Soulmates kbaa-3

by Элизабет Чандлер

  The glow surrounded her.

  "Tristan," she whispered again. "Talk to me. Why can't I hear you? The others hear you-Will and Beth.

  Can't you speak to me?"

  But the only sound was the light thump of Ella leaping down from her perch and trotting over to her. Ivy wondered if the cat could see Tristan.

  "Yes, she saw me the first time I came."

  Ivy was stunned by his voice. "It's you. You really are-" "Amazing, isn't it?"

  Within herself, Ivy could hear not only his voice but also the laughter in it. He sounded just as he always had when something amused him. Then the laughing ceased.

  "Ivy, I love you. I'll never stop loving you."

  Ivy laid her face down in her hands. Her palms and fingers were bathed in pale golden light. "I love you, Tristan, and I've missed you. You don't know how much I've missed you."

  "You don't know how often I've been with you, watching you sleep, listening to you play. It was like last winter all over again, waiting and wanting, hoping you'd notice me."

  The yearning in his voice made Ivy quiver inside, the way his kisses once had.

  "If I'd had the right angelic powers, I would have thrown some broccoli and carrots at you," he added, laughing.

  Ivy laughed, too, remembering the tray of vegetables he'd overturned at her mother's wedding.

  "It was the carrots in your ears and the shrimp tails up your nose that made you irresistible to both Philip and me," she said, smiling. "Oh, Tristan, I wish we'd had this summer together. I wish we could have floated side by side in the center of the lake, letting the sun sparkle at our fingers and toes."

  "All I want is to be close to you," Tristan told her.

  Ivy lifted her head. "I wish I could feel your arms around me."

  "You couldn't get any closer to my heart than you are now."

  Ivy held out her arms, then folded them around herself like closed wings.

  "I've wished a thousand times that I could tell you I love you. But I never believed, I just never believed I'd be given a chance-" "You have to believe, Ivy!" She heard the fear in his voice ringing inside her. "Don't stop believing, or you'll stop seeing me. You need me now, in ways that you don't know," he warned.

  "Because of Gregory," she said, dropping her hands in her lap. "I do know. I just don't understand why he would want to"-she backed away from the most terrifying thought-"to hurt me."

  "To kill you," said Tristan. "Everything that Philip described about that night happened, only 'the bad angel' was Gregory. And it wasn't the first time, Ivy. When you were alone that weekend-" "But it doesn't make sense," she cried, "not after all he's done for me."

  She jumped up from the piano bench and began to pace around the room.

  "After the accident, he was the only one who understood why I didn't want to talk about it."

  "He didn't want you to think too much," Tristan replied. "He didn't want you to remember that night and start asking questions-such as whether our accident was an accident."

  Ivy paused by the window. Three stories below her, Philip was kicking a soccer ball. Andrew, coming up the driveway, had stopped the car to watch. Her mother was walking across the grass toward him.

  "It wasn't an accident," she said at last. She remembered her nightmare: she was in Tristan's car, and she couldn't stop-just like the night they'd hit the deer and couldn't stop. "Someone fooled with the brakes."

  "It looks that way."

  Ivy felt sick to her stomach at just the thought of Gregory touching her, kissing her, holding her close, close enough to kill her when the chance arose. She didn't want to believe it. "Why?" she cried.

  "I think it goes back to the night of Caroline's murder."

  Ivy walked back to the piano and sat down slowly, trying to sort things out. "You mean he blames me for his mother's-his mother's murder? It was suicide, Tristan." But as she said it she could feel a numbness in her chest and throat, a growing fear that threatened to shut down every reasonable thought.

  "You were at the house next door on the night she died," Tristan told her. "I think you saw someone in the window, someone who knows what happened or was responsible for it. Try to remember."

  Ivy struggled to separate her memory of the night from the nightmares that had followed. "All I could see was a shadow of a person. With all the reflections on the glass, I never saw who it was."

  "But he saw you."

  Bit by bit, the dream was unraveling. Ivy began to shake.

  "I know," Tristan said gently. "I know."

  Ivy longed to feel the touch that she had once felt when he spoke to her that way.

  "I'm afraid, too," Tristan said. "I don't have the powers to protect you by myself. But believe me, Ivy, together we're stronger than he is."

  "Oh, Tristan, I've missed you."

  "I've missed you," he replied, "missed holding you, kissing you, making you mad…"

  She laughed.

  "Ivy, play for me."

  "Don't-don't ask me that now. I just want to keep hearing your voice," she pleaded. "I thought I had lost you forever, but now you're here-" "Shhh, Ivy. Play. I heard a noise. Someone's in your bedroom."

  Ivy glanced at Ella, who stood at the top of the Steps now, peering down into the darkness. The cat crept quietly down the stairs, her tail bristling. It's Gregory, Ivy thought.

  She nervously opened a book and began to play. Ivy played loudly, trying to blot out the memories of Gregory's embraces, his urgent kisses, the night they had been alone in the store and the night they had been alone in the darkened house.

  Trying to kill her? Killing his mother? It didn't make sense. She could almost understand how Eric could do it, half crazed with drugs. She remembered the message she'd overheard on Gregory's phone; Eric was always in need of drug money. Maybe he had tried to get some from Caroline, and things went wrong.

  But what motive would Gregory have had for such a terrible thing?

  "That's what I've been trying to figure out."

  Ivy stopped playing for a moment. "You can hear me?" she asked silently.

  "You don't cloak your thoughts as well as Will."

  So he had heard everything she had just thought, including the part about the urgent kisses. Ivy began playing again, banging on the piano.

  Tristan sounded as if he were shouting in her head. "I guess I shouldn't have been listening in, huh?"

  She smiled and softened the music.

  "Ivy, we need to be honest with each other. If we can't trust each other, who else can we depend on?"

  "I love you. That's honest," Ivy said, speaking all her words silently now, so only Tristan could hear. She finished the song and was about to start another.

  "He's gone," Tristan told her.

  Ivy breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Listen to me, Ivy. You've got to get out of here."

  "Get out? What do you mean?" she asked.

  "You have to get as far away from Gregory as you can."

  "That's impossible," Ivy said. "I can't just get up and leave. I have nowhere to go."

  "You'll find somewhere. And I'll ask Lacey-she's an angel-to stay near you. Until I can figure out what's going on and come up with some evidence to take to the police, you have to get away from here."

  "No," Ivy said, pushing back the piano bench.

  "Yes," he insisted. Then he told her about what he had learned from time-traveling through the minds of Gregory and Eric He recounted the angry scene between Gregory and his mother, how Caroline had taunted him with a piece of paper, and how he'd shoved the floor lamp at her, cutting her face. Then Tristan told Ivy about the memory he had experienced in Eric's mind, the intense scene between him and Caroline, which had taken place on a stormy evening.

  "You're right about Eric," Tristan concluded. "He needs drug money and he's involved. But I still don't know exactly what he's done for Gregory."

  "Eric was searching the gully by the station today," Ivy said.

  "He was? Then he took Gr
egory's threat seriously," Tristan replied, and recounted the argument he had overheard at the party. "I'll watch both of them. In the meantime, you need to get away."

  "No," Ivy repeated.

  "Yes, as soon as possible."

  "No!" This time the voice leaped out of her. Tristan fell silent.

  "I'm not leaving," she said, speaking within her mind again. Ivy walked to the window and gazed out at the old and windblown trees that topped the ridge, trees that had become familiar to her in the last six months.

  She had watched them change from a spring mist of red buds to dense, green leaves to delicate shapes traced with the gold of the evening sun-the color of autumn. This was her home, this was where the people she loved were. She wasn't going to be chased away. She wasn't going to leave Philip and Suzanne alone with Gregory.

  "Suzanne doesn't know anything," Tristan said. "After you left with Will today, I followed her and Gregory.

  She's innocent-confused about you and totally hooked on him."

  "Totally hooked on Gregory, and you want me to leave her?"

  "She doesn't know enough to get herself in trouble," Tristan argued.

  "If I run away," Ivy persisted, "how do we know what he'll do? How do we know he won't go after Philip?

  Philip may not understand what he saw, but he saw things that night, things that won't make Gregory very happy."

  Tristan was silent.

  "I can't see you," Ivy said, "but I can guess what kind of a face you're making."

  Then she heard him laugh, and she started laughing with him.

  "Oh, Tristan, I know you love me and are afraid for me, but I can't leave them. Philip and Suzanne don't know that Gregory's dangerous. They won't be on guard around him."

  He didn't reply.

  "Are you there?" she asked after a long silence.

  "Just thinking," he said.

  "Then you're cloaking," she said. "You're keeping your thoughts from me."

  Suddenly Ivy was rocked with feelings of love and tenderness. Then intense fear rushed through her, and anger, and wordless despair. She was swimming in a churning sea of emotions, and for a moment she couldn't breathe.

  "Maybe I should have lifted just one corner of the cloak," Tristan remarked. "I have to leave you now, Ivy."

  "No. Wait. When will I see you again?" she asked. "How will I find you?"

  "Well, you don't have to stand on the end of a diving board." Ivy smiled.

  "The end of a tree limb will do," he said. "Or the roof of any building three stories or higher."

  "What?"

  "Just kidding," he said, laughing. "Just call-anytime, anywhere, silently-and I'll hear you. If I don't come, it's because I'm in the middle of something that I can't stop, or I'm in the darkness. I can't control the darkness." He sighed. "I can feel it coming on-I can feel it right now-and I can fight it off for a while. But in the end I fall unconscious. It's how I rest. I guess one day the darkness will be final."

  "No!"

  "Yes, love," he said softly.

  A moment later he was gone.

  The emptiness he left inside her was almost unbearable. Without his light, the room fell into blue shadow and Ivy felt lost in the twilight between two worlds. She fought against the doubts that began to creep in.

  She hadn't imagined this-Tristan was there, and Tristan would come back again.

  She worked through some Bach pieces, playing them mechanically one after another, and had just closed_ her music books when her mother called up to her. Maggie's voice sounded funny, and when Ivy reached the bottom of the steps she saw why.

  Maggie was standing in front of Ivy's bureau; the water angel lay shattered at her feet.

  "Honey, I'm sorry," her mother said.

  Ivy walked over to the bureau and got down on her knees. There were a few large pieces, but the rest of the statue had splintered into small fragments. It could never be repaired.

  "Philip must have left it here," Maggie said. "He must have put it too close to the edge. Please don't let this upset you, honey."

  "I brought it in here myself, Mom. And it's nothing to get upset about.

  Accidents happen," she said, marveling at her own calmness. "Please don't blame yourself."

  "But I didn't do it," Maggie replied quickly. "I walked in to call you for dinner and saw it lying here."

  Hearing their voices, Philip stuck his head in the door. "Oh, no!" he wailed. "She broke!"

  Gregory came into the room behind him. He looked at the statue, then shook his head, glancing over at the bed. "Ella," he said softly.

  But Ivy knew who had done it. It was the same person who had shredded Andrew's expensive chair months ago-and it wasn't Ella. She wanted to charge across the room. She wanted to back Gregory against the wall. She wanted to make him admit it in front of the others. But she knew she had to play along. And she would-till she got him to confess that he had broken more things than porcelain angels.

  Chapter 6

  "Tis the Season, Ivy speaking. How can I help you?"

  "Did you find out?"

  "Suzanne! I told you not to call me at work unless it's an emergency. You know we have a Friday night special," Ivy said, and glanced toward the door, where two customers had just come in. The little shop, filled to the brim with costumes and a hodgepodge of out-of-season items-Easter baskets, squeaking turkeys, and plastic menorahs-always attracted shoppers. Betty, one of the two old sisters who owned the shop, was home sick, and Lillian and Ivy had their hands full.

  "This is an emergency," Suzanne insisted. "Did I you find out who Gregory's going out with tonight?"

  "I don't even know if he's got a date. I came here I right after school, so I have nothing new to tell you since we talked at three o'clock."

  Ivy wished Suzanne hadn't called. In the twenty-four hours since Tristan had visited her, she had been on the alert no matter where she was. At home, Gregory's bedroom door was right down the hall from hers.

  At school, she saw him all the time. It had been a relief to come to work: she felt safe among the crowd of customers and was glad not to think about Gregory, even if it was for only six hours.

  "Well, you sure are a lousy detective," Suzanne said, her laughter breaking in on Ivy's thoughts. "As soon as you get home tonight, start snooping. Philip may know something. I want to know who and where, for how long, and what she wore."

  "Listen, Suzanne," Ivy said, "I don't want to be the one carrying stories back and forth between you and Gregory. Even if I knew that Gregory was with somebody else tonight, I wouldn't feel right telling you that, any more than I'd feel right telling him that you're with Jeff."

  "But you've got to tell him, Ivy!" Suzanne exclaimed. "That's the whole point! How is he going to get jealous if he doesn't know?"

  Ivy silently shook her head and watched three young boys jabbing pencils into the store's seven-foot model of King Kong. "I've got customers, Suzanne. I've got to go."

  "Did you hear what I said? I want to make Gregory incredibly jealous."

  "We'll talk later, okay?"

  "Outrageously jealous," Suzanne said. "So jealous, he can't see straight."

  "We'll talk later," Ivy said, hanging up.

  Each time she finished with a customer that evening, Ivy's thoughts drifted back to Suzanne. If Suzanne made Gregory outrageously jealous, would he hurt her? She wished Suzanne and Gregory would lose interest in each other, but this on-again off-again stuff was just the kind of thing to keep the fire burning.

  If I tell Suzanne he's going out with a hundred different girls, Ivy thought, she'll want him all the more. If I criticize him, she'll just defend him and get mad at me.

  At closing time Lillian sat down wearily on the stool behind the cash register. She shut her eyes for a moment.

  "You okay?" Ivy asked. "You look pretty tired."

  The old woman patted Ivy's hand. Her mother's diamond ring, a pink healing crystal, and a Star Trek communicator glittered on her gnarled fingers. "I'm fine, dear,
fine. I'm nothing but old," she said.

  "Why don't you rest a few minutes? I can do the receipts," Ivy told her, taking the pile away from the owner. After they closed up, Ivy planned to walk Lillian to her car. Once the customers left and the lights were dimmed, the cavernous mall would be filled with shadows and small rustlings. That night Ivy would be as glad as Lillian to have some company.

  "I'm nothing but ancient," Lillian said with a sigh. "Ivy, would you do me a favor? Would you close up tonight?"

  "Close up?" Ivy was caught by surprise. Stay by myself? She thought.

  "Sure."

  Lillian got up from the stool and put on her sweater. "Come in late tomorrow, lovey," she said as she walked toward the door. "Betty should be on her feet again, and we'll be all right. You're a dear."

  "It's no trouble," Ivy said softly as she watched Lillian disappear into the mall. She wondered where Tristan was, and if she should call him.

  Don't be such a coward, Ivy chided herself, and turned to open the wall box where the light switches were. She hit the switches, dimming all the store's lights, then changed her mind and turned half of them back on again. Ivy glanced toward the dressing rooms at the back of the store.

  She fought the urge to double-check and make sure everyone was out. Don't be so paranoid, she told herself. But it wasn't hard to imagine someone lurking in a fitting room, and it wasn't hard to picture someone waiting for her in the shadows of the mall.

  "I want everything in your cash box."

  Ivy jumped at the sound of Eric's voice. His finger poked her in the back. Someone else laughed-Gregory.

  She spun around to face both of them.

  "Oh, sorry," Gregory said when he saw the look on her face. "We didn't mean to really scare you."

  "I meant to," Eric said with a high-pitched laugh.

  "We thought you'd be finishing up soon, so we stopped by," Gregory said, touching her on the elbow, his voice soft and easy.

  "To get your cash before you put it in the safe," Eric interjected.

  "About how much do you have?"

  "Ignore him," Gregory told Ivy.

  "She does. She always has," Eric remarked, and started rifling through the shop's bins.