Luanne Rice

by Summer's Child

  “How is Edward connected to Camille?” Liam asked, confused.

  “He had this old framed photograph hanging on the wall. It showed an old whaling ship at the dock in winter. So beautiful, haunting—all the spars and shrouds covered in ice. He would tell people that his great-grandfather was a whaling captain. It was just a lie, like his story about going to Harvard, but he told it so often, I think he almost believed it himself.”

  “What was the ship’s name?” Liam asked.

  “The Pinnacle,” Lily said, her eyes shining.

  “My great-great-grandfather’s ship,” he said quietly. “The first Tecumseh Neill.”

  “I know,” Lily said. “I used to stare at the picture and feel as if the ice in my heart was right there in the photo. My frozen veins—all the cold I felt inside from living with Edward. All he cared about the picture was using it to convince people he came from a sea captain background. But I felt haunted by the scenery. The cliffs, the frozen fjord, and the depth of winter, were so austere. They matched how extreme I felt inside.”

  “How did you find where the picture had been taken?”

  “The provenance was very easy to track. It was an original taken by a well-known photographer. Sepia-toned, silver gelatin print, fairly valuable. The gallery stamp was on the back, and I called to ask. You see, it had once been owned by Camille.”

  “She has a fairly substantial collection of local maritime art,” Liam said, amazed by the coincidence.

  “I remember seeing the receipt and being shocked, because that was the woman who had donated the ferry memorial. And I remember thinking she had an odd name. Camille Neill. I never thought I’d meet her.”

  “So that’s why you came here?” Liam asked. “Those two reasons?”

  “Partly,” she said. “I liked the connection with my parents, and I thought I’d never seen anyplace as beautiful as Cape Hawk. I felt a tiny, secret revenge, coming to a place Edward actually looked at every day—the picture he used to support the lies he told about his illustrious ancestor. He would tell people it was Newfoundland, because he had no idea.”

  “Good one, Lily,” Liam said, hugging her.

  “And also because it was so very far away.”

  “From Edward.”

  Lily nodded. “Which was wonderful. But also terrible, because it was so far from my grandmother. She wanted me to run far and disappear—she gave me money and helped me cover my tracks, lied to the police, I’m sure.”

  “Patrick Murphy,” Liam said. When everyone else was busy greeting Rose and rallying round Lily, Liam had noticed the cop’s eyes—happy, to see the woman he called Mara, but also something else. Sad, betrayed. Liam had felt for him.

  “Yes,” Lily said. “Do you think it’s true, what he said? That my grandmother wanted him to find me?”

  “I thought she knew where you were. Why didn’t she just call?”

  “She didn’t know where I ran to. We decided that was the only way to really protect me and Rose. I sent her small, secret things. The clipping, a glasses case—making her an honorary Nanouk—a membership to a local aquarium. I thought that if Nanny brought such happiness to me and Rose, then maybe her relatives could somehow connect us with Maeve.”

  “Why don’t you call your grandmother?” Liam asked, reacting to Lily’s mention of Nanny, but not wanting to show how worried he felt about her whereabouts and the tracking data—she continued swimming south, and when he’d last checked, seemed to be feeding in the waters off Block Island.

  “I would,” Lily said. “But I’m still not sure we’re safe. If Edward finds out I’m alive, he’ll come after Rose for sure. And I may just have given him grounds for custody—by disappearing. Liam, what if he tries to get Rose?”

  “I meant what I said before,” Liam said steadily, more seriously than he’d ever said anything in his life. He knew for certain that if Edward Hunter—or anyone else—ever tried to harm Lily or Rose, he would kill them without looking back. After what the man had done to Lily, he would almost welcome the chance.

  Lily leaned into him, standing on tiptoes to rise up and kiss him. Liam felt a rush of heat inside, flooding every part of his body. He had kept his feelings for Lily and Rose secret for so long—because he’d known that she was too closed off, that her defenses were too impenetrable. Maybe he knew that his had been as well.

  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 th
at 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

  Waking 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 kindergarte
n 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.