger and said what Will already knew: “Officer Donovan came by to see me.”

“Did she?”

“She thinks Luke’s left the Cape. They found his cell phone at a rest stop on the Mass Pike.”

Will nodded without speaking, without showing any
emotion. Ivy would have preferred anger to Will’s coolness and apparent indifference. She felt entirely alone. Turning away, she headed toward the cottage, where she scooped up her music books.

She had put off practicing piano for more than a week. It had been too much to face Father John, the priest who had allowed her to use the piano in his church and then helped her friend “Guy” find a job with one of his parishioners. Recommending the services of a murderer to one of his parishioners: That couldn’t look good on a priest’s résumé. She wouldn’t blame him if he decided not to unlock his church for a girl with friends like that.

Fifteen minutes later, while Ivy was speaking to the rectory’s housekeeper, Father John emerged from his office. “Ivy. I’ve missed you. Are you here to practice?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll walk you to the church. I want to show off my latest rose, Glamis Castle.”

The priest led Ivy to a garden plot enclosed by a picket fence. Stopping inside the gate, he turned to face her.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“A hard week, I think.”

“Yes.”

“Kip was asking about you.”

Ivy nodded. “He was so nice, giving Luke a job and a
place to live, lending him the phone and motorbike.”

“Kip and his wife were very fond of him and as stunned as I was to hear—”

“I apologize for not telling you about the hospital situation and all. I—I should have, but I trusted him.”

“And you don’t anymore?”

Ivy bit her lip.

“I saw no evil in him,” the priest said. “Nor did Kip. We saw only a hard and honest worker. Kip said Luke left everything behind, including his pay. We were both hoping that the police had gotten it wrong, and he would be back.”

“Me too,” Ivy said, relieved that someone else saw what she saw, the person beneath the surface. It was less lonely knowing that the goodness in Tristan was apparent to someone who didn’t know the true story. It was a relief not to have to pretend to be horrified by her connection with Luke.

“Thank you,” Ivy said gratefully.

Father John pointed out a bush that shimmered with white, cabbagelike roses, then walked Ivy to the church door and unlocked it. Inside the church, Ivy sat down at the piano and began to play, losing herself in the music. She didn’t want to think about what it had been like to be here with Tristan.