Luanne Rice

by Summer's Child

  “Could it be like a bat, sending out signals, just like in Rose’s report? Or like sound waves, in her echocardiograms?” Lily asked. “Could Nanny feel how much Rose loves her? No …”

  Liam didn’t reply—at least not with words. He pulled Lily tenderly close, leaning across the console, to kiss her. His mouth was hot, and she melted into him. Waves beat against the rocky shore, wearing it down, smoothing the edges. Lily heard the waves, and she felt the earthquake. It trembled inside her chest, and she reached up to caress Liam’s cheek.

  Lily heard her own question, reverberating in her ears. And she knew—yes, Nanny could feel Rose’s love. Lily had been frozen solid for so long, she had forgotten that love came in waves—mysterious, long-reaching, never-ending waves. If you waited long enough, they eventually touched the distant shore. The waves never gave up.

  She reached up both arms, put them around Liam’s neck, and kissed him with nine years’ worth of passion. He wrapped his good arm around her waist. Outside the truck, the sea splashed against the granite. One wave flew up, and the fine spray misted their faces. Lily tasted salt water, blinked it away.

  “What does it mean?” she asked.

  “Whatever we want it to, Lily Malone,” he said.

  The lighthouse beam clicked on again, lighting up the bay. She stared up at Liam, and she knew—if she turned her head right that instant, that very second, she would see Nanny. She would see the white whale, the mystical beluga who had followed Rose south. But Lily couldn’t look away. She was lost in Liam’s eyes, which were filled with mystery and miracles of their own.

  Chapter 19

  Patrick Murphy sat in the main salon of the Probable Cause, Flora at his feet, looking up whales online. Specifically, beluga whales. It was all very strange, all the websites devoted to marine mammals. There were boat tours on the east coast, west coast, Mexico, and Canada. But very few places boasted the presence of the elusive white beluga.

  Angelo sat up on deck, smoking a cigar, listening to the Yankees.

  “Hey. Bases are loaded. Will you get up here?”

  “In a minute.”

  “You invite me over for beer and baseball, and you ignore me. What’ve you got down there? A sweetheart in a chat room?”

  “I’m doing police work.”

  “You’re freaking retired.”

  “Shut up for a minute, will you?” Patrick asked, making a list of places that ran tours to see beluga whales. He was drinking Coke, because he had sworn off beer and stronger things eight years earlier, but he was getting a caffeine buzz. Or maybe it was just the thrill of knowing he was close to something.

  “You tell me ‘shut up’? I’m your best friend, I brought nachos, and you tell me ‘shut up’?”

  “You’re right—I’m sorry. I’m looking up beluga whales.”

  “Beluga? Like the caviar?”

  “That’s what I thought, but no. They’re white whales.”

  “Like Moby Dick?”

  “Huh. Maybe. I’ll have to ask Maeve. She was a teacher—she’ll know.”

  “Fuck—is this about Mara Jameson? Tell me it’s not. Whatever else you’re doing down there, tell me you’re not wasting another night of your life on the case that went nowhere, is going nowhere, and will always go nowhere.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Patrick said. He had a list, and started studying it: beluga whales could be viewed during summer months at several places in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence—Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and even Quebec Province. Whale-watch tours were offered by companies leaving from Tadoussac, St. John, Gaspé, Cape Hawk, and Chéticamp.

  “Martinez just homered,” Angelo called down. “Grand slam. You missed it.”

  “Hang on. I’ll be right up,” Patrick said, trying to find the names of all the tour operators. What was he going to do—call each one and ask them if they’d ever had a passenger on any of their whale-watch boats that looked like Mara Jameson?

  “Yankees are up 6–1.”

  “Go Yanks,” Patrick said, typing “Mara Jameson, beluga whales,” into the search engine. Nothing. He tried “Mara Jameson, Tadoussac,” then “Mara Jameson, St. John,” and so on. Police work was still often a thankless job. Only, now he wasn’t getting paid for it.

  His cell phone didn’t work in the cabin, so he climbed up on deck. Angelo gave him a reproachful glance, reminding him of how Sandra used to look at him, back when he was ruining their marriage by dogging the Jameson case every minute of the day.

  “Hang on,” Patrick said, walking up to the bow for privacy.

  “The nachos are getting cold!” Angelo called. “And my beer’s getting warm!”

  Patrick put one hand over his ear to block out all the boatyard noise—including his friend’s voice—and dialed Maeve’s number.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “Maeve,” he said. “I’ve got to ask you something. Did Mara ever say much to you about whales?”

  “Whales?”

  “Beluga whales, white ones, like the kind they have at Mystic Aquarium?”

  She was silent, thinking. “Not that I can remember,” she said.

  “Huh.”

  “Ask her about Moby Dick,” Angelo called from up front.

  “Will you shut up a minute?” Patrick called back.

  “Shut—?” Maeve began, shocked.

  “Not you, Maeve,” Patrick said hurriedly. “Did she, Mara, ever mention places up north? Spots she wanted to visit, maybe? In Canada, is what I’m getting at.”

  “Canada?” Maeve asked, sounding interested.

  “Specifically, places on the Gulf of St. Lawrence?”

  “How funny you should ask,” Maeve said. “Because Edward stopped by with a bag of Mara’s things—”

  “Edward Hunter? He stopped by to see you?”

  “Mmm,” Maeve said, coughing. It went on for a moment, until she composed herself.

  “And he gave you a bag of Mara’s things?”

  “Yes. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I didn’t think much of it,” she said. “But there was something very odd, having to do with Canada. Nothing to do with whales, though …”

  “What was it?”

  “Just something to do with her parents’ deaths. It surprised me.”

  “Can you stay right where you are, Maeve? I want to see it.”

  “Where would I go?” she said, chuckling.

  “I’ll be right over,” he said, watching Angelo smack his head with frustration and stuff his face with the last nachos.

  Maeve and Clara were sitting in the living room, playing setback and listening to the Red Sox game on WTIC. The cards were very old, somewhat waterlogged, from so many years in the salt air. Maeve wondered how many games of setback she and Clara had played, dating all the way back to their girlhoods. Candles blazed inside tall hurricane lamps so that they wouldn’t be blown out by the sea breeze. The windows were open, and the smell of salt and honeysuckle filled the room. Maeve felt a bit dizzy, feverish, as if she were coming down with something.

  “What time will he be here?” Clara asked.

  “Well, he said he’d be right over. As long as it takes to drive from Silver Bay.”

  “Twenty minutes, at the most. Now that he’s retired, I wonder whether he ever misses using lights and sirens.”

  “I wonder,” Maeve said, swallowing hard. She had a touch of indigestion. Perhaps she had eaten something that didn’t agree with her. Or maybe it was just a little stress—waiting for Patrick, after the excitement she’d heard in his voice. Reaching for her old needleworked eyeglass case, she tapped her bifocals out and put them on.

  “Do you have Mara’s things all ready to show him?” Clara asked.

  Maeve gave her a deadpan look: What do you think?

  “Well, excuse me! I just wonder what he’ll find that no one else has found before. It seems like a wasted trip.”

  Maeve’s mouth dropped open, shocked at her best friend’s words. />
  “How can you say that?”

  “I just … I just don’t want you getting your hopes up.”

  Maeve closed her eyes. She wrapped her Irish linen shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Her stomach was bothering her, and it wasn’t helping her mood. Clara, of all people, should know that her hopes would stay up until she had one breath of life left in her body. She hoped she was doing the right thing. She shivered; it had been chilly the last two nights, and she had turned on the heat. Getting old was no fun, she thought.

  “So much time has passed,” she murmured.

  “Exactly,” Clara said, taking it the wrong way. “That’s what I’m concerned about. That so much time has passed, yet still you keep the home fires burning. My darling, what if this is just another false lead?”

  Maeve nodded, seeming to agree. She had hoped never to see Edward Hunter again for as long as she ever lived. But he had given her a great gift, bringing the bag over. And Patrick Murphy—dedicated police detective, superior investigator that he was—had followed every clue, more diligently than any grandmother could ever hope or expect. He had never stopped looking for Mara, never for one day.

  “He’s here,” Clara said, spotting Patrick’s headlights.

  Maeve rose, walked through the kitchen to the front door. Moths swirled around the outside lights, and the yellow watering can stood illuminated by the rose arbor. Opening the screen door, she let Patrick inside.

  “Hi, Maeve. Thanks for letting me come over so late.”

  “Hello, Patrick. Clara and I are just having some tea, playing cards.”

  “Sorry to intrude. Hi, Clara,” he said.

  Clara had already poured him a cup of tea, and now handed it to him as he entered the living room. Maeve felt herself weave slightly. She steadied herself without the others seeing. On nights like this, when the summer stars rose out of Long Island Sound and an unexpected visitor came to the door, Maeve never quite got over wishing it was Mara. She saw Patrick waiting expectantly, and went to get the bag.

  “This is it?” he asked.

  She handed him the glossy bag and nodded.

  “He brought it down last week!” Clara said. “The nerve of him, showing up in Maeve’s garden.”

  “Edward Hunter has never lacked nerve,” Patrick said. “May I look?”

  “Certainly,” Maeve said. She cleared off the card table, and Patrick spread the bag’s contents on the surface. She had already gone through everything piece by piece, as had the police before her. She suspected that Patrick himself had already seen everything.

  “Yep,” he said. “Her phone book, her car keys, her silver pen, a little leather sewing kit … we’ve seen all this before. He gave it back to you—why?”

  “I think he wanted to see me,” Maeve said. “For another reason. This was just his excuse.”

  “What other reason?”

  “To see whether I hate him or not. Edward could never stand to be hated. That is his entire reason for living—to be liked by everyone on earth. Even if it is just to get over on them.”

  “But he’s such a slimy salesman,” Clara said. “I never saw it myself, at the time. But now I do. And I can’t understand why darling Mara fell in love with him.”

  “She fell in love with him because she thought she could help him,” Maeve said. “She had the biggest heart in the world, and Edward has a very sad hard-luck story.”

  “But that was so long ago,” Clara said, not getting it. “When he was a child. What does that have to do with Mara? Or the kind of man Edward became, for that matter?”

  Patrick seemed not to be listening as he went through the rest of the items in the bag: a book of poetry by Yeats, one by Johnny Moore, and a collection of newspaper clippings about Mara’s parents’ deaths.

  “It shouldn’t have anything to do with it,” Patrick said. “But guys like Edward use their childhoods as their bread and butter. It’s currency, and they use it to gain sympathy.”

  “Mara’s only mistake,” Maeve said, “was in finally seeing through it.”

  “You think that’s why Edward came back to see you? To see if you see through him?”

  “I’m sure of it. He was bragging about his success as a broker. It’s subtle—he taunts me. Knows that I’m onto him, but can’t do anything about it.”

  “Where’s the part about Canada?” Patrick said. “I don’t see it.”

  “In this article,” Maeve said, separating one yellowed clipping from the rest. Feeling queasy, she watched Patrick read.

  Mara’s parents had been killed in a famous ferry accident in Ireland. As a teenager, she had written to several local Irish papers and asked them to send her the clippings. Maeve’s pulse quickened as she watched Patrick’s face. She wondered what he would make of the mention—how would he put it together with the other clues?

  “‘Residents of Ard na Mara,’ ” Patrick read. “What’s Ard na Mara?”

  “The town in the west of Ireland where her parents were killed.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “In Gaelic, Ard means ‘peak,’ and Mara means ‘sea.’ ”

  “I never knew Mara was named for the sea!” Clara said.

  Maeve nodded. “And for that town. It’s where her mother was born. Keep reading, Patrick.”

  “‘Residents of Ard na Mara have set up a memorial for the victims of the ferry disaster. A brass plaque containing the names of each person aboard the fated vessel will be mounted on a slab of granite, donated by a family from Nova Scotia, Canada. Frederic Neill had come to Ard na Mara to meet with Aran Shipbuilders, to commission the third and largest vessel in his family’s tour boat fleet. Camille Neill, his widow, was reached at her innkeeping office in Cape Hawk, Nova Scotia. “The family wishes to keep Frederic’s memory alive,” she said of the monument. She had no further comment.’ ”

  “Wasn’t that a lovely thing to do?” Clara asked.

  “I wonder whether the family tour boat fleet includes whale-watching boats,” Patrick said, staring into Maeve’s eyes.

  Her hands were shaking, so she held them quietly in her lap.

  “What do you think, Maeve?” he asked.

  “I really haven’t any idea.”

  “Cape Hawk,” he said. “That’s one of the places people can go to see beluga whales.”

  Clara smiled. “Well, they have belugas right at the aquarium in Mystic. And Maeve, you have a membership!”

  “Yes, you do,” Patrick said. “Don’t you?”

  “Mmm,” Maeve said, holding her shawl tighter. It wasn’t a cold night by any means—the fireflies were dancing in the side yard, and the air smelled of summer flowers. But she felt something like an arctic chill blow through the open window. Perhaps her stomachache wasn’t indigestion at all, but the beginning of the flu. She had had a terrible case last winter. It had nearly landed her in the hospital. Maybe she’d put the heat on again tonight.

  “You look pale, Maeve,” Patrick said.

  “It’s just the candlelight,” she said.

  “So, that’s why it was so hard to read the stories,” Patrick said, but he didn’t smile. He seemed fixed on his plans, whatever they were. Maeve was sure he was just being polite, sipping his tea. She wished he’d hurry up, get started on the next phase of his investigation. Or did she? Her stomach churned at the thought. There had been so much hurt, danger, disappointment.

  “Did you find the articles helpful?” Clara asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Patrick said. “There’s at least a coincidence… .”

  “What would that be?” Maeve asked.

  “The mention of Cape Hawk in the story about the ferry memorial, and the fact that it came up in my research earlier tonight.”

  “Regarding whales,” Maeve said.

  “Isn’t that an odd coincidence?” Patrick asked.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences, myself,” Maeve said. Patrick was staring at her. She held his gaze for a few seconds, then saw his eye
s flicker down to her eyeglass case. It was old and well worn, some of the needlepoint stitches worn off after so many years. He stared at it for a moment, as if trying to decipher the word and discern the shape. Could he make out the tail?

  “You’re saying you think there’s a connection?” he asked, steering himself back to the matter at hand.

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Quite.”

  She took off her bifocals and put them back into the case. Her hands were shaking, and she felt a sheen of sweat on her brow.

  “You know, dear,” Maeve said. “I’m not feeling well. I have quite a case of indigestion, and I might be coming down with a summer flu. I’m chilled to the bone. Why don’t you take the articles with you?”

  “I’ll do that, Maeve,” he said, not looking away.

  And Maeve shivered—not because the room had gotten any colder, but because for the first time, Patrick Murphy had looked at her as if she were the enemy. And he had every reason to.

  Chapter 20

  Marisa’s fingers ached from pushing the needle in and out, embroidering the words “Bring Rose Home” on pillow after pillow. Lily’s shop was quiet, except for the Spirit CD playing on the stereo. Marisa had put in Aurora, and Jessica kept playing the title song over and over. The sounds of boats and seagulls drifted in from the harbor. As she sewed, Marisa’s mind wandered back to her childhood, when she had sat at her mother’s knee, learning how to mend her clothes.

  “That’s it, sweetheart,” her mother had said, praising her for the worst, biggest stitches anyone had ever made. “You’re really getting the hang of it!”

  Marisa had loved all the time she’d spent with her mother. Sewing, cooking, gardening—it didn’t matter. Even driving—her mother had let Marisa sit behind the wheel of her bright orange Volvo, driving it in and out of their cul-de-sac, when Marisa was only twelve years old. She’d been the envy of all her friends.

  Her mother had taught Marisa and her sister how to drive a stick shift, how to prune roses just below the new growth, how to look for three-and five-leaf sets on old rosebushes, how to transplant orange day lilies, how to take ivy cuttings, where to look for wild blackberries, how they should never approach swans—because swans, although beautiful and graceful, were very aggressive, and would attack humans.