Luanne Rice (32 page)

But now,
kissing in his kitchen while Rose slept upstairs, Liam felt all the walls
breaking apart. They were inside each other’s fortresses, together and standing
strong. She held him tight with both her arms, and Liam held her right
back—with everything he had, his entire heart. He wanted to touch every part of
her, every inch of her skin, right now. This is how people know they’re alive,
he thought. Making each other
feel
joy, because what
else is life for? Both he and Lily had missed out on so much for so long. But
not tonight—and not ever again, he thought, kissing the woman he loved.

Joe Holmes
was fast asleep at home in Hubbard’s Point. The windows were open, and the
breeze cooled his bare back. It carried scents of beach grass, tidal flats, and
his wife Tara’s garden. Joe had been working the night shift on a
white-collar-crime case, listening in on a wiretap on a banker in Stamford. So
when his cell phone rang, he slept right through it. Then it rang again, and he
cursed the caller. Then the house phone rang, and Tara shook his shoulder.

“Honey,”
she said. “It’s Patrick Murphy. That retired Statie? Worked on Mara’s case?”

“Rrrrungh,”
Joe said, taking the phone. “Holmes,” he said.

“Hey, Joe.
It’s Patrick Murphy. Sorry to wake you up, but
I have something big.”

“Is it
information on a dickhead banker in Stamford, I hope?”

“No. It’s
on Edward Hunter.”

“Mara Jameson’s husband?”

“Yes.”

“You have
new information?
About Mara?”

“Yes,”
Patrick said. “And I’ll get to that, but first—you know about Internet fraud.
Do you know anything about people who run cons on message boards? Get people to
donate to phony charities?”

“Yeah.
Hard to prove, hard to
prosecute.
Generally because the con artists are so
slippery.
They run the con,
then
disappear.
They change screen names so fast, and if someone doesn’t think to check out
their IP address before they fade away, then it’s almost impossible.”

“What if
someone managed to save printouts of the entire scam?”

Joe was
awake now, hiked up on his elbow. He had to wake up in an hour anyway—he could
already smell Tara brewing the coffee.

“I’d say we
could look into it,” he said. “If it’s not too late, if the guy hasn’t bolted,
we might be able to nail down his IP link and then trace him to an actual
street address in real time. You want to tell me what this has to do with
Mara?”

“Just this
for now, Joe—the guy might be Edward Hunter.”

“I’d love
to nail that fucking arrogant jerk,” Joe said.

“You and me
both,” Patrick said. Joe heard him breathing hard, probably excited about the
possibility of finally taking Edward to task for something—even if they
couldn’t get him on Mara’s disappearance. Joe yawned, blinking his eyes.

“It’s such
a shame about Maeve,” he said.

“Maeve?”

“Yeah,” Joe
said. “Tara said she saw the ambulance up there two days ago. Clara Littlefield
told her Maeve had some sort of attack, got taken to Shoreline General. I hope
she pulls through—I know she’d love to see the heat go up on Edward.
That slimeball.”

“Thanks,
Joe,” Patrick said.

“No
problem,” Joe said. “Listen—”

But Patrick
had disconnected. The line was dead. Joe just stared at the phone, shook his
head. People had said Patrick wasn’t the same—that he’d gotten too emotionally
involved in the Jameson case. Joe knew better than to throw stones—people were
human, even cops. He had a lot of respect for Pat Murphy, and he had felt very
sorry to hear his marriage had fallen apart. Joe knew he never wanted that to
happen—he had too much to lose with Tara.

Waking up
fully, he smelled the coffee. Then got out of his bed, still naked, and went to
kiss his wife.

It took
some doing, but Patrick managed to convince Marisa to tell him where Lily
lived. She was so elated by the fact that he had called his FBI friend and
learned that there might be a possibility of getting Ted. And then she was so
confused by the fact that Patrick seemed to be saying that “Edward
Hunter”—Ted’s legal name—was also the name of the man Lily had been married to.

“It’s not
possible,” she said.

“Why?” he
asked. “He just cast a wide net.”

“But for
Lily and me both to end up here, in the same place, so far away from our
homes—”

“I’ll bet
that once you and Lily start talking, you’ll realize that something sparked you
to choose Cape Hawk.
A very similar reason.”

“For me, it
was partly spite,” Marisa said, remembering the photo of Ted’s
great-grandfather’s whaling vessel, so majestic with its spars coated in ice,
with the Cape Hawk cliffs rising in the background. “I will confess that with
pride. To get back at him, just a little, for all the humiliation he put me
through.”

“I bet
Mara—Lily—
has
something like that in her story too.
Deep down, she chose this location as a big fuck-you to the bastard who chased
her from her home. Excuse my language.”

“I
understand,” Marisa said. “It’s very late. We’re tired. Listen—I know that
something’s happened to Lily’s grandmother, and she needs to know. But she’s
just been through the wringer with Rose. Her daughter had open-heart surgery a
week ago, and I just can’t let you disturb them tonight. Come back here
tomorrow morning, and I’ll take you to them. I promise.”

Patrick
Murphy stood at her door. He looked down, as if trying to decide whether to
trust her or not. Marisa knew that he had reasons to be suspicious. Women like
Marisa and Lily had to become very smart and shrewd and wily about protecting
themselves. They had learned, with their abusers, to pretend everything was
fine—while secretly forming escape plans in their own minds.

To let him
know that she was true to her word, Marisa reached for his hand. The corners of
his eyes were deeply lined, and his palm felt callused. He held on tight;
Marisa could feel him wanting to anchor himself, to know that he was in a safe
port. She gazed back at him with gravity, without smiling at all.

“I want you
to believe me,” she said. “So I’m going to tell you something. Just so you
trust me. And then I want you to forget it. Okay?”

“Okay,” he
said. His voice sounded ragged, as if he was an old, finished fighter.

“My real
name is Patricia.”

“Patricia,”
he said.

“And my
daughter’s real name is Grace.”

“Patricia
and Grace,” he said.

“But you
can never call us by those names,” she said.
“Ever.”

“They’re
pretty names,” he said.

“They’re
the names we had when we were with Ted,” she said. “And no matter what happens,
we are no longer those people. We’re Marisa and Jessica now, forever. Okay?”

“Okay,” he
said. She squeezed his hand, and she saw light behind his tired eyes.

“Till
tomorrow morning,” she said. “Come back at nine, and I’ll take you to see
Lily.”

“Till
then,” he said. And as he walked out to his car, Marisa watched his back and
hoped he knew that he didn’t have to worry. He could go to sleep knowing she
wasn’t going to run away on him.

Chapter 27

W
aking up in Liam’s house, at first Lily didn’t
know where she was. The sun shining through the trees, and the wide blue bay
out his window, seemed almost like a dream. She had hardly slept all
night—walking into Rose’s room several
times,
to make
sure she was breathing regularly and sleeping well. Midway through the night,
she had felt Liam lie down beside her, on the twin bed in his spare room.

The rusty
old springs creaking under his weight, he had curled up against her back. The
night was warm, even up here where the wind blew steadily off the Gulf of St.
Lawrence. Liam’s steady heartbeat and his breath on the back of her neck
finally soothed her into a fitful sleep. Troubled dreams came and went, but
when the sun finally rose, she sat straight up and said, “Granny.”

“Lily,”
Liam whispered.

She looked
around, trying to get her bearings. The stone walls, the leaded windows, the
dark green trim—this wasn’t Hubbard’s Point. The fog cleared from her brain,
and she realized she had dreamed of the beach. Of walking into her
grandmother’s rose garden with sand on her feet, of her grandmother rinsing
them off with the watering can. She could almost see the little circle of
shells and a sand dollar embedded in the cement.

“Lie down a
little longer,” Liam urged. “You hardly got any rest at all. You might have a
long day ahead of you.”

Somehow
Lily knew he meant answering the police officer’s questions, and getting Rose
reacclimated to life outside the hospital, but Lily just thought of her
grandmother and felt a warm breeze blow through the window. She swore it
smelled of Hubbard’s Point roses. Climbing out of bed, Lily checked Rose again.
Her sense of vigilance was on very high alert.

She cuddled
back into Liam’s embrace, trying to close her eyes and settle down. Her body
was so tense, her spine arched. Liam stroked her shoulder, rubbed her back.
Just knowing that he was there made it safe enough for her to let the thoughts
come. The dream had shaken her. Lately she’d been feeling her grandmother’s
presence. Starting with that night before they went down to Boston, it was
almost as if Maeve had been calling to her; she’d heard her voice in the summer
air.

The pull to
southern New England had been strong. But Lily had been so focused on Rose
getting
well,
she had pushed it from her mind. But the
dream was so powerful
tonight,
Lily couldn’t ignore
her feelings any longer. She stared into the darkness, thinking about
everything.

Her
greatest fears had always been regarding Edward, and what he would do to her,
her grandmother, and, now, Rose. Nine years on this rocky, austere Canadian
coast had toughened Lily some—but so had being a mother. Giving birth to Rose
had changed Lily and the world. From the very instant Liam had placed Rose into
Lily’s
arms,
she had turned into a mother tiger. She
would fight to the death to protect her baby.

Lying with
Liam now, Lily thought about what to do. She saw it as a quest: nothing less
than life and death, with her and Rose’s freedom as the prize. If she was brave
and true, followed her heart, she would win their freedom. They could go
wherever and whenever they wanted, and they would never have to worry about Edward
again.

All that
had come before had brought them to this point. What if Lily just faced Edward
down? No more hiding, no more missing Maeve. She could finally go home, and
introduce Rose to her great-grandmother.

“Why can’t
you sleep?” Liam asked after a few more minutes.

“I’m
thinking,” she said.
“Of my old home.”

“You’re
leaving, aren’t you?”

“Liam,” she
whispered.

He didn’t
reply, but just held her tighter. Lily didn’t know what to do, so she didn’t
know what to say. She linked her fingers with his, leaned down to kiss the back
of his hand.

She never
did get back to sleep. When she heard Rose stirring, she got up and walked into
the next room so Rose would see her when she wakened. Rose struggled to sit
up—she had gotten stiff during the night. Her left hand instinctively rested at
her neck, protecting her heart. Lily helped her out of bed, eased her feet into
her slippers.

They went
downstairs, where Liam was in the kitchen, making coffee and pouring orange
juice.

“Good
morning, Rose,” he said. “How did you sleep?”

“It was the
best sleep I ever had,” she said, smiling.

They sat at
the round oak table, and then Lily saw what it had been too dark to see last
night: pictures on the wall and refrigerator. Rose’s school pictures in frames
on the wall, a couple of her old drawings—from kindergarten and first grade—on
the refrigerator. Lily had only vague memories of Rose insisting that they
cross the hallway to Liam’s office, to give them to him.

“You saved
them?” Rose asked.

“Of
course,” he said. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Yes,” she
said. “I thought you wouldn’t.”

Liam
chuckled, although when Lily saw him logging on to his laptop, she knew he was
checking on Nanny. She glanced at Rose, to see whether she had picked up on it,
but Rose was busily looking down her nightgown to see her stitches.

“How do
they look?” Lily asked.

“Good,”
Rose said.

Lily leaned
over to check—everything looked as if it was healing fine, the edges of the
long incision drawn perfectly together, no clear fluid, no sign of yellow fluid
or infection of any kind.

“You’re
right,” Lily said. “Good.”

They poured
bowls of cereal, and then Liam came over to eat with them. Whatever he had seen
onscreen was a mystery, because he didn’t mention it. Lily’s heart sank—she had
the feeling that meant that Nanny was wandering even farther south. If only joy
could follow joy. If only people could have everything, everyone they loved—all
at the same time.

She thought
of the singular love she had felt just twenty-four hours ago—when they were
still in Boston, when her entire world was made up of newly found love and a
newly healthy daughter. She had made peace long ago with her decision to leave
Hubbard’s Point, leave that life behind. But now, a day later, her world had
been rocked by the hint of her grandmother needing her.

Lily stared
out Liam’s kitchen window, at the wide, amazing, blue Gulf of St. Lawrence.
When she turned from the window, she caught Liam watching her. His eyes were
sad, as if he could read her mind.

But because
Rose was right there, no words were possible. They all just ate breakfast—or,
in the case of Lily and Liam, didn’t eat, but just pushed their cereal around
with their spoons.

A knock
sounded at the door, and Liam went to answer. Lily took a deep breath. Even
before he returned, she knew that Patrick Murphy would be with him. And he was;
but Lily was surprised to see Marisa there too. The looks on their faces told
Lily that she needed to move Rose into a room where she wouldn’t hear.

She settled
Rose on the sun porch—with a book and her bag of needlepoint. Rose had started
doing a project at the end of school, and this was the first she’d felt well
enough to continue. Kissing Rose on the top of her head, Lily returned to the
kitchen. The expression in Patrick Murphy’s eyes made her feel she was about to
be arrested.

“What is
it?” she asked. “Are you going to put me in handcuffs?”

“He
wouldn’t do that to you or me,” Marisa said. “We’ve done nothing wrong. But
Edward has.”

“Edward?”
Lily asked, feeling electricity racing down her neck.

“Ted,”
Marisa said.

“Ted—that’s your husband.”

Ted,
Edward, she thought, suddenly seeing the dull hurt in Marisa’s eyes. Don’t let
this be happening. “No,” Lily said.

“What made
you come to Cape Hawk?” Patrick asked.

“It’s a
long story,” Lily said. “I think you already know most of it. You have the news
article about the ferry memorial stone. The other part has to do with a lie my
husband used to tell—to get people to think he was descended from a ship
captain.”

“The
whaling ship,” Marisa said.
“With ice on the rigging.
And the cliffs of the fjord in the background.”

“Tell me
this isn’t happening,” Lily said, feeling the blood drain from her face. “You
were married to Edward Hunter?”

Marisa
nodded.

“Didn’t you
know he was under suspicion for killing his wife?” Lily whispered.

“No,”
Marisa said. “I had no idea until last night. You’ve been missing for nine
years. I must have missed the story when it all started, because I was pregnant
with Jessica—she was born the week after Rose, but it was a difficult
pregnancy, and I had to go into the hospital. I vaguely remember hearing about
a pregnant woman missing in Connecticut—but
Lily,
I
couldn’t bear to hear about the case. I was just about to have my baby, and I
couldn’t stand to think about what you might have gone through.”

“Jessica
and Rose have almost the same birthday.”

“I know.
Exactly.
When I think of it now,” Marisa said, holding
Lily’s hands, “I wonder whether that was part of the allure. Ted, Edward, knew
my husband from the golf club. He’d done some stock transactions for us—he had
all our family information, including birthdays. My husband liked him. So when
Paul died, I just continued using Ted. He managed the inheritance funds—and
when I remember that first meeting, he commented on Jessica’s birthday.”

“He did?”

Marisa
nodded. “He told me that someone he had cared about deeply had had a baby at
that time—and it was very sacred for him.”

“Sacred!”
Lily exploded.

“That’s
what he said.”

“He scammed
you,” Lily gasped, grabbing her, hugging her and feeling them both shaking so
hard, the two wives of Edward Hunter. “Just the way he scammed me.”

“We almost
had him too,” Marisa said. “Patrick called his friend in the FBI, and we were
right on Ted’s trail—with another scam, on the Internet. But the agent called
Patrick this morning to say he’d erased his account, and the message board
doesn’t archive old messages.”

“It’s
true,” Patrick said. “We’ll have to get him another way. But never mind that
for now. Mara, Lily—”

“Lily,” she
said. “Please, Mara is from another time and place. I can’t think of her now.”

“You might
have to,” he said. “There’s no good way to tell you this.”

“What is
it?” Liam asked, stepping closer to Lily, putting his arm around her for
support.

“It’s your
grandmother,” Patrick said. “I spoke with Clara Littlefield this morning, and
Maeve had a seizure at home three days ago. The ambulance took her to Shoreline
General, and she’s in a coma.”

“Oh,
Granny,” Lily said, tears flooding. “It can’t be true!”

“I’m
sorry,” Patrick said.

Lily leaned
against Liam’s chest, weeping. If only she had listened to her heart on that
trip to Boston. Something was telling her to go home, go to Hubbard’s Point.
She had dismissed it, thinking it was just her old homesickness, kicked by
being in New England. But it had been Maeve, calling her. They had always been
so connected; how could Lily have thought she would go on forever, just waiting
for the time when Lily felt safe enough to return?

“Why did I
wait so long?” Lily wept. “She needed me, and I wasn’t there.”

“You had to
think of Rose,” Liam said, kissing her hair. “You had good reason to stay
hidden.”

“Maeve
loves you,” Patrick said. “She must have felt good, knowing she helped you get
away. She wouldn’t have wanted you to walk into harm’s way.”

“Patrick
told me that she always carries the needlepoint case you made her,” Marisa
said.

“I made her
an honorary Nanouk,” Lily said, sniffling.

“The
Nanouks will be with you,” Marisa said. “Wherever you
go,
whatever you do. You know that—”