Luanne Rice (30 page)

He wasn’t a
cop anymore—he was retired. And this wasn’t—had never been—his jurisdiction,
anyway. Marisa opened her mouth, wishing she could ask him a question of her
own. But it seemed too presumptuous. It wasn’t his problem. And besides, Marisa
had never been one to ask for help.

“Don’t
forget that music,” he called after her.

So she
walked out to her car, got in, and drove past the stone gates of the inn’s
parking lot. Starlight sparkled on the onyx bay. Through her open windows, she
heard the night birds calling. She thought of their golden eyes, watching her
as she drove home. They were like sentries, keeping watch, protecting her from
harm. The pine woods closed in around the road, branches interlocking overhead.

Jessica was
settling in to Cape Hawk. Marisa thought of all the good that had happened
since they’d arrived here. Love for Rose had driven Jessica into such
a frenzy
, making the pine pillows and pinecone earrings.
Marisa felt so proud to have raised a child capable of such industry, and for
such a generous reason.

She turned
on her car stereo. When she heard Spirit’s “Aurora”—Jessica’s favorite—playing,
she quickly changed the CD. Another good thing ruined. Marisa drove
along,
reflecting on how many good things in her life had
been spoiled by a person she had loved so much. In spite of Patrick’s words
about music, right now the notes filled her with pain.

Since
Jessica wasn’t in the car, Marisa felt freer to let the emotions come—they had
been living inside, deep in her heart and bones. They had wakened her at night,
shaking her like little earthquakes. Now she began to cry, softly at first, and
then she wailed. The cliffs rose high, and the trees muffled her sobs, and she
just drove along, letting it all out.

Seeing Lily
with Liam and Rose, having her real name and story out in the open—Marisa
longed for that. She missed her mother. There were so many things she had given
up, running away from Ted. But right now, it all coalesced into one sweet wish:
to see her mother.

She parked
behind the house, opened the car door, and just sat there for a minute. The
smell of the woods and sea, spicy with pine and wild berries, salt and verbena,
was like summer wine—heady, intoxicating. Marisa breathed it in, knowing that
she had come here for a reason. Meeting Lily and the Nanouks had made her
stronger.

Was she
strong enough for what she had to do next? She wasn’t sure.

But she
shut the car door behind her, senses alert for anyone who might be hiding in the
bushes—no matter how far she went from Boston and Ted, she was still on high
vigilance—and walked into her house, alone.

Once the
truth was out, and she realized her friend was in no trouble or danger, Anne
managed to find a room for Patrick at the inn. He told her there were no hard
feelings, and he told Marlena he’d be sorry to miss whatever she would have
made him for breakfast. A Celtic band was playing—the music beautiful and
haunting, just the way Patrick liked it.

“Why don’t
you come in and listen for a while?” Anne asked. “You can help me and Jude
practice judging the band. We’re getting set for this summer’s Ceili
Festival—with a big competition for the best band. How about joining us?”

Patrick
hesitated, but shook his head. He was too keyed up to sit still. Instead, he
went to his room, at the far end of the first floor, and threw his bag on the
bed. A shower really seemed like the thing to do, so he stood under the spray
for a long time—until his nerve endings started returning to normal. He
couldn’t get over the fact that he had found Mara—or Lily—he wasn’t sure what
to call her now.

When he got
out, he wrapped a towel around his waist and tried Maeve again. Once again, he
got the machine. He had to hold himself back from blurting out any number of
messages: “Guess what, Maeve—I found your granddaughter. Too bad I was the only
one who actually thought she was lost!” Or, “Hi, Maeve—Mara is alive and well.
Thanks for keeping it a big secret—at least I got my salary paid while I looked
for her.”

He hung up,
threw the phone on the bed. It was hard to feel elated—which he did actually
feel—while feeling bitter—which he also actually felt. It was a mixed blessing,
to say the least.

Who could
he call? Sandra—he could call her, tell her the crime was now officially solved
and, by the way, wasn’t a crime at all. Could he please come home now? He could
just hear her laughing at him. A crime that wasn’t even a crime had wrecked
their marriage. The great detective had really been on top of his game, all the
way.

He could
call Angelo. Angelo, boat-and dog-sitting for the
Probable Cause
and Flora, would be sitting up on deck, listening to
the Yanks, watching the moon rise over Silver Bay, and enjoying the company of
a great, loyal, and loving dog. Angelo might not be the kind of friend to say
“I told you so,” but then again, he might. Patrick just didn’t feel he could
risk it. He was feeling, in the words of the marriage counselor he’d gone to
for a few sessions with Sandra, the sessions during which she’d broken to him
her plans to leave him, “fragile.”

“Fuck
fragile,” he said out loud, and started pulling on his pants and shirt. So what
if he had blown his marriage and screwed up his career, so what if he was a
washed-up retiree who even got fooled—let’s face it, the side trip to Rose
Gables was just icing on the cake—by a club of menopausal and premenopausal
psychos?

Patrick
Murphy was going to take a walk down to the dock. There would be men and
fishing boats there. Probably some of them would have beer. Patrick had been
sober for eight years now, but tonight might be a good time to go off the
wagon. He could almost feel the liquid relief of alcohol burning down his
throat, spreading like hot wire through his body.

One hand on
the doorknob, the phone rang.

Not his
cell—so it couldn’t be Maeve calling back. No, it was the house phone. He
picked up, and a woman’s voice spoke.

“Detective Murphy?”

“Not
officially,” he said wryly. “I’m retired.”

“Well,
then,
retired
Detective Murphy?”

“Yes?”

“This is Marisa
Taylor. I met you earlier tonight.”

“Right—the fiddle player.
You have a daughter. Is it a joke among all of
you—that I saw your nine-year-old and thought she had to be Mara’s?”

She didn’t
reply.
Then, “No.
It’s not.”

Patrick
didn’t speak for a minute, and in the silence, something clicked in his brain.
This wasn’t about him. Mara hadn’t hidden to thwart him. He heard in Marisa’s
voice the same fear that he knew had driven Mara to leave home. His stomach
tightened.

“What is
it, Marisa?” he asked.

“There’s
something I’d like to show you. I know this isn’t your job, but I’d really like
to ask you about it. Would you come over?”

“Yes, I
will,” he said.

She gave
him the directions—involving driving over a chain bridge, taking a left at the
chasm, going past the sawmill—landmarks appropriate to the kind of place a
woman would come to hide in. Patrick had been on a roller coaster since getting
to Cape Hawk, and it showed no signs of stopping.

He buttoned
his shirt, strapped on his ankle holster, and tried Maeve once more—if she
didn’t answer tomorrow, he’d start to worry. Then he was out the door. Whatever
Marisa was calling for, Patrick felt glad to be solving crimes again.

The road
seemed like something out of a fantasy saga—it wound high into the rocky cliffs
and was lined with tall trees that formed a crazily primeval forest. Patrick
saw a family of moose staring out from the side of the road. A little further
along, a black bear lumbered across. Owls called, and something swooped in for
a kill, and the screams were terrible and then stopped.

Patrick
actually found it comforting. Having worked the Major Crime Squad for so many
years, he knew that people were capable of much worse cruelty than the vilest
predator in nature. He could understand why a battered woman would find this
environment so soothing. It was far from civilization—better known in America
as “suburbia”—where everyone dresses nice, talks nice, and acts upstanding.
Patrick had seen what went on behind the closed doors of some of those “nice”
houses, including Mara Jameson’s.

He turned
into Marisa’s
driveway,
saw her standing in the
doorway. Her body was silhouetted from behind, and her loose cotton blouse
rippled in the summer breeze. Patrick reminded himself she had called him as a cop.

“Hi,” she
said as he approached.

“Hi,” he
said.

“I feel
funny, for calling you,” she said, hugging herself, seeming very nervous as she
looked up at him.

“Why?” he
asked. She had beautiful eyes, brown velvet, soft and intelligent. She stared
up at him.

“Because I once asked for a restraining order.
I wasn’t
believed, and my request was denied.”

“I’m sorry
about that,” he said carefully. He’d never want to bash his fellow
law-enforcement officials. But he knew about some domestic violence complaints—especially
upscale people, with successful, well-spoken husbands. By the time the woman
was ready to ask for help, she often felt and sounded crazy—because he had
driven her there, and because she had protected him for so long.

“My
daughter’s not here tonight,” Marisa said. “I thought maybe I could talk to you
a little. And run something by you.”

“Sure,”
Patrick said. She was tall and slender, and she moved with grace and
hesitation—as if she had been unsure of herself for a long time. Patrick saw
her glancing back at him, as if assessing his thoughts and moves.

They walked
through the living room, and she gave him an apologetic glance. “My computer is
in the bedroom,” she said.

“That’s
fine,” he said, knowing she needed reassurance that he didn’t have the wrong
idea.

Nodding,
she led him across the room to the desk. Her computer was a workhorse. The
keyboard looked ancient, and the monitor was enormous. A worn Johns Hopkins
sticker was stuck to the side of the monitor.

“You went
there for college?” he asked.

“Nursing
school,” she said. “I’ve had this computer since then. When I left home, in
April, it was one of the only things I took. It was so important to me, so I
could have the Internet and e-mail—a way to stay in touch with some people I
loved. My mother …”

“Why did
you leave home?”

“The same
reason as Lily.
Mara.”

“I’m
sorry,” Patrick said.

“Thank
you,” she said, looking over, as if she knew he meant it. Should he tell her
that she shouldn’t feel bad or ashamed, that it wasn’t her fault? Did she know
that already? Did she know that men like that often targeted women in the
healing professions? But then, Patrick didn’t like statistics. That particular
statistic left out people like Lily—if that’s what she wanted to call herself,
that’s how he’d try to think of her. He gazed at Marisa, sitting down at her
computer, her thin shoulders drawn up toward her ears, and wondered how long
she’d been carrying this kind of stress.

“Do you go
online?” she asked. “Are you used to the Internet?”

“I’m retired.”
He smiled. “It’s one of the ways I make the days go by.
Fishing,
the Yankees, and research online.”

“I do that
too,” she said.
“Research.
Like, when I found out Rose
had Tetralogy of
Fallot,
I spent days on the nursing
school website.”

“Tetralogy of what?”

“Fallot,”
Marisa said. “It’s a complex heart defect.”

Patrick
nodded and felt a tug inside. He pictured Lily and her daughter standing there
at the inn door—and then he remembered Anne putting back the signboard—looking
just like one of those small-town fundraisers you saw at diners and dry
cleaners everywhere, where some child in the community needed medical help.
Something new for Maeve to deal with—her granddaughter had heart problems. That
made Patrick think of Maeve again, but right now he was focused on Marisa.

“Anyway,”
Marisa said. “There’s a band I like—Spirit.”

“Everyone
likes Spirit,” Patrick said, and he hummed a few bars of “Lonesome Daughter.”

“Not bad,”
Marisa said, giving him a real smile for the first time since he’d arrived.

“Do you
play their music on your fiddle?”

“Every so often.
But that’s not what this is about
… .”

“What,
then?”

Glancing
toward the computer, her smile faded. “Well, there’s a Spirit fan website. It’s
embarrassing to admit, but I go there sometimes—and have, for a few years.
Spirit fans tend to be, well, kind of like the band itself.
Smart,
playful, but with social consciences.
My kind of
people.”