In the Blink of an Eye (8 page)

He trails off, looking into the kitchen.

The room is empty.

The only sound in the house is the rain falling against the roof two stories up, and the clock ticking at the foot of the stairs.

“There's nobody there, Dulcie.”

“Yes, there is.”

“Did you hear somebody?”

“I thought—I just . . . I just . . .” She shakes her head, swallowing hard. “I guess I was wrong.”

He turns back to Pilar.

And catches her looking at his daughter with a peculiar, thoughtful expression.

Chapter Four

“
H
OW'S YOUR WINE?
Too dry?”

Julia's almost forgotten about the goblet in front of her. “Oh, it's very good.” She takes a sip.

“You're quiet tonight,” Andy Doyle observes, his green eyes on her. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything's good,” she says, smiling at the good-looking russet-haired man across the small table.

Good.
That word again. Things are not good. The wine
is
too dry, but that's the least of what's on her mind.

They're at Lazzaroni's, a surprisingly—for this area—upscale restaurant with an espresso bar, just outside the village gates.

On a cool, rainy night like this she'd prefer to be home in sweatpants with a good book or a Blockbuster rental.

But the food here is excellent, Andy's fun, and maybe this will take her mind off Iris—and Kristin, she thinks, forcing her gaze away from the wide, rain-splattered window and the gray lake waters beyond.

“How did it go today?” she asks Andy, noticing how handsome he is in the soft glow of the low-hanging cone-shaped lamp that hovers over the table.

“It went well. I have some interesting students.”

A fellow medium, he's giving a series of workshops on past-life regression this week, his first back at Lily Dale, where he's spent the last few summers. The rest of the year he travels around the country, teaching and lecturing on parapsychology.

Julia first met him the night she was out with Kristin during her final visit. The two of them had stopped for a few drinks at the White Horse Tavern in Cassadaga on the way back to Lily Dale. Andy had only been in the area for a few days at that point but Julia recognized him as he approached them, having seen his photo in the Lily Dale workshop guide for the upcoming season.

She initially assumed it was beautiful Kristin whose presence lured him over, and she was probably right. It was Kristin whom Andy flirted with that night and Kristin's number he requested. Julia fought back the old jealousy that threatened to bubble up, and bit back her disapproval when Kristin told him where she was staying, and that she would love to see him again.

Julia shouldn't have been surprised. The Kristin she knew wasn't the type who would let motherhood—and a live-in boyfriend—stand in the way of a good time.

After Andy left, Julia asked Kristin straight out if she was free to see other people. Kristin shrugged and pointed out that she wasn't married. When Julia asked her why not, Kristin said glibly, “If it were up to Paine, we would be.”

So it was Kristin who didn't want to make the commitment, not even after having a child.

The following week, after her death, when Julia met Paine, she couldn't shake the memory of Kristin flirting with Andy. She saw the unmistakable devotion in Paine's grief-stricken eyes, and she wondered how well he knew Kristin. Did he believe she was faithful to him?

Well, was she?

Julia has no idea, even now. She can't bring herself to ask Andy whether he ever connected with her friend after that night at the White Horse Tavern. He attended the memorial service along with nearly everyone else in Lily Dale, but had seemed no more sorrowful than the others.

For her part, Julia knew him only casually until last July, when, to her surprise, he asked her out.

He isn't her usual type. Her last few relationships—none of them serious—have been with men who are more reserved and who don't share, or even understand, her profession. Andy is good-looking, flirtatious, and self-assured, and she finds it liberating to be involved with another medium, somebody who doesn't regard her with curiosity or, far worse, skepticism.

They dated casually throughout last August and then he left. They didn't see each other at all during the winter months, and he rarely called. She e-mailed him a few times but his replies were always belated, and invariably brief.

At first that bothered her. She had really thought their relationship might lead somewhere. But as the months went by and their contact diminished, Andy faded from her awareness . . . only to resurface last week in the grim aftermath of Iris's death.

Julia didn't intend to get involved with him again this summer. Yet when she bumped into him over at the Shur-Fine supermarket in Cassadaga on the day after Iris died and he asked her to join him for a drink, she found herself saying yes.

Maybe she just needs somebody to talk to about what had happened. Or maybe it's more than that, because she has found herself attracted to him all over again. This is the third night they've been together.

“Did you decide whether you're going to order the fish or the pasta special?” he asks, and she realizes she's fallen into silence again.

“The pasta sounds good. I'll have that.”

“Julia, are you sure you're all right? You're not yourself.”

“I'm just not very good company tonight.”

“What's up?” He pours more Heineken into his mug. “Are you thinking about Iris again?”

She nods and looks out at the rapidly darkening sky. She should have stopped at Iris's to see Paine and Dulcie. Why didn't she? She meant to do it. She even walked over to the house after the service. But she passed it by, unable to bring herself to see them yet, telling herself that she just isn't ready to mourn Iris anew.

But is that really why she didn't stop?

Or is it that she doesn't want to be in that house again?

She hasn't been back since the day Iris died—the day she felt somebody hovering nearby as she sat alone in the study. It wasn't a malevolent presence. And of course, she isn't frightened by spirits. How can she be, in her line of work?

But something definitely happened to Kristin that night long ago.

Kristin is dead.

Now Iris is dead.

And Julia can't help but be afraid of whatever—whoever—lurks in the house at Ten Summer Street.

“Want to talk about it, Julia?” Andy is asking.

She looks at him blankly. She has never discussed Kristin with him, even now that her mother has died.

“About Iris,” he prods.

“No. I'd rather not,” she says abruptly, then adds, “Sorry.”

“It's okay. Just thought I could help.”

“You can. Entertain me. Tell me about your seminar students. Anyone interesting?”

“Got all night?” He grins and drinks some beer. Then he begins talking, and it's a welcome distraction. They place their order, begin their appetizers.

She's nearly finished her tomato-basil vinaigrette when the door beyond the bar at the far end of the room opens and two newcomers blow in with a gust of wet wind.

Julia, facing in that direction, glances idly at them. The man's familiar, finely chiseled face grabs and holds her attention.

Paine.

He's tall and incredibly good-looking, more so than she remembers, with his tanned skin, unruly dark hair that brushes his collar, and a broad-shouldered build. He's simply dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and a denim jacket. His rakish charm is enhanced by a growth of dark stubble on his cheeks. When his gaze flicks around the dining room and momentarily collides with Julia's, she realizes she's staring.

She hurriedly shifts her gaze to the child with him, and finds herself staring at the identical image of Kristin.

“Do you want to try my crab cakes?” Andy is asking.

She shakes her head, dragging her attention back to him.

Buttering another roll from the basket between them, Andy is telling her about the new lures he just bought for an early-morning fishing trip he's planning first thing tomorrow.

Julia nods as though she's listening intently, struggling to grasp the fact that Kristin's daughter and her—her significant other, Paine—are mere feet away. She has to go to them, but, caught off guard, she isn't ready.

She sneaks another peek past Andy's shoulder as the hostess comes forward to greet them. Julia is struck anew by Dulcie's resemblance to Kristin, even more impressive now that she's older. The lovely face, the long, flaxen hair, or even the defiant way she shakes off her father's arm as he tries to help her take off her red windbreaker . . .

The child is definitely Kristin revisited.

Julia swallows hard over a massive lump in her throat as the hostess leads them out of her line of vision.

“
N
AN?”
P
ILAR ASKS
in a near whisper, leaning toward the bed.

There's no reply. Her friend's eyes are closed, and her breathing is quieter, less labored. Satisfied that she's asleep, Pilar closes the paperback romance novel she was reading aloud.

Knowing Nan has always loved romances, Pilar bought her a couple last week in Wal-Mart. Yesterday when she visited, she noticed that they were still stacked neatly on the bedside table, spines unbroken.

Realizing that her friend has become too weak to even hold them propped up in bed, she promised to come back tonight to read aloud.

Pilar's personal taste leans toward biographies and historic nonfiction, but she can see why the simple contemporary love stories, with their predictable happy endings, are a comfort to Nan.

With a sigh she puts the book aside, rises, and tucks the heavy down comforter more snugly around her friend's shrunken body. She notices that even in slumber, Nan's face isn't at peace. Her features seem slightly contorted, as if in pain.

Pilar pauses in the doorway and looks back at the sleeping woman in the bed, then glances around the room. For the first time, she's struck by its simplicity—just the hospital bed, a small table and chair beside it, the bureau, and a television. The walls are white, the two windows covered in drawn white Venetian blinds, the hardwood floor bare now that Rupert moved the area rug aside so Nan won't trip. There isn't much to look at—no vases of flowers or artwork or family pictures.

She understands that this is merely a spare bedroom—that the master suite is on the other end of the house. But now that it's sadly clear Nan won't be moving back there, it won't hurt to make this room a little more homey.

Pilar decides to bring a bouquet of roses from her cutting garden on her next visit, and to talk to Rupert about what else they can do to cheer things up.

She closes the door quietly behind her, then gives a start when she finds Rupert standing right there, in the small hallway that opens into the kitchen. He has an unnerving way of moving silently around the house. Before she got sick, Nan used to tease him about sneaking up on her.

“Is she asleep?” Beyond his horn-rimmed glasses, his sharp gray eyes are concerned.

Pilar nods. “I made sure the monitor is on. Where's the receiver?”

Rupert pulls it halfway out of his pocket. “I keep it with me all the time now, in case she needs me.” He walks into the kitchen with the stride of a decades-younger man. Pilar isn't sure of his exact age, but she's fairly certain he's past sixty.

She follows him, watching him fill a copper teakettle at the stainless steel sink. The kitchen is sleek and modern, as is the rest of the interior of the cottage. It was built in the mid-nineties, after the Victorian on the site had burned to the ground.

“Can I offer you a cup of tea?” Rupert asks, placing the kettle on the gas stove top and turning on the flame. “I'm going to make some for Nan. I'm afraid I only have herbal . . . keep meaning to get to the store for the regular caffeinated kind, but . . .”

“No, thank you.” Pilar leans against the polished oak table as he opens one of the streamlined white cabinets and takes out a box of Celestial Seasonings.

She hesitates, not certain whether she's about to overstep her neighborly bounds.

Then, still uncertain, she begins, “Listen, Rupert, if you want to go out and do your grocery shopping—or even if you just need to get out for a little while—I can stay here for a few hours and watch her.”

He shakes his head. “Not on a night like this,” he says, glancing at the blackness beyond the nearby window. “It's storming like a son of a bitch out there. Let me give you a ride home, Pilar.”

“No, don't leave her.”

“You only live two minutes from here. I'd be right back.”

“She might wake up and need you. And you're right, I only live two minutes from here. I have my umbrella. I'll walk. But, Rupert . . .”

“What's the matter?” He opens the stainless steel refrigerator, takes out a carton of milk, puts it on the glossy black granite countertop.

“I'm just . . . worried.”

“Well, so am I,” he says gruffly, not looking at her.

“No, not just about Nan. About you, too. Rupert, I've been in your shoes. I know how hard it is.”

It's been over five years since she nursed Raul through the final stages of lung cancer, but she hasn't forgotten the mind-numbing grief and exhaustion.

“You need more help,” she tells Rupert.

“You're doing enough, Pilar. You have your work, and the season's about to start—”

“No, I wasn't talking about my help.” Catching the look on his face, she quickly adds, “It's not that I don't want to help you, Rupert. Of course I do. But I'm busy with readings at this time of year and I'm going away next week. My daughter and her husband are giving me a cruise for my birthday.”

“That'll be nice.”

“I suppose it will.” In truth, she wishes the cruise could be postponed until September, after the Lily Dale season is over, but by then the grandkids will be back in school. Christina and Tom refuse to wait to take the cruise until Christmas, and insist that it won't hurt Pilar to take a week away from Lily Dale in the summer. It's not so much that her finances will suffer if she leaves—Raul's foresight in taking out a large life insurance policy earlier in their marriage left her well off enough so that she could probably get away with not working at all. But she can't help feeling reluctant to interrupt the pleasant, familiar rhythm of the fleeting season, which will officially be under way with opening day at the end of the month.