River's End

by Nora Roberts

  “Oh, Livvy.” Jamie started to reach out, but Olivia stepped back.

  “You have to promise not to say anything to anyone. Not to Grandma or Grandpop or Uncle David. Not to anyone.”

  “But, Livvy—”

  “You have to promise.” Panic snuck into her voice, tears into her eyes. “If you promise you won’t say anything, then you won’t.”

  “All right, baby.”

  “I’m not a baby.” But this time Olivia let herself be held. “Nobody ever talks about her, and all her pictures got put away. I can’t remember unless I try really hard. Then it gets all mixed up.”

  “We just didn’t want you to hurt. You were so little when she died.”

  “When he killed her.” Olivia drew back. Her eyes were dry now and glinting in the dim light. “When my father killed her. You have to say it out loud.”

  “When Sam Tanner killed her.”

  The pain reared up, hideously fresh. Giving in to it, Jamie sat beside a nurse log, breathed out slowly. The ground was damp, but it didn’t seem to matter.

  “Not talking about it doesn’t mean we don’t love her, Livvy. Maybe it means we loved her too much. I don’t know.”

  “Do you think about her?”

  “Yes.” Jamie reached out a hand, clasping Olivia’s firmly. “Yes, I do. We were very close. I miss her every day.”

  With a nod, Olivia sat beside her, idly played her light on the ground. “Do you think about him?”

  Jamie shut her eyes. Oh God, what should she do, how should she handle this? “I try not to.”

  “But do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he dead, too?”

  “No.” Nerves jittering, Jamie rubbed a hand over her mouth. “He’s in prison.”

  “Why did he kill her?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. It doesn’t do any good to wonder, Livvy, because it’ll never make sense. It’ll never be right.”

  “He used to tell me stories. He used to carry me on his back. I remember. I’d forgotten, but I remember now.”

  She continued to play the light, dancing it over the rotting log that nurtured seedlings she recognized as hemlock and spruce, the rosettes of tree moss that tumbled over it, the bushy tufts of globe lichen that tangled with it. It kept her calm, seeing what she knew, putting a name to it.

  “Then he got sick and went away. That’s what Mama told me, but it wasn’t really true. It was drugs.”

  “Where are you hearing these things?”

  “Are they true?” She looked away from the log, the flourishing life. “Aunt Jamie, I want to know what’s true.”

  “Yes, they’re true. I’m sorry they happened to you, to Julie, to me, to all of us. We can’t change it, Livvy. We just have to go on and do the best we can.”

  “Is what happened why I can never come visit you? Why Grandma teaches me instead of my going to school with other kids? Why my name’s MacBride instead of Tanner?”

  Jamie sighed. She heard an owl hoot and a rustle in the brush. Hunters and hunted, she thought. Only looking to survive the night. “We decided it was best for you not to be exposed to the publicity, to the gossip, the speculations. Your mother was famous. People were interested in her life, in what happened. In you. We wanted to get you away from all that. To give you a chance, the chance Julie would have wanted for you to have a safe, happy childhood.”

  “Grandma locked it all away.”

  “Mom—Grandma . . . It was so hard on her, Livvy. She lost her daughter.” The one she couldn’t help but love best. “You helped get her through it. Can you understand that?” She gripped Olivia’s hand again. “She needed you as much as you needed her. She’s centered her life on you these last years. Protecting you was so important—and maybe by doing that she protected herself, too. You can’t blame her for it.”

  “I don’t want to. But it’s not fair to ask me to forget everything. I can’t talk to her or Grandpop.” The tears wanted to come again. Her eyes stung horribly as she forced them back. “I need to remember my mother.”

  “You’re right. You’re right.” Jamie draped an arm around Olivia’s shoulders and hugged. “You can talk to me. I won’t tell anyone else. And we’ll both remember.”

  Content with that, Olivia laid her head on Jamie’s shoulder. “Aunt Jamie, do you have tapes of the movies my mother was in?”

  “Yes.”

  “One day I want to see them. We’d better go back in.” She rose, her eyes solemn as she looked at Jamie. “Thanks for telling me the truth.”

  What a shock it was, Jamie thought, to expect a child and see a woman. “I’ll make you another promise right here, Livvy. This is a special place for me, a place where if you make a promise, you have to keep it. I’ll always tell you the truth, no matter what.”

  “I promise, too.” Olivia held out her hand. “No matter what.”

  They walked out, hands linked. At the edge of the clearing, Olivia looked up. The sky had gone a deep, soft blue. The moon, no longer a ghost, cut its white slice out of the night. “The first stars are out. They’re there, even in the daytime, even when you can’t see them. But I like to see them. That’s Mama’s star.” She pointed up to the tiny glimmer near the tail of the crescent moon. “It comes out first.”

  Jamie’s throat closed, burned. “She’d like that. She’d like that you thought of her, and weren’t sad.”

  “Coffee’s on!” Val called through the door. “I made you a latte, Livvy. Extra foam.”

  “We’re coming. She’s happy you’re here, so I get latte.” Olivia’s smile was so sudden, so young, it nearly broke Jamie’s heart. “Let’s get our share of tiramisù before Grandpop hogs it all.”

  “Hey, for tiramisù, I’d take my own father down without a qualm.”

  “Race you.” Olivia darted off like a bullet, blond hair flying.

  It was that image—the long blond hair swinging, the girlish dare, the swift race through the dark—that Jamie carried with her through the evening. She watched Olivia scoop up dessert, stage a mock battle with her grandfather over his serving, nag David for details about his meeting Madonna at a party. And she wondered if Olivia was mature enough, controlled enough, to tuck all her thoughts and emotions away or if she was simply young enough to cast them aside in favor of sweets and attention.

  As much as she’d have preferred it to be the latter, she decided Olivia had inherited some of Julie’s skills as an actress.

  There was a weight on her heart as she prepared for bed in the room that had been hers as a girl. Her sister’s child was looking to her now, as she had during those horrible days eight years before. Only this time, she wasn’t such a little girl and wouldn’t be satisfied with cuddles and stories.

  She wanted the truth, and that meant Jamie would have to face parts of the truth she’d tried to forget.

  She’d dealt with the unauthorized biographies, the documentaries, the television movie, the tabloid insanity and rumors dealing with her sister’s life and her death. They still cropped up from time to time. The young, beautiful actress, cut down in her prime by the man she loved. In a town that fed itself on fantasy and gossip, grim fairy tales could often take on the sheen of legends.

  She’d done her best to discourage it. She gave no interviews to the press, cut no deals, endorsed no projects. In this way she protected her parents, the child. And herself.

  Still, every year, a new wave of Julie MacBride stories sprang up. Every year, she thought, leaning on the pedestal sink and staring at her own face in the mirror, on the anniversary of her death.

  So she fled home every summer, escaped it for a few days, let herself be tucked away as she’d let Olivia be tucked away.

  They were entitled to their privacy, weren’t they? She sighed, rubbed her eyes. Just as Olivia was entitled to talk about the mother she’d lost. Somehow, she had to see to it that they managed to have both.

  She straightened, pushed the hair back from her face. She’d let her h
airdresser talk her into a perm and some subtle highlighting around her face. She had to admit, he’d been right. It gave her a softer, younger look. Youth wasn’t just a matter of vanity, she thought. It was a matter of business.

  She was beginning to see lines creeping around her eyes, those nasty little reminders of age and wear and tear. Sooner or later, she’d have to consider a tuck. She’d mentioned it to David, and he’d just laughed.

  Lines? What lines? I don’t see any lines.

  Men, she thought now, but they’d both known his response had pleased her.

  Still, it didn’t mean she could afford to neglect her skin. She took the time to smooth on her night cream, using firm, upward strokes along her throat, dabbing on the eye cream with her pinkies. Then she added a trail of perfume between her breasts in case her husband was feeling romantic.

  He often was.

  Smiling to herself, she went back into the bedroom where she’d left the light burning for David. He hadn’t come up yet, so she closed the door quietly, then moved to the chevel glass. She removed her robe and took inventory.

  She worked out like a fiend three days a week with a personal trainer she secretly called the Marquessa de Sade. But it paid off. Perhaps her breasts would no longer qualify as perky, but the rest of her was nice and tight. As long as she could pump and sweat, there’d be no need for nips and tucks anywhere but her eyes.

  She understood the value of keeping herself attractive—in her public relations work and in her marriage. The actors and entertainers she and David worked with seemed to get younger every time she blinked. Some of his clients were beautiful and desirable women, young women. Succumbing to temptation, Jamie knew, was more often the rule rather than the exception in the life she and David lived.

  She also knew she was lucky. Nearly fourteen years, she mused. The length of their marriage was a not-so-minor miracle in Hollywood. They’d had bumps and dips, but they’d gotten through them.

  She’d always been able to depend on him, and he on her. And the other not-so-minor miracle was that they loved each other.

  She slipped back into her robe, belting it as she walked to the deck doors and threw them open to the night. She stepped out, to listen to the wind sigh through the trees. To look for Julie’s star.

  “How many times did we sit out on nights like this and dream? We’d whisper together when we were supposed to be in bed. And we’d plan. Such big, shiny plans. I’ve got so much I dreamed of, so much I wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t had the big dreams first. I might never have met David if not for you. Would never have had the courage to start my own company. So many things I wouldn’t have done, wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t followed after you.”

  She leaned on the rail, closing her eyes as the wind toyed with her hair, the hem of her robe, shivered along her bare skin. “I’ll make sure Livvy dreams big, too. That nothing stops her from grabbing hold of what she needs most. And I’m sorry, Julie. I’m sorry I had a part in trying to make her forget you.”

  She stepped back, rubbing her arms as the air turned chilly. But she stayed outside, watching the stars until David found her.

  “Jamie?” When she turned, his eyes warmed. “You look beautiful. I was afraid you’d gone to bed while I puffed cigars and told lies with your father.”

  “No, I wanted to wait for you.” She stepped into his arms, nestled her head on his shoulder. “I waited just for this.”

  “Good. You’ve been quiet tonight. Are you all right?”

  “Hmm. Just a little lost in thoughts.” Too many she couldn’t share with him. A promise had been given. “Tomorrow it’ll be eight years. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago, and others like yesterday. It means so much to me, David, that you come with me every year. That you understand why I have to be here. I know how hard it is for you to juggle your schedule to carve out these few days.”

  “Jamie, she mattered to all of us. And you . . .” He drew her back to kiss her. “You matter most.”

  With a smile, she laid her hand on his cheek. “I must. I know how much you love tramping through the woods and spending an afternoon fishing.”

  He grimaced. “Your mother’s taking me out on the river tomorrow.”

  “My hero.”

  “I think she knows I hate fishing and makes me go out every summer to pay her back for stealing her daughter.”

  “Well then, the least her daughter can do is make it worth your while.”

  “Oh yeah?” His hands were already sliding down to mold her bottom through the thin robe. “How?”

  “Come with me. I’ll show you.”

  Olivia dreamed of her mother and whimpered in her sleep. They huddled together in a closet filled with animals who stared with glassy eyes. She shivered in the dark, holding tight, so tight because the monster raged outside the door. He was calling her name, roaring it out while he stomped on the floor.

  She buried her face against her mother’s breast, pressed her hands over her ears as something crashed close, so close to where she tried to disappear.

  Then the door burst open and the closet bloomed with light. In the light she saw the blood, all over her hands, all over her mother’s hair. And Mama’s eyes were like the eyes of the animals. Glassy and staring.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Daddy said, and snapped the scissors that shined and dripped.

  As she tossed in sleep, others dreamed of Julie.

  Images of a lovely young girl laughing in the kitchen as she learned to make red sauce like her grandmother’s. Of a much-loved companion who raced through the woods with her pale hair flying. Of a lover who sighed in the night. A woman of impossible beauty dancing in a white dress on her wedding day.

  Of death, so terrible, so stark it couldn’t be remembered in the light.

  And those who dreamed of her wept.

  Even her killer.

  It was still dark when Val knocked briskly on the bedroom door. “Up and at ’em, David. Coffee’s on and the fish are biting.”

  With a pitiful moan, David rolled over, buried his head under the pillow. “Oh, my God.”

  “Ten minutes. I’ll pack your breakfast.”

  “The woman’s not human. She can’t be.”

  With a sleepy laugh, Jamie nudged him toward the edge of the bed. “Up and at ’em, fish boy.”

  “Tell her I died in my sleep. I’m begging you.” He pushed the pillow off his head and managed to bring his wife’s silhouette into focus. She smiled when his hand closed warmly over her breast. “Go catch fish, and if you’re very good, I’ll reward you tonight.”

  “Sex doesn’t buy everything,” he said with some dignity, then crawled out of bed. “But it buys me.” He tripped over something in the dark, cursed, then limped to the bathroom while his wife snickered.

  She was sound asleep when he came back, gave her an absent kiss and stumbled out.

  Light was filtering through the windows when the shakes and whispers woke her. “Huh? What?”

  “Aunt Jamie? Are you awake?”

  “Not until I’ve had my coffee.”

  “I brought you some.”

  Jamie pried one eye open, focused blearily on her niece. She sniffed once, caught the scent and sighed. “You are my queen.”

  With a laugh, Olivia sat on the side of the bed as Jamie struggled up. “I made it fresh. Grandma and Uncle David are gone, and Grandpop left for the lodge. He said he had paperwork to do, but he just likes to go over there and talk to people.”

  “You got his number.” Eyes closed, Jamie took the first sip. “So what are you up to?”

  “Well . . . Grandpop said that I could have the day off if you wanted to go for a hike. I could take you on one of the easy trails. It’s sort of practice for being a guide. I can’t really be one until I’m sixteen, even though I know all the trails better than mostly anyone.”

  Jamie opened one eye again. Olivia had a bright smile on her face and a plea in her eye. “You’ve got my number, too, don’t you?�
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  “I can use my new backpack. I’ll make sandwiches and stuff while you’re getting dressed.”

  “What kind of sandwiches?”

  “Ham and Swiss.”

  “Sold. Give me twenty minutes.”

  “All right!” Olivia darted out of the room, leaving Jamie to take the first two of that twenty minutes to settle back and enjoy her coffee.